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Heavy Plant

Walk past a "Heavy Plant" warning and wonder vaguely if the trees thought it was for them; if whoever put it up had enough imag...

2007-05-07

Presence (feedback I didn't need)

Apparently presence is an issue for me. At work, at home, in my life in general I seem disinterested to the point of total absence.

My life goes on around me nonetheless. The driver is not just asleep at the wheel but has stepped out for a swift half and left the handbrake off. The lights are on but...

If things continue without my attention it would suggest that my attention is not really required. Was it ever? Have I got this far without effort or even a guiding influence? How should I measure progress if I've been coasting?

If the life continues without the person living it, the body a husk and the eyes dead then what actually am I? Some Derridian nightmare; the walking signifier of my own nullity. A semiotic paradox placed in life by a quirk of spacetime/joker deity - the actual presence of me signifying my total and utter absence.

Don't look at me for an answer, I'm not here.

2 comments:

  1. There is a significant difference between the words 'seem' and 'am'; a difference not everyone perceives.

    Anyway, I'm sorry to tell you it's inherited, and the only comfort I can give is that the effects (as perceived by others) seem, for some reason, to diminish with increasing age. (So by the time you're dead you're cured completely.)

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  2. Ah, I was hoping I could just up the coffee intake.

    Bugger.

    ReplyDelete