On the Ineffectiveness of Being Baffled

Today a man on the street was yelling 'good news!' and passing out little pamphlets that most people were turning down or ignoring outright, and I took one and saw that it was neither good nor news, but nonetheless as I walked away I began to imagine what pointers I might give this man in soliciting human response and interest, as if I am somehow an authority on the subject. This is kind of baffling since I support neither his religion or his urge to peddle it on a street corner. In fact, I find the entire christian philosophy somewhat baffling, and this brings me to consider that maybe just because I find something baffling, doesn't mean I am somehow qualified to undermine and ridicule the practice. I suppose that throughout the run of a day, I am baffled at many things that I believe in, either because they're tangible concrete facts of life to which there exists evidence, explanation, roots and growth, or because I simply feel that they are 'real.' Which has become sort of a loose term this far into human history. I find myself baffled and confused by young women in Nike's I could never afford begging on the street corner; young men with no aspirations expecting to live off of good luck and lackadaisical resourcefulness; young criminals who quite literally do not give a fuck about anything, boys actually, in and out of so many systems of crime, poverty and law, sometimes unjustly, sometimes deservedly; obvious crackheads asking for change for the bus; policemen trained to keep a populous well-behaved, abusing their power and the system more than the hard-headed young men swinging cuffed fists at them; three-month relationships that bear children and the calmness with which that news is received; the callousness of parents; the carelessness of teachers; the bitterness of the elderly person who finds anything he/she doesn't understand to be dangerous; the emergency of fake love, the catastrophe of real love, and the absurdity of both. And these are things at our fingertips every day, things to be ignored, or possibly talked about among friends who are also baffled. I wonder retrospectively what sort of existentialist crisis I might have experienced walking down Waterloo street with enough contraband to be sent away for attempted manslaughter, and the lack of appreciation I've shown for never even having a close call, and the cruelty of a punishment of that caliber in such a context. So many ridiculous ideas and stupid decisions followed through with no tangible aftermath, just material for the inevitable tell-all memoir. The wheel of self-esteem, the inevitable rise and collapse of self-comprehension. The willingness to play into whatever cliche is most like home. The tenacity of hypocrisy. The scars of work and play. There aren't any truly baffling facts of life anymore, just different backgrounds and points of view and products of varying environments. I've lost that hard-headed belief that I make sense and that 'they' do not. I understand, on one level or another, most people, I think. Or at least I try. More to the point, I identify. The terrible devotion in my blood, the crux of my creativity, personality and supposed road to salvation, poised always on the edge of something brilliant, the worst circumstance reduced to experience and experiment. I've sat with the homeless in a shelter and ate thanksgiving leftovers and drank terrible coffee, I've received free boxes of nonperishable food and various municipal hand-outs, I've applied for and been denied financial assistance, I've gone without food, but rarely without substances. I've snorted crushed street pills in the presence of my impressionable young brother in an apartment building filled with crackheads (and he still remains adamant that he will pursue the ministry, however alone that must make him feel in a room of family members). I've surrendered my youth and aspirations to fake love and premature commitment, too intense and utterly baffling to my loved ones. I've called in sick high on acid, still drunk from the night before, stoned, I've been approached by a supervisor about my 'drinking problem,' and I've gone to family functions buzzed on leftover beer and weed from the night before, just to feel normal. I've played with emotions, and I've had my emotions played, extorted and exhausted with a smile and an endless night. I understand and feel the need for violence, sex, intoxicants, distractions and little spots in a world you don't understand that you can call your own, even briefly, even if it isn't much. I've felt the sun warm my back in the morning after having not slept, walking down Union st with a coffee looking for the next customer, the next high, the next dealer, haggling street prices with questionable wiggers who may or may not have guns. I've said and done stupid things and I know that I'm not what some people think of when they hear my name. I can talk tough, act tough, keep cool, and negotiate, and I can act pathetic, write unbearable torch songs and explain my way out of them later. I cannot, however, let go of anything. I've been devoted to inanimate objects, unprosperous love interests, preposterous opinions, and impeccable manipulativeness. At this point, I have the time of day to understand anything that seems baffling, since I've seen that baffled look in the saucer eyes of a young woman I thought I loved when I explained what I'd done with my weekend, and was moved to reconsider my carelessness and nihilism, and my lack of respect for the people I affect. I am not addicted to drugs, but I will do most anything to assure the presence of cigarettes, or love, whichever comes first, most and easiest. And I think when the cigarette inevitably wins, I lose the right to be baffled by hookers, vagrants and young criminals.