In One Place

i've bought things. i've worked at stuff.

i own a television. i have a modest dvd collection. i like my stereo. my bike is nice. i've filled my time and my life with small goals and seemingly smaller, emptier possessions. i went to college. that was indulgent. i have a job. i've had two. and a few internships at cool places. the cumulative effect of all of those things has led me to fill my relatively small apartment with a relatively unnecessary amount of useless things, the worth of which i find hard to pinpoint. better yet, the worth of which i find it impossible to derive satisfaction from. sure, they might satisfy an urge or an impulse. a wish to be instantly distracted. a need to be immediately pleased. but the half-lives of these things are uncannily volatile; their purpose expires quickly, and their existence is soul-less.

nonetheless i trudge forward. although, i'll stop myself and admit that 'forward' might be an audacious claim. there isn't a direction to the movement. no momentum, no intertia. let's say that i'm walking in place rather well, at a hearty pace ...knees high, good form. it's curious that only rarely do i take the care to notice where i've gone. and even then the observations are superficial at best. their notation in the great Book of my self-logging is simply an act. as if my remarking of them would be anything more than just that.

well, secretly i hope they are more, but i know better. what's the harm in a little self-deceit?

normally, during a journey, one would expect the scenery to whisk by. maybe a bug might hit the windshield or something. a speeding ticket perhaps. yet not only have i managed to neglect these passings (or rather a lack thereof), i've downright ignored their absence. and, instead of leaving things behind, i've collected things, piled them high to fill the void. and, among them i continue marching in place. maybe it's because of them that i can't go forward.

i wonder if i'll actually ever take the odd step out and look at the heap i've created: the mausoleum to a lack of achievement. maybe that will scare the shit out of me enough to make me get going somehwere.

because really, what prompted all of this was the simple, self-posed question of "what have i done?"

all i could come up with was that i haven't done a whole lot, but i've got a ton of stuff.