There was a long-past era when I used to rely on my shameless sex addiction to keep me feeling creative, lively, and protected from more harmful addictions like emotional co-dependency and the very stupid ones, alcohol and drugs. It felt like the energy and passion within me were pouring onto the blank page, creating an unstoppable force. Not for nothing, the stream of consciousness was the literary device I was fond of.
I didn’t fuel my wild imagination with corny MTV music videos–the sign of the times–but with the nihilistic characters of The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. Those characters were always lost in the dense fog of college days, partying so hard that they forgot what they did and with whom they did it. Life had the uncanny poetry of a postcard from the edge, the sex drive filled with a huge hormonal upheaval, and casual feelings that they mistakenly mixed up with love.
But it wasn’t love at all. These casual feelings were hot-swappable–as described in The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell–to such an extent that they served multiple purposes. It was the rogue spirit, and I never felt any remorse or had a shred of guilt. It was a harmless costume party and compared with the ghosting ways of that digital meat grinder called Tinder, I would say it was emotionally healthier because at least it was the real thing. There were no “swipe left” or “swipe right” actions, just a brief exchange of looks that could be as intense as rolling thunder.
After a truce to heal wounds with a disappointed lover, sometimes gained a valuable confidante to share a laugh with. Only the ones who wanted so hard to be the victims of their idiotic nonsense, the self-righteous divas capable of pounding at my door in the wee hours, were lost forever. And for their unacceptable harassment, merely an advance of the slender respect I could expect on a foreseeable future, I always had ready Sean Bateman’s detached line from the aforementioned book.
“It’s over. Deal with it. Rock’n’roll.”
All these sexual flings were expected from a confirmed singleton until I got married in my fifties, when I finally discovered the roots of my deep detachment, once the rule of hormones gave me a break and I could think clearly without a boner in between. I am, indeed, a sapiosexual because I cannot help myself against the brilliance of a beautiful mind. Physical beauty is always appreciated, by all means. Nonetheless, it’s overrated and it’s just a sexual lure like the eyes and colors of a peacock’s tail. It works out for many in the eligible age; it creates a solid sexual bond enough to raise a family, and like the Americans bluntly say ‘to own your ass’ with an exclusivity agreement and shared assets. It doesn’t matter the sexual orientation or gender identity one has; the biological trick is always the same.
Some modern couples skipped children for cats and dogs, even snakes or horses. Me, a total freak as well, I did that with my literary works because I put my heart and soul into them. I used to call them ‘my children of paper’ before the Digital Revolution razed the world where I grew up, and I guess I should find a more suitable term of endearment. Just in case, I have my originals on paper and well protected, lest a nuclear war or a deadlier virus than the last one sent the world back again to the Dark Ages.
It is from this perspective that I would like to offer some food for thought.
This week, I’m reading Holding the Note by David Remnick, a collection of essays he wrote for The New Yorker about the musicians he loves. In the book, Stevie Van Zandt, the guitarist behind Bruce Springsteen, made an interesting statement about artists who continue to perform, even if their contemporaries are six feet under or retired. He said, and I quote, “[this is] the birth of something I call ‘wisdom art’–art that the artist could not have created when they were young…so there is a legitimate justification for continuing to create.”
It rings at first like a platitude but is not. During the most recent Cannes Film Festival, when I read how some journalist–the name of which I have no desire to call to mind–was attacking Francis Ford Coppola for putting up his personal fortune to make the movie of his dreams and Kevin Costner following suit, just a clickbait for iconoclast youngsters, I lost my temper and wrote to him that his observations were befitting the dirty walls of a public shitter. Yeah, I know what you are thinking; journalism is having a hard time after massive layoffs, and some will do whatever they must to put food on the table. But that’s the drug dealer’s moral as well and always takes its toll.
My point: unless I lose my memory or brain cancer kills me in two months’ time, I have a lot of work to do with ‘my children of paper’. This includes copy editing, translating Castilian Spanish nuances, and narrating. I now write at least ten times better than before I got lost in Rip Van Winkle’s forest. How can that be? I thought I was finished, excuse my candor. But I guess I am a resilient individual who still tries to learn from his many blunders. I have confessed that the energy and passion of my younger years are gone, but so are the fear and lack of confidence. It’s tit for tat. Nature always does a perfect job in creating its beings and keeping everything in balance.
One more thing about the Cannes Film Festival: George Lucas, who has been criticized for constantly editing the Star Wars saga, shared an anecdote of Michelangelo and his Sistine Chapel ceiling; the artist dismounted several times the scaffolding to fully see his work and remounted it again, convinced that it wasn’t done but just abandoned. As for me, my life partner jokingly calls me “Mr. Nobody” when I disappoint her for my shortcomings, rubbing it in my face that she is published by Penguin Books and has contributed to several major American magazines. So, who would even notice if I reassembled the scaffolding?