I started the morning, online, by looking at the idea of self-isolation, and its connection with depression, but this wasn’t, and isn’t, quite apropos. It doesn’t fit. The thing is that I don’t think I am depressed, but then this could be delusional, but I don't think so. But then if you can delude yourself into the feeling that you are not depressed, surely this is a good thing. I feel that I cope well most of the time. Then I glancingly looked at couples isolating themselves together, especially with growing older, what the online ‘experts’ say, and the documented 'problems' generated there. We are doing this, that chosen 'isolation', but I can’t really see any problem. So, is it a problem then?
OK, I recognise that the writing is becoming a little strange, perhaps, whacky, even. But this might be the way, that no longer depending, or depending less, on feedback, on the other to stimulate me. It is part of the letting go, and I don’t think it’s premature either. There is an ‘about timeness' about it, about bloody time, even. I have said forever that I wanted to somehow incorporate images and words, and I appear to be eventually doing it, so it might just be time to soldier on. I wouldn’t want to not have this, not to feel that drive to communicate, beyond that communication which manifests as immediate human interaction. I feel a slight panic at it becoming the only outlet, the only means of communication, the only anti-isolation device in my armoury. But I am not panicked enough to stop.
armoury
noun
1.
a place where weapons are kept.
2.
an array of resources available for a particular purpose.
"his armoury of comic routines"
I like that, one’s armoury of comic routines. Spellcheck wants to change this to armory, but we ain’t in Kansas anymore.
There is a suspicion that one would go on weaving forever if one could. That’s just how it is. This might be what writers and artist are compelled to do, to continue describing for as long as this remains an option. The body rebels, of course, inevitably. This might manifest as depression if there wasn’t this possibility, that chance of adding to the warp and weft, of somehow insinuating some strands through the fabric. The inevitability of slowing down can generate strange bedfellows, bots and artists are a good example.
It’s a strange choice to make, at any age, that one of attempting to be a witness, and even stranger when you consider that at its core it has to be embraced without acknowledgement, other than a tendency to self-congratulate, something that you have to keep constantly in check. (I fail).
What joy there is has to be generated by the weaving itself, and that is a solitary pursuit. There is also that ‘Penelope’ aspect too, that unravelling, that gordian-knot picking apart, to discover the threads essential to that weave. Mixing mythologies there, but then I could also throw in Sisyphus, and even my beloved ‘Moontoad’ from Chinese lore. They all, more or less tell that same story, the relentlessness of describing, and the transcendental release to be found there.
I hate cute, I cringe at it, but I am foregoing the tendency to impose ‘taste’. Letting the bots decide, from an entanglement of words, combining depression, transcendental joy, Moontoads and Penelope might seem like a gamble. It is, it’s a type of roulette. Sometimes ‘cute’ comes to the fore.
But then I can always make her/him/them gender-neutral, with a well-placed turquoise decency strip, and thereby make them mine.
Don’t you just love now? I know that I do.
I particularly like this grumpy old man/woman/or couple stage, and can only encourage everyone to look forward to it.