Dispatches From An Urban Eremite

 To be an urbanite, by nurture, and a recluse, by nature, is what makes my position a precarious one in this world. I want to be, simultaneously, at the forefront but also in the background of current trends and worldly activities; I seek, all at once, the peaceful gaze within the tumultuous movement, where I can reside untouched and yet, still, involved. I am a voracious indifferent voyeur, both curious and undaunted; a spoiled western brat and a rugged free-spirited loner. I am both addicted to the comforts and options a modern metropolitan setting provides me with and still defiant towards the compromises this forces upon me, as a man seeking his own destiny and resisting all attempts to diminish his possibilities. I am a tightrope walker. Youthful restlessness, spurred on by the myth of greener grasses, is now a part of my more socially ambitious past. It has given way to this sense of mellowed contentment and a, sometimes, surprising ease at being sated by the simpler often overlooked things. Maybe I’m just lucky that way, or maybe I’ve merely lowered my expectations and settled upon what I truly need, rather than what I’ve been taught to want. My condition has forced upon me a sense of restiveness, wanting to organize the world around me into small pockets of quietude and peaceful rejection against a world in chaos. My little post-modern vantage point suffices for me, these days. I was never much for extravagance and material displays, to begin with. Even as a very young boy I was low-key and never overly demanding or troublesome. Traits that seem to have followed me into adulthood.

Most of the time I honestly cannot comprehend what all the damn fuss is about. What for others causes excitement and consternation, often resulting in an exuberant and tumultuous shrillness of embellished activity, leaves me wondering how I can hope to relate to such creatures on that level or even if I really wish to do so. Even this, my most recent real estate acquisition, is only made necessary by economic conditions and my desire to seclude my self from a world that bores me, to no end, and, oftentimes, annoys me with its “much ado about nothing” boisterousness. Within this, admittedly, clichéd post-modern condo-lifestyle, I now construct a personal sanctuary where my mind can, hopefully, enjoy its temporary stay within some degree of tranquil self-development. I never really needed much more than that, come to think of it, despite being told by pop-culture and peer-pressures that I should…or else all is a waste. Luckily that crap never had an effect on me as it seemingly did on others, and as the years go by it loses that seductive edge that once did entice me with a promise. No, I know what I want, now more than ever. I will make this small space my private little abbey of controlled hedonism, and life’s tragic/comedy can hopefully find an indifferent litheness in me, and pass on by, like a river flowing over lump of hardened sand. The walls within this modest alcove I now decorate with recollections, each with its own personal significance. Various knick-knacks litter its surfaces like leftovers after a full meal, and I sit engorged in the midst of it all, wanting to share the leftovers with a hungry other, but not really needing to.

I dream of, eventually, filling it all up with so many select artefacts that the eye must always settle upon a piece of me, indulging my narcissism and purging it from my system. I want to cram it with nostalgia, until my past occupies its dimensions, no less than my presence does, and time is lost in a bemused swirl of memories. I want to make it a gift I can then, eventually, give away. There will be few hidden stories here, as long as I live. Every aspect of my history and every experience that shaped me will be represented with a token of remembrance, displayed as openly as my nature will allow. From here I can sit back and quietly watch, at a distance, as the world passes before me, loud and frivolous, fast and furious. Humanity’s empty promises have ceased to seduce me. Now, I only enjoy the spectacle of civilization, pushing against its self, behind screens that make up my own, selfimposed, boundaries. I feel well here. I feel at ease. I feel calm and clear. It’s as if what small part of me still yearns for social contact has shrunk to the point where little excursions, into the human clamour, and fleeting moments of partial intimacy, suffice to feed my negligible animal requirements. Experience and insight has purged those needs from my system and their old allure now makes me smirk. I’ve become obsessively discerning as I’ve aged; my tastes more cultivated and my tolerances less yielding to the other’s taunts. I do not waste my time as thoughtlessly as I once did, and my patience strains against my self-discipline, wanting to unleash its wrath and cleanse this fine earth from all that insults my senses. Towards this end, and this end only, I’ve acquired all the essential technological tools that can aid me in fulfilling my