90° of Square
Like anyone, I feel miserable. But even at my most melancholy I dread death. The rational tells me that there is quite literally nothing to fear, but my imagination wont leave the idea of some kind of post-existence alone. Maybe hell, or more likely my last moment of pain ringing out the the eternity of my perceived ‘forever’. Idiotic. Post-existence, by its very definition, can’t exist. The feeling I have when occasionally taken over by inexplicable misery reminds me of Lacan’s version of the Death Drive – a desire to return to an inorganic state. I take this literally.
For some reason I always wish I were a little square of wood. Six inches each side (this is important), and three inches in depth. Probably oak, although it really does not matter much, I could be beech, pine or mahogany. Not that I would notice. I’d have a mother, a tree of some kind, and a father, a craftsman, builder or artisan, whom I would never know. Of course, I wouldn’t know much at all, though at this moment I feel compelled to tart the square up with personification. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the whole point is that this little square of wood would be concious of nothing. Though for my own comfort presently, as a thinking thing, I picture the wood as being something perfect and beautiful in its simplicity, rather like the stone crafted hunting weapons of pre-historic homosapiens. Many of these tools are said to be either too big, small or heavy for practical use. It follows that, perhaps, they were the first art; thoroughly pointless objects worshipped for their skill, precision and aesthetic curiosities.
But why, even now, do I crave the notion that my inorganic state would be in some way adored, and yet I feel the realities of that love? A matter if responsibility, perhaps? How cowardly. Or worse, perhaps I am simply idle. Maybe that too is noble in some way. After all, isn’t all true art useless?
The Electric Angels 
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