You know that scene in Game of Thrones… when Jon and Ygritte go into the cave… and, you know, does the thing… and then, a few episodes later, when Ygritte get shot with an arrow… she says, “We should have stayed in that cave.”
When I watched this scene for the first time, I thought it was just re-using the same trope that had existed in countless other stories, the #we #should #have #stayed #in #_____. It is supposed to be a powerful trope; I could not think of another reason that it has appeared so many times throughout so many mediums. But, that’s the reasoning; I never really understood the emotional impact. I was too young when I saw the seen for the first time. Namely, last year.
It was a time before my life had gone to shit. Well, I suppose a more accurate statement is, it was a time that my life had not re-gone to shit. My life is always in a state of shit. But, similar to real shit, there are various forms of shit. There are enjoyable shits. There are shitty shits. There are shits that make you want to die. There are shits that seem like God’s blessing. There are shits that are runny and drip down your anus like rain through a drainage pipe. There are shits that grate through your rectum like figurative bricks and immediately evoke a feeling profound gratitude once expelled. There are shits were you kind of want to stay on the toilet and continue shitting. Nevertheless, life is just one continuous, long shit. Shit, nonetheless.
Like Ygritte, I also recall a moment of intimacy in my life. Two, specifically. It was with two different people. One was explicitly sexual. The other was implicitly sexual. In moments of shitty shits, I long for the moment of enjoyable shits. I am currently in a shitty shit. And, as I continue on this shit, I long for the better shits in my life. It is a longing that defines quite a bit of my life. Especially, right now, in the face of the bottomless alienation I feel at the moment, the memory itself grounds me to a grasp of familiarity when the world wants to take it away from. The world wants to tell me that I don’t get to say if my life is a good shit or a bad shit. But I disagree.
I quoted some Platonic dialogue to support this idea:
It’s not easy to see something that hasn’t been before — a good shit.
But, how do you know? How do you know your shit will be a good shit?
Because I know what is good… And so do you.
I don’t.
You do. You do, you’ve always have.
What about everyone else? All the other people who think they know what is a good shit?
They don’t get to get to choose.
Thanks, Plato. Suck it, haters.
It was on one snowy day that I experienced a good shit. It is because of these reasons that snowy days have a special significance for me, signifying one instance when I was able to truly feel intimate with someone. If intimacy is not an example of a good shit, then there is nothing that is a good shit. Love, is by definition, a good shit. Everything since then… well, it wouldn’t be that far to say that life turned into shit. Or, I guess it is fair to say because most of my friends keep on saying that my life isn’t shit. Well, I think my life is shit, regardless. And I. Know. What. Is. Right.
Joyce had described snow to be a force that renders an entire city unconscious in “The Dead” in Dubliners. It was only when I had my own version of a snowy day did I understand what he meant.
Some things happened before. There was a playlist that I had played during. And, then, there was the playlist radio that followed. One of the songs that played, and I remembered, was “Don’t Want to be Your Girl” by Wet, and as I listened to “Don’t Want to be Your Girl” just now in my flat in Brooklyn, I got triggered. It was during this snowy morning that I discovered this song for the first time. Before, Wet was just an artist that popped up in my Discovery Weekly. It was a song that stretched on endlessly. I could only perceive the world moving from the confines of my flat, as per usual. But, because the world had been emptied from the falling snow, it was in that moment that the world stood still.
It is not snowing anymore. It is summer, and it does not snow in the summer. At least, not yet. Seasons change, just like life. And, to clarify, I don’t mean that seasons transition; I mean that seasons will change themselves, as if they had personalities. But summer will always be a runny shit, and winter is a hard shit. But, at least, hard shits can be enjoyable sometimes. Runny shits are never enjoyable. Actually, never mind, summer is not a runny shit. Summers can also be enjoyable. Sorry, summer, for insulting you. I still like winter better though.
There is a reason why I get triggered by “K.” by Cigarettes After Sex. It captures the stillness that follows. And, most of the time, I wish I could relive that stillness when my life had not gone down the path that it did. But, seeing that my life did go down the path that it did, there is very little that I could do except relive the moment in my memories. Or, in writing. Like I am doing now. In Search of Lost Time. Kek.
I miss the past. It is also during these moments when I get triggered by a song that I understand all of the “you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone” bullshit. Well, except it’s not bullshit because it’s true. Why does bullshit have a different connotation than shit? Why does shit sometimes have positive connotations, but bullshit is always negative. That is not very nice to the bull variety of shit. Some would call it linguistic prejudice. Anyways, perhaps I am idealizing the past into an image in my mind. It does make sense since I do possess my own memories, and I have, by nature, constructed it into a form of primary idealization. God, what have I become? Using the theoretics of love in order to construct some sort of coherence around my own inadequacy. I have truly fallen from grace, truly.
Paradise Lost? That would imply that I was ever in paradise. I imagine Eden to be a place of innocence, and I don’t think I have ever lived a life of “innocence”. Life, from its inception, has been turbulent, and life, since then, has only been more turbulent. Life is a shit, and the goodness of life can only be measured on a spectrum of the quality of shits. Of course, there are pockets in my tenure in living when I was able to conceptualize life without the burden of sadness for some time. Those were some good shits. But, then, as per usual, the sadness hits. Like a hovering shadow of a foot over a helpless ant, sadness hits like a school bus acquainting with a Regina George in a fit of passion. Or a hovering shit.
Get it? Because ants cannot understand that a hovering shadow in the shape of a foot (or shit) means that they’re going to be stepped on (or pooped on). And die.
shades of gwei 