It all started with anger turned inward. Angry at lost opportunities, at myself for making the wrong choices, taking the wrong turns and blaming the wrong people – anyone but myself.
In short, self-implosion.
I am addicted to winning, to be better than others, to never quit, to not lose.
Getting pushed from behind, pulled from up front.
I exist in a society, a technological society, that pushes forward, with flow and fluidity (faster = better).
I am aiming where the put is going to be ( I-phone 13??? should be cheaper in Asia since 13 is not a lucky number. Try to locate the 13th floor button in an old European elevator).
When the water was heated up , I jumped to the frying pan. I don’t allow myself to simmer for fear of slow-boiled effect. It will kill off my reflexes.
So I jumped. Always moving, like a nomad. An angry nomad.
An ape man from a hunter-gatherer tribe. My allegiance is primitively “not to bite the hands that feed you”…whatever hands are at the time. I am a spontaneous man. An emotional man.
Easy as prey. Easy to sway.
I follow fads, crowds and persuasions.
I give myself to the fleeting wind. A waving flag. A certain persuasion, especially when it’s “a lot of people”.
I am a stateless man, without sensibility and sense of place.
I am online, off line and everywhere.
My home is out there, in heaven and hell (perhaps the truth is in between).
I am hopeless and live day to day.
I love heroes and project myself onto them. To join the immortals, “to pull a Samson”. I thought of myself as from a tribe (Sparta preferably), invincible Demi-gods re-incarnated. An immortal.
I live in 21st century. But my heart beats to the drumbeat of yesterday. I I I…always me, me, me.
No one else. What Republic? What commons? What contract?
I did not sign up for this. For smokes and mirrors, reflection of reflections, like Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon”.
Trickle-down economy? Tell that to David Stockman. All boats rise when the waters rise? Tell that to Katrina victims.
Meanwhile, things keep flowing forward. Fluidly one-way. Time doesn’t stop. Neither do I.
I don’t want to stop, restless and rumbled. Give me a cause. Give me a fight.
Give me a target. I am dying, imploding anyway. Wanting to take people down with me. No masks. No vaccines.
The world has heartlessly passed me by…Opportunities have passed me by. Perhaps they floated South to Mexico, then West to China. It’s one thing to make a wrong choice. It’s another when you had no choice. I have been cheated out of good things in life..Of A Roman Holiday, of Marie Antoinette, of Casablanca..things I know deep down I don’t deserve and will never have. Except for the 15 minutes that Andy Warhol mentioned cryptically and prophetically. On Parler, on Gab, on TikTok, on Twitter, on Youtube and on Facebook……..
My 15 minutes online. On Instagram and Telegram which “steal” my attention and auction them up for ads revenue.
I left a footprint, an imprint and an impression. My handwriting, fingerprints and footprints. On this Earth, across the river, over the hill and in the cave, where I will eventually lay down and die an unwanted death.
I have never built anything. Only consuming them, complaining about them and trashing them around.
I am an American.
Thang Nguyen 555 