Last Big Push for the Bush...

It’s a hell of a thing, admitting all this stuff.

In the grasp of a severe fever.

The accumulation of all my fears and failings evacuating themselves en masse from my system, leaving behind the realisation that everything is spent, and nothing stands but what has fallen.

It has made me very sick trying to deny it.

Keeping it in.

Admitting that I have tried my hand at my most persistent dream…

& failed.

Miserably.

The hero returns from his journey, to confess to his friends and loved ones…

He has made a complete hash of it.

Nothing is salvageable.

The shame, desolation…degradation of the dream exposed for the delusion it is.

The illusion not of lofty aspirations toward restorative art…

But smoke and mirrors.

Fiction and fancy.

Sound and fury…

signifying nothing.

As sick as it has made me coming out with it…

I must say it for the sake of my health and well being.

I…HAVE…FAILED.  

I have family here; & it is particularly painful having to admit defeat to them, especially.

So sure I would be the exception…

I am the rule.

The ruler of the rule.

That which I set out to do…remains undone.

& to find in my illness that there is not only nothing left of the dream…

But of the dreamer.

Which leaves me with the inevitable question- as I look about me for something to grasp hold of, some flotsam or jetsam from the wreckage of my furious see- what do I do now?

What AM I to do now?

What AM I?  To do…

Anything??? 

How can I define myself any other way but according to that which I saw myself doing for the remainder of my existence??

As an artist? As writer…as film maker?

Keep on going? 

How?

With what?

There is nothing left.

No other stories worth telling than the ones I failed to tell.

No other medium that comes close to who I am than the one that has beaten me.

So what is there left to do?

Kill myself? 

Please!! 

We all know that is not an option.

It might be a brief existential indulgence…like Morrissey I could jam tulips down my pants and wail about how Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now…

But it is not now a long term solution.

Not MY long term solution, anyway.

I would never kill myself.

Too much of a coward, you see…

So?  What else can I do?  

What everyone else does when they have failed…spectacularly.

What even I have done more times than I care to count.

Start again.

Again.

I could work in McDonalds.

They are hiring; I could do that.

I could flip a burger.

Want fries with that?

Upsize?

I could do it.

Anon.

However…I have one last dream, before I surrender to the corporate machinery.

Before I succumb to the half life of a failed dreamer.

One more dream before the dream is over.

A dream of having my Kurtz moment in the heart of darkness.

I take the last of my money, and buy an airfare.

And head North…on a Northern Safari.

North of Cairns.

The Daintree Rainforest.

This place…

To wander the jungle of my heart and mind…

To drop acid, chew peyote or do whatever the local shaman prescribes…

In order to find out if there is anything left- any shard or remnant- before I don the uniform of fast food militia. Before I enlist in the hurling of grease burgers down the throats of the world…

I want to drop acid in the jungle.

Up North.

Just once; to confirm once and for all, that there is indeed nothing left.  

That I am as I suspect… a phantom devoid of anything resembling soul.

Or artistic ability.

A ghost.

To see if there is indeed anything beneath the failure.

I grasp one last shred of hope that something remains that distinguishes me from the herd…

The zombie horde.

The faithful worshippers of Big Brother & X Factor.

Something…just enough…that might help define me for a new path…

A new direction.

Just a spark of original thought or inclination…

To reinvent myself, according to this new realisation.

That I am not who- or what- I thought I was.  

That the world has changed…

Art has changed…

And I will need to approach creativity in a new way.

To live a life aligned with my desire to live more simply…down to earth in nature.

To rely on myself…& my own resourcefulness.

& never to rely on others again.

Self sufficient.  

A more sustainable artistic life…

A more sustainable life full stop.

Perhaps not the one I was used to, or hoping for…

But one that would nonetheless offer me a new direction to redemption.

Peace with you…