PM* BLOG

Bukowski wrote honestly, always: “Writing was never work for me. It had been the same for as long as I could remember: turn on the radio to a classical music station, light a cigarette or a cigar, open the bottle. The typer did the rest. All I had to do was be there. The whole process allowed me to continue when life itself offered very little, when life itself was a horror show. There was always the typer to soothe me, to talk to me, to entertain me, to save my ass. Basically that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.”

Sounds so easy when one of the greatest American writers says it, a genuine beast, known to have „no time for metaphors“, cutting straight to the bone. Sounds so easy because it was. Bukowski was one of those who never had a problem accepting the truth about this world of useless information, global freakshows, chaos, in which „we're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.“ Eaten up by lies, envy, stupidity, laziness, arrogance, cheapness, irresponsibility…

Eaten up by fake stories that actually have the advantage of uniting us. Unlike Bukowski, most of us have a hard time accepting the truth. Because the truth is experienced, not just believed. You encounter the truth, you don't only study it on the map, you don't hear it on the radio, you don't read it on news portals, you can't sugarcoat it. As much as you might think living in a lie is better, living in truth doesn't actually depend on anything. Because EASY is right („all I had to do was be there“).

But it seems people don't like easy because there is no fight to it, no conflict, no pain, no challenge and challenge brings ego. That's why people like to make things harder. That's why even breathing deeply is hard, let alone silencing the ego. And how can you, when you have to remind yourself all the time that you are somebody. You have to always be afraid of ceasing to exist, always procuring props and that's hard, but that's why you choose it. EASY is right. But you keep thinking easiness means you haven't achieved anything because this doesn't make the ego feel powerful.

You say it's hard (complaining). Of course it is, because you are creating an ideal and ideal is always somewhere in the future. It is hard to live this way. Because living can only be done here and now. And the best thing about it is that there is nothing to figure out because life is not a riddle. Life is a miracle, one to be lived. That's when it will be EASY. But most of us never come to this realization, instead in this slavery of props become empty „…bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does. And they all too often complain of having done nothing with their lives, impatiently waiting for someone to tell them this isn't true.“

And what do you say to them?

To have a cup of tea. Sip it, actually. To feel the warmth of the moment and its music and calm and love flourish. To disappear for a moment with their mind that is always living mathematically, always calculating, observing, judging, criticizing, believing, not believing, being pro, being con. Maybe then they can understand about beauty. Essence. Ease. Or maybe Bukowski can answer them in his style: „(Damn) human race exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance. Bastards! There…I feel better.“ Or maybe they can just genuinely look at little children, the only ones who know easy is right, and without calculation catch the direction of the wind towards what they always ignored and forgot to create – JOY.

Linda Poščić Borovac