The Baron of Chandler Park Revisited: Rambles and Rough Realizations

     The devastating thing I realize, is that they are fucking perfect for one another.  Completely akin.  I'm the odd man out.  That's why I can't comprehend their need to keep in touch.  I don't keep that in touch with my husband of eleven years.  Because I truly want him to be happy, and I don't feel the need to continue to interject myself in his happiness, regaling him with wistful memories from a sad, faraway past.  We are much closer than that.  Whatever it is we are, whatever bond we have, it is unspoken, and truer than any niceties we could exchange.  I made the choice to leave that relationship for a reason; there is no sense in revisiting that pain with him.  That's something we can both do on our own if we so choose.  We don't have to hurt people in the process. But not these half-witted trilobites.
     Their intermittent, but continued contact or attempts at contact is a powerful reminder that I am not of the same planet.  I am the alien.  We don't share any commonalities.  It was duplicity right from the jump.  Their contact serves the purpose of reinforcing the others illusions.  Making sure the other is still chained to the wall.  They are basically one.  They both crave the spotlight and applause.  They both desperately seek approval and validation from others in lieu of any genuine personality of their own.  It's a paper thin attempt to prove that they are someone instead of no one.  They are dull and mediocre.  Unremarkable save for the pain they cause with their egomania. I don't resemble any of the characters in this game.  I foolishly put all my stock in truth-telling and truth-seeking.   I need things to feel real; authentic.  I don't care about others approval because most aren't fit to give it.  What the hell do they know anyway? I have to be able to face myself, not anyone else.  Why would I care to seek the approval of those who don't give a fuck about how I feel in those melancholic hours of the night.  I don't need them to legitimize my work.  If they don't like it, fuck 'em.  The right people will get it.  I create for myself, not for accolades or the adoration of faceless nobodies in a crowd.  That's not how or why one makes art.  I write as a way to photosynthesize the pain that comes with being human.  With being vulnerable and honest.  I write to say things that no one has ever said or not enough people are willing to talk about it, but all part of human existence, nonetheless.
     Art is supposed to elevate; make people think and make people feel.  Art is supposed to bind us together through pure human essence.  The best art tells the truth.  It doesn't perpetuate some lame fantasy or hollow image.  True art is courage.  Art doesn't exist simply to validate some egomaniac's closeted insecurities masquerading as narcissism.  Because their Daddy didn't love them enough or maybe Mommy smothered them too much.  So, they feel the need to *prove* themselves through "art."  Calling themselves artists just to receive the spoils that inevitably come with that type of self-applied moniker.  From other illusioned dim-wits, undoubtedly.  But really, their ultimate fantasy would be to star-fuck themselves.  Could a more superlative earthly thrill be found?  Hard to beat when one is so supreme.  No wonder there is so much compulsive masterbating afoot.  They are the only ones good enough for the likes of their greatness.  Narcissism absolute.
     Not every God-damned thing is art, jackasses.  A lot of it is just transparent, attention-seeking horseshit.  "I just have to express myself."  That all important self.  Not every form of self-expression is art.  Some of it is just unadulterated neural garbage; cognitive run-off.  But most of it isn't nearly that exciting.  Most of it is just mundane banality that no one cares about or ever will care about because it's too self-absorbed to have any external interest or social value.  That's why I just write for my own sanity.  I'm not naive enough, or faux-optimistic enough to think my writing is going to have some grand fucking impact.  There are no earth-shattering revelations here.  There are just silly, schmaltzy words on page. It's just the distillation of romantic pain.  "Dodgson! We've got Dodgson here! See, nobody cares."  People are too wrapped up in their own enthralling lives to really give a shit about anyone else.  The quixotic are few.
     I used to think they were the troglodytes of the cave, but now I am not so sure.  I don't think they are even that far up the evolutionary chain.  They are merely the piceous shadows that others cast on the umbered cave wall.  Mere deceptions; only approximations of humanoids.  Solely concerned with image or persona, rather than personage.  They have no interest in those humans about them, and certainly no interest in what lies outside the cave, in the unfathomable sunlight.  They enjoy their chimerical and paltry existence.  Their projected image is all they care to know.  They love the dreamy focus of the cavern, where they can continue tricking others and fooling themselves.  Their obsidian shadows flicker hand-in-hand in the sepia-hued obscurity.