Joyeux anniversaire !

Vigilantism

'Oh! to live a corrosive life, smooth as sandpaper'
- Jessica Bloom

Why does everything feel so much better when you know you shouldn't be doing it? I was sitting in a cafe the other day next to a french couple who were discussing the role of chaos in our lives. The woman was accusing the man of enjoying chaos, she was half yelling at him, 'you like chaos, you love pain, because it makes you feel alive!' 'because it makes you feel alive!' she repeated these last words in a soft but direct whisper. This animated exchange was like listening to the rhetorical conversation that had been going on inside of my own head that same morning. To see it brought to life, reenacted with the fullness and execution of a french woman's accent was something else. I wish I had had a voice recorder with me so that every time things are feeling slightly chaotic or painful I can play it back like some sort of life affirmation, with the violence and reassurance that is evoked from the string section in Beethoven's symphony number 9, 'because it makes you feel alive!'