Synapses

“What I need to do is fuck up so bad I can't save myself.”

-Invisible Monsters

I’m sitting on the beach.

And I’m baked.

Last time I was on the beach I was in such a drugged up and in a drunk haze that I was literally passing out between thoughts. I was fried then, I’m baked now. I know I’m baked because I literally feel the tightening and browning of my skin. People who say that they’re smoking or drinking in the name of artistry are lying because there is nothing artistic that comes with being drunk or high, there’s no story that can be told better when thoughts are compromised. Emotions are the very soul of life and life is the very essence of writing--compromising one obviously means the other will suffer drastically.

They key is synapses.

The time between thoughts, the time between drinks, the time between spliffs, the time between everything and anything. You cannot write as you experience. Writing is a tool used to document dreams or document the fact that you’ve failed to attain those dreams. I’m sitting on the beach reading Palahniuk and pondering about my own writing, it’s ridiculous but I also think that maybe Palahniuk is me. Maybe he went back in time to when I was a child and wrote all these stories in a way that would motivate me.

And in the synapse of that thought Chuck’s words flash off the page like a cheap neon sign telling me where I can find Hot Nude Girls.

“Nothing of you is all-the-way yours. All of you is inherited.”

It’s when I wait and see what this really means that it really hits me, this common revelation that people use to avoid calling their work plagiarism. I had heard it before, I had even said it before to appear artsy and knowledgeable, but I had never really waited for it to sit in. In order for pain to reach your brain you have to wait for your neural synapses to be completed, the same could be thought for knowledge, for ideas and philosophy. I had been moving rapid speed, I had not allowed any of my knowledge to reach my brain.

Friday I was blasted, Saturday I was sober, Sunday I am planning to be blasted…

But in that between time I’ve thought more thoughts, I’ve read more books, I’ve written more stories and pieces than I have done in months. Two days time. The synapse for pain is almost instantaneous…for knowledge it is more of a slow process. Pain is stir fry, it grills quickly and can be eaten quicker. Thoughts are wine, they must be fermented for years before they really hit you.

Knowledge by itself is not the key to anything, it’s merely the address.

The key is synapses.