In this bleak topography I saw now composed only of shades of grey and smears of nonsense I reached out and painted lines of black and white, etching out borders and shapes and making the ethereal tangible. I traced the outlines of mountains and the boundaries of rivers and the bricks of castles and with this self-created, self-practiced cartography I am able to explore and claim and conquer.
Sometimes when I explore this world I think I am just conquering myself. Why? Because making sense out of nonsense is the human condition. Because I’m human. Because I can’t see the colors and shapes that others do. Because all the world that is, is within the human mind, and I will exert my will–my will for you–over our collective castles in the air. Because intertwined with the physical stuff that makes humans beings are the arbitrary concepts of reality–there, beneath and around and embedded in the sinews and veins and all of them crisscrossing our bodies is what it means to be alive. Because inside you I know we humans, capable of higher thought, are equal part reality and equal part imaginary.
This flash piece, “On Going Blind at 40” was previously published in DOGZPLOT, September 2011.spy offers | Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG “UNC Patent” Obsidian/Blue Chill-White For Sale – Fitforhealth