Diddling – or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle – is sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing diddling, is somewhat difficult to define.
– Edgar Allan Poe
I avoid writing, it seems, as much as I avoid exercise. I’m sure there’s a connection, but I’m too lazy to search for the source of my entropy. There are days I can’t find my navel, much less the desire to wax poetic. Thus, stasis.
As Dr. Frankenstein, slack-jawed at both the enormity of what he’d wrought, and stupefied by the subsequent great need to feed the hungry child, I sometimes sit and stare at this monster and wonder if it would be better for mankind if I had never been given the power to publish so easily. The world so does not need another blog.
Not every mouth with a megaphone should mount the bully pulpit, or even the bully, Teddy, yet the bull doth fly. But this piece of my mind brings peace of mind, to me if not to thee. May the townspeople grab their pitchforks and torches before my creation strikes, again.
Due to the dearth of my diddling a la Poe, ya know, methinks I should have called this un-blog-like thing The Weakly Weekly, The Monthly Mewling, or the The Bi-Annual Burp. It was once called The Daily Snarl, but it was neither daily, nor did I always deign to snarl, though that does seem to nest comfortably juxtaposed by anything delicate and poetic in the sunnier corners of my mind.
Yea, let us blame the gods or the Wizard of Oz for my transgression. Or the Greeks, as in opthalmos, meaning eye. It appears I have an ophthalmic problem. My eyes are too big for my belly. Apparently, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Walking past the writing table, daily, transfixed by buzzing blowflies about the rotting rump of roast, I remember that I ordered a seven-course meal, of course, but wonder where my appetite’s gone.
In several ways, I am quite busy and this paltry excuse works for a time, but it’s silly, in the end, because I know the truth: I’m afraid that I might write something banal, unintelligent, lacking style, short on wit, shy on humor, or merely boring – the ultimate sin. And should I succeed but once, how do I possibly maintain the momentum? Since it may never live up to some preconceived ideal, it should never be given the chance to fail, right? What if my parents’ preconception, where I am concerned, had been so flawed? Then, another gleam, or so I glean, would be sitting here, writing this.
By desiring perfection, whatever that means, I rarely set fingertips to keyboard due to the justification that, if I can’t make it incredibly original, then I shouldn’t bother. A sneaking suspicion lurks over my shoulder, like a vomit-breathed vulture that feeds upon the bloody strips of flesh of my flesh from the routine self-flagellation I endure. The dross of doubt I carry about in bushels and a peck around my neck make me bend beneath the wait.
A small voice within dares to speak, demand attention, seek an audience, squeak a song, or pen a poem. How can I write prose when I’m but an amateur? How many of my children have I killed because I felt they wouldn’t keep up with the Joneses, yet I never trusted enough to allow them to fall or fail on their own? Who am I to judge? Who are you? Where are your progeny?
True, just because one sucks the teat of a muse, enticing the fickle bitch to put out in the backseat of your ego’s craving, doesn’t mean that every notion she finally nurtures at the behest of your primal passion should be brought forth into the cold, unforgiving world. Some ideas are still-born. Others horribly retarded or whatever the friggin’ PC phrase is, these days.
Occasionally, an ugly duckling paddles out of the prattle of my deep end and finds its legs, waddling away toward something beautiful, perhaps. It is with the hope that this one might swim that we toss it in attempting to avoid the whirlpool of natural selection that ceaselessly spins beneath the bobbing babes of artistic expression like a black knight blackhole eradicating the ether of debris and cosmic runts.
Recently, my roommate returned from Greece with a trinket from her trip, presenting it to me as a gift. It was a talisman – a glass blue eye – to ward off the ill effects of kako mati, the curse of the evil eye. Graciously, I accepted, though superstition’s not my normal game. However, this peculiar charm was attached to a rather practical key ring, which I now carry around in my pants pocket, but its proximity to my powers of procreation gives me pause.
The thought of a big blue eye forever staring at my crotch, unblinking, is a bit unnerving and applies existential pressure to the package, if you please, and makes me think. What if it is my own eye that looks upon the children of my creativity as being unworthy of life? I catch myself, repeatedly, mumbling, “Hmm, there’s an interesting thought, I should write about that,” then throttle it in the night – my hand clamped over my mouth – before the neighbors can see it playing in the yard.
What if there is no end result? What if the reward is in the writing, itself, and not what others think? What if there truly is nothing original to say, but I still feel like saying it, anyway? What if I don’t have to be brilliant, funny, or profoundly philosophical? What if I am not Shakespeare? What if the constipation of my creativity is because I’ve been standing by the dyke of doubt with my thumb up my butt? What if I just need to allow the energy to move through me, to make way for the next wave – and ride it? What if I open the floodgates? What if I can’t swim? What if I am my own worst critic?
If is a really big word. If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hops.
What if I shut up long enough to actually listen to my muse? What would she say?
“You’re performing only for me, my love, and I am but a reflection. The rest is illusion.”
Interestingly, the talisman in my pocket just might be working, for until I received the charm I hadn’t seen my way clear, in awhile, to sling some b.s. against the wall and see if it sticks. Life is masturbatory. Here’s mud in yer eye. Aim high and let ‘er fly. Stop worrying about what the ghosts are mumbling. If someone else enjoys the show, charge them a quarter.
Give birth, today. Now, in this moment. Don’t wait. Don’t see life through the evil eye, but through your third eye. Don’t repress your desire to be a child. You cannot hold back the cosmos, forever. You cannot outrun your shadow. You are most alive when you’re creating. There’s no one else watching. Do it. Diddle with chocolate. Then lick your fingers.
“Hey diddle diddle, the kat and the fiddle,
and the cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such craft,
and the dish ran away with the spoon.”- Author Unknown
“Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto;
so he never lets go of his game.”– Edgar Allen Poe
The Kat
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