Tag: Essay

don’t be scared – essay

Dave had an affliction. People talked to him, out of the blue. He figured he must be very approachable, perhaps he had a kind face?

People said that they felt safe around him, like he knew what he was doing, reliable even. But that’s not true, he’s just very good at pretending. Even in new places, that he’s never been before, even as he gawked and observed his new surroundings, people came up to him asking for the way. He didn’t even speak their language but they still thought he was one of them.

What about his gawking at the buildings, his stumbling around along the streets, occasionally looking at the map for direction, translated to ‘this guy knows what’s up!’ Did he look that confident? And if so, did that confidence stem from ignorance? Probably. Life is not all that serious, he’s not afraid of death. Maybe that’s it, the ultimate end doesn’t scare him.

You can breeze through life pretty easily if you aren’t scared. He’s probably not scared enough! He’s not an idiot, though, he just spend too much time thinking, forgetting what’s around him, losing himself and smiling. Yeah, that’s it, it’s the smile. Only idiots smile when they got no apparent reason to.

In reality, Dave was the one with the least control in the world. He let whatever happen happen and accepted it. He put faith in something he couldn’t comprehend or explain. An idiot.

Perhaps all of us would feel better if we accepted things that were out of our control?

by Stamphers

The 1880s – Essay

I feel a kinship to people born in the 1880s because they were mostly dead when I was born, just about. It fucks with my brain thinking of the 1920s because that was also a hundred years ago.

What’s changed? People certainly haven’t. At the cusp of another world war… and the trenches are back. There are a lot of troubles in the world and that make sense. Peace cannot go on forever. Humanity need at least one great fuck up every century or so, otherwise their can’t be growth.

Growth’s what’s important. I sometimes wonder if they’ll look at the 1900s like they did antiquity during the renaissance. All the greatest works of art was made then, everything else is just an imitation of it.

We need a great war to reset our brains, to create new stuff.

The centuries don’t mirror each other, of course, but it’s damn close. I’ll be an old fart when they look back at the 20th century like a golden age and I was born too early to join the great war and born too late to reap the benefits of it.

I will certainly be a nag, when that happens; analog was better.

My values will be antiquated but as long as I’m alive, the things I care about will be on life support.

Time makes everything different and that’s why, once in a while, humanity enjoys a rerun, every hundred years or so.

by Stamphers