Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Literary Tropes and Corpses


I just realized that I have become a trope in literature.  What a bummer.  To be a recurring theme is not exactly cause for celebration.  But … hmmm.  If I can see my life from the outside like that, and observe who I am and I have been and who I’m becoming, is that potentially good?  I’m not sure.  Because part of me wants to be oblivious (it hurts less) and part of me wants to be hyper-aware of my life as I’m living (it hurts more). 

Here are my archetypes:  the broken idealist (Holden Caulfield), the hopeless romantic who thinks you can recreate the past (Jay Gatsby), the Madonna/whore (Hester Prynne), the time-tripping drone (Billy Pilgrim), the master manipulator (Niccolo Machiavelli) … probably I’m just Holden most of the time, even though I’m old.  When I think about it, Kurt Vonnegut was just an older Holden, so maybe that’s my trope. 

The older I get the less tolerable I am to bullshit.  I recognize the fact that I bitch and complain sometimes, but I am ALWAYS aware of how annoying my own angst is.  I don’t like it myself, which is why I puke it on out this blog rather than directing it at other people all the time. 

I don’t want to be a hopeless romantic.  I thought I believed in love, but I was wrong.  Love doesn’t solve anything.  At best, love can make life more tolerable; but at worst, love just disappears and leaves an exogenous shell.  Being a shell sucks. 

More archetypes:  I am on a QUEST (to become the person I want to be and to live the life I want to live).  I am on a JOURNEY through levels of personal hell to shed all the harmful, external forces invading my life.  I wear BLACK all the time, perhaps because I’m mourning the passing of my youth.  I am a BRUNETTE temptress, not the goddess I deserve to be. 


I’m ready to just be a person who doesn’t fit into any categories.  I am sick of seeing myself through the eyes of other people, and the scope of society’s terms.  I’m ready to free myself.

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