A lot of stories begin with someone waking up. A lot of times, a person will tell you a story, and they will begin when they woke up: "This morning I got up, and..."
And blogging is, sometimes, just story-telling.
There are all these stories, all these novels and short stories and movies, that begin at the moment when someone wakes up. And I guess that's because that's the point at which things begin to happen. Mostly, when things happen, they happen after you have woken up. You wake up and, bang, stuff begins to happen and you remember the stuff, and you think about the stuff, and you ruminate deeply on the stuff for a while, and then you decide to gather all the stuff up, and when it's gathered, you figure out a really good way of ordering all the stuff.
Oh, and a lot of people choose to order their stuff in the order that it happened. That's a popular way to order your stuff, when that stuff is stuff that happened and you want to order it. If the stuff is, instead, the physical stuff that accumulates around you as you live, then you might look into ordering that stuff alphabetically, or smallest to largest. You could probably order the stuff that happens to you alphabetically, but that might not be as efficient a way to order it.
Anyway. Sorry. I got sidetracked.
So, there are the stories. And the stories mostly happen after you wake up.
I'm asleep. I want to tell a story on this blog, but I really can't because if I don't wake up, the story can't begin. I'm a story, if you think about it. And I'm not yet being told.
I'm in this place. I'm stuck in this spot way before the narrative.
Okay, maybe not way before the narrative, but really, since I'm not yet awake, it doesn't really matter. I could wake up in a second, or in an hour. No difference, really.
I'm living pre-narrative.
You may wonder what it is to be pre-narrative. You may ask me: "Hey, what are the qualities of a story like yourself, when you are pre-narrative?"
And if I don't answer right away, you may press with a pointed: "Huh?" You know how people do that sometimes? They give you a pointed, "Huh?"
Yeah, well.
I do not know what it is to be a pre-narrative story. I cannot tell you the qualities of a story, like myself, pre-narrative. Not really. All I can say is that I know I am a bubble.
I know I am round, and I know I am under the water.
I am pre-narrative, and that means that I am a bubble of air, stuck to the lip of a blind cave fish, in a tank, in a dark room, in a zoo's nocturnal house.
That's me.
That's why I can't blog.
13 comments:
And you call yourself the man who couldn't blog...
It brought a tear to my eye. A painful tear. It went so far that I'm also bleeding out my nose.
All leads back to me. That's where it started. I'd like to know who is me. But I do not. That's because I do. Being me.
Donald Barthelme would love you. As a matter of fact, I love you more than I love him. Which isn't saying a lot.
Oh dear. Well, I can't comment. I am too impressed.
I am too busy enjoying myself, as I enjoy your writing.
That's why I can't comment.
Well, at least living pre-narrative is better than living a story that should never be told (Memoirs of a Geisha), or living after every narrative has drained itself out where there's nothing left to tell. To live is wake up to ourselves only to drift off into eternal slumber again. A constant stuggle to wake up to who we really are.
We can't blog, that's why we blog. By blogging, we are trying to tell the world, and ourselves, who we really are or who we really should be. We hope that a pre-narrative will lead itself into a real narrative that is worthy of our total attention.
It is too bad you are not a dream; dream stories are often written. I assume this is the kind of sleep without dreams.
Very welcome. I studied under one of his brothers, and, though I bought one of D's books, I thank gods (and SB) that I never was required to read it, because I couldn't. Not that I couldn't read his books the same way that you can't blog. This was entirely different. This was the kind of can't read that involved burning or drowning the book while screaming. Anyway, uhm, yeah, this communicating back and forth via each OTHER'S blogs is kind of fun. (:
i believe you may actually be pregnant with yourself. but then, i may be wrong.
friggin brilliant waxing and waning on the anxiety of influence, and the writing process in general. love the whole bit about the bubble. one thing, change "there" to it's cousin. tight work that's both contemplative and humorous.
-kammaladahling
Copy edit made. Very much appreciated, Kamma.
u should've won the award dude...seriously
man dude, u can blog!!!v much impressed. dont really have anything else to say, nothing i have say will sound better than a kindergarten essay compared to what u write.
congrats man
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