Dispatches from the Fury Road: Week π
Finally the cheese had slipped off my cracker.
I knew it was coming too. The signs were there in size 96 Fierce Brosnan font but I ignored them convinced I was fine, fine, more than fine. I’m the opposite of the Beach Boys, man, I was made for these times. I’m an island, a rock ‘n roll islet, a quarantine skerry baby.
Ahem.
It turns out two solid months of isolation can lead to wandering off the path and into primeval forests of madness. What were the signs I failed to notice? In no particular order: I’d run out of small talk to share with the local baristas. I regularly paced my apartment at midnight muttering about my wasted career. My smoke alarm had given up screaming when I lightly cooked my toast and I was missing the interaction. My electronic yoga guru Adriene was no longer inspiring me to subtle supple achievements. There were flashes of anger over subjects I don’t usually care about. I felt panicky at the thought of self isolation coming to an end. I attempted to memorise Pi to an unfeasible length. I had recurring dreams that I wouldn’t like the new Christopher Nolan movie. Seriously? I’m not going to enjoy Tenet? This was the moment I knew I was sliding into insanity while telling anyone who’d listen, “It’s okay. This is normal. I always sit here with two pencils up my nose.”
My go-to-move when I feel myself losing my way is to go radio silent and see what I can do to fix the situation. I wouldn’t recommend this to most people but it is the action I feel most comfortable with. A few years ago a friend told me that I should swallow my pride and ask people for help when I needed it. I took the advice to heart and proceeded to do just that. The result was I received little in the way of help but at least I now felt like a dickhead for asking in the first place. Some people can have a meltdown over ordering the wrong sandwich and people will fall at their feet to see if they’re okay. My impression is I could cover myself in Marmite and yell, “I think I’m going insane” and I’d be told in no uncertain terms to clean myself up and can I keep it down, we’ve got a sandwich situation over here. Would friends reading this think it is unfair of me to feel this way? Maybe. This is probably another sign that I am far from the correct path forward.
When pulling out of a spiral I have a number of go to moves. One is exercise. While my new yoga classes took a hiatus I did manage to walk roughly 80 kilometres over the course of a week. No running for this guy. Too many ankle and back injuries back in my basketball days haunt me today so high speed walking is my go to. It also allows me to feel young again. I love overtaking the old men who wave their fists defiantly at me as I hoon on past.
“So long granddad!” I wheeze as I leave them in my dust. “There’s a new walker in town!”
Next on the list is to take stock of how much I’ve been drinking. I’m not one to drink alone too often but I had been going the full Cold Chisel in recent weeks with my cheap wine and 33-day growth. Monday nights have been deceptively heavy when I watch the ongoing Michael Jordan doco “The Last Dance”. I’d crack open a bottle of red for the double episode extravaganza and consistently find myself halfway through the first ep thinking, “Well, that bottle is finished. May as well open another!” The absolute joy I get from watching old school basketball has filled the hole the NBA left when it was shut down right before the playoffs. I’m not even an MJ fan. I’m a Magic Johnson guy all the way. Yet to deny the beauty in which Jordan played the game is the equivalent of saying Meryl Streep can’t act or Boris Johnson doesn’t have a mad person’s haircut. So between drinking every Monday night and then Zoom conferencing with friends a few times a week, the alcoholic units begin to add up. Time to nip those nips in the bud.
Finally the weird anger that began to bubble up over inconsequential actions or unimportant news is something that had to be addressed. It began innocently enough. A stray thought here. A mild sneer there. Then a throwaway comment to a friend about something I’d heard on a podcast. This was followed by talking out loud to the computer as I read something that got my goat. By the time I was writing a list of things that were driving me crazy, I surmised that maybe things were getting out of hand. Here’s just a few of the notes I had on my desk:
People who post about baking can fuck off.
Anyone learning the ukulele can stick it up their arse.
Superstars in their mansions sending messages of positivity can eat a bag of dicks.
All the famous people who appeared in that Imagine film clip…yuck.
Dudes running bare chested out in public in May are total numpties.
Elon Musk calling his kid X Æ A-12 will inspire his High School schoolmate to pronounced it “Douche”.
Pete Evans you insane arsehole. You’ll never be Manu. Never.
Dipsticks who tell me I don’t know how good I’ve got it because I don’t have kids to raise during the pandemic shit me to tears. How dare you? Of course I know how good I’ve got it! I’m doing all the things you can’t: reading books, watching TV shows, staying awake until 3am worrying about who’s going to look after me when I’m old and broken. I’m aware!
Mi Goreng 2-minute noodles suggesting on the packet that the perfect amount of time to cook them is 3-minutes is bullshit. They’re 2-minute noodles Maggi. That extra minute could have been used writing down more notes about shit that shits me. I’ll never get that minute back, Maggi.
My desk was a palimpsest of non-sequiturs that concealed bigger and more important issues. Time to throw them away. Normally these impressions wouldn’t gain any traction but in these current times the smallest of moments takes on too much resonance while we struggle to find a balance between thoughts and actions. The slightly annoying phone conversation becomes a major slight from a friend. The lack of response from an email you sent is a sign that the recipient is deliberately ignoring you. When your friend Mr Crow stops coming over it’s because he’s sick of your inane conversation. (see previous blog for more on the crow.) None of it is true. It’s just your brain knitting together narratives while you attempt to make sense of a senseless world.
As you can see the solitude had caused some low-level damage. By the end of the previous week I’d realised I’d spent so much time thinking inanities that it was indeed the end of the week. With restrictions lifting it was time to do something drastic: actually catch up with people. So after two solid months of thinking of my Smoke Alarm as my last-true friend, I ventured out and saw not one but two people over the weekend. It was strange entering this new world and I had so many questions. How do you greet people? How close is too close? Do I have to wear pants? Do they have to wear pants?
I needn’t have worried. On both occasions the conversations immediately returned to normal, the rhythm of our shared sentences picking up where they left off. Some of the issues that had begun to take pride of place in my mind palace were banished back to the attic. Not all of the issues but most of them at least. With catch-ups comes catharsis and with catharsis comes renewed vigour. Inspiration returns. There are tough times still ahead. Uncertainty is the unspoken law of the land. Finding the way back isn’t easy but can be achieved. And I take confidence in the knowledge that if I lose my way again, I made it back before and therefore I will be able to do so again.
Justin Hamilton
12th of May
Outside the gates of Arkham