Bathos in Bangkok

pistonhips

Hi. This is a piece I wrote and originally posted on my site: Pistonhips: misanthropic ravings from an expat in Bangkok.

(it is a site where I post writing only...i.e-non-commercial)

Any feedback is welcomed. Cheers.

PH

Bathos in Bangkok

"If you've been injured but you can't feel any pain you know you're in trouble..."

"If you can still question your own sanity then you're not losing your mind..."

We seem to gain comfort from oft-repeated maxims that have a degree of plausibility. Far from our own experiences, if we do eventually stray into the territory on which they reflect, our minds may latch onto them out of a sense of hope. We first hear such sentiments expressed in movies or read them in books. They have cachet and instant credibility because of the sombre issues they seem to cast some light of understanding upon. For young men especially who are easily impressed by supposedly knowledgeable talk of subjects that have an air of danger and mystery surrounding them, they are rarely questioned.

The absence of pain when something horrific has happened to your physical being seems somehow logical. Your shattered limbs and the presence of blood and viscera without any feeling of pain...you've entered a dangerous realm where the mind is in shock..."severed nerve-endings", "crushed vertebrae"...the morbid utterances that laymen enjoy making...an exchange for the horror of being close to death or the remainder of what life is left spent as an invalid, is that excruciating pain is somehow self-anesthetized by the incredible and powerful store of natural chemicals and hormones we all possess.

Yes...it seems quite possible...and comforting...it takes the blunt edge off the subject of pain and death that so few ever really explore, satisfied instead with some nebulous, unspecific belief or at worst, simplistic superstitions.

The idea that the twisting of the mind will be something that is obvious to everyone but the person suffering the torment is another readily accepted notion. In severe cases of dementia such as those brought on by Alzheimer's, I have no doubt this is true as evidenced by the complete retreat of the patient to a point of incomprehension and puzzlement at those who have been a part of their lives for decades...but in fact why should I or anyone really accept that this is the case? How do we know that a plane of comprehension is not entered where overwhelming stimulus renders previously known responses and behaviour superfluous and impossible? An ever-narrowing scope of extreme consciousness like a years long acid trip in which full awareness of what is happening exists but which castrates other functions in the brain. Or in which the sheer incomprehensibility of life and the universe blisters into...

Other variants of mental deterioration are certainly knowable to those experiencing them. Lucid comparisons to earlier more balanced states are easy to make and this increases the frustration and helplessness at what seems to be happening.

Increasing paranoia that ironically, if kept in check, can be beneficial (but nonetheless adds to the sense of imbalance) in a world where there are numerous deviant and functioning sociopaths who prey on the majority of easily exploited fools.

Inexplicable but contained rages are more troublesome and can bring on clear-eyed visions of a time in the future when events conspire to bring about perfect conditions for an explosion that there will be no returning from. Drug and alcohol use can seem to allay and calm these fears but are only sowing the seeds for later, more frustrating eruptions.

Depths of despair and the occasional frightening episode in which a person's total being is gripped by the inescapable horror that there is no possible way that they can avoid this except by topping themselves...no options...you will become a desperate automaton... it passes. It's all observed, noted, accepted and taken in its entirety...there is no befuddlement at what is happening or drooling incomprehension. The mind becomes a multi-laned warren of dissecting and winding paths where any thought or sentiment is steered into eventual degradation and is stripped clean of all the niceties and bull**** that are part of the ostensible public face that most people buy into and that becomes their reality.

Your observation skills actually become sharper and the ease with which most can be duped or manipulated has never been more apparent. See the masks momentarily fall, the glimpse of revulsion or blanching that can't be hidden. Yet any stomach or energy for becoming involved in anything beyond superficial relationships is lost. The only interaction or subtle directing of others' actions is simply towards a point where they want nothing to do with you.

As with all situations, the law of compensation, (characterized in numerous Eastern religions and philosophies as the duality that governs existence) offers some respite. Hammered into a self-imposed solitude, an affinity with squalor and that cliched appreciation of all that is seedy and supposedly authentic is one result. An exaggerated focus on one's sensibilities is another forced ricocheting in the opposite direction, a desperate attempt to stave off the insanity you think is encroaching. Sit and marvel as you clench and unclench your fist in front of your face...

Like someone who knowingly throws the rage switch when they feel threatened, aware that their display will scare off most people and compensate for their lack of fighting skills, so too an unconscious or otherwise direction of things towards a situation where the bottom temporarily falls out allowing for hedonistic abandon and an embrace of all deviancies is a way to feel that pure release. If only to completely burn away those self-modulating controls that were implanted years ago...

Cognitive dissonance turns on itself as if those displaying the strange denials of others around them are in reality courting them like never before...

The other week the need arose to take care of some business in a part of the city I rarely travel to. After wrapping up matters in good time I found a busy noodle restaurant on the high street, the kind with a metal door on runners that opens upwards augmented with sliding, grimy, cage-like gates, both of which when opened are out of sight. Flung open at the beginning of the day, it eases the steady stream of customers coming and going and affords a view of the busy street. Definitely not one of those franchise types with everything spanking-new and well-scrubbed young workers in matching uniforms.

On the flooor of the restaurant there were heavy slab concrete tiles with a speckled pattern worn by time and constant traffic, solid wooden tables and stools. A wooden cabinet with an assortment of pictures, curios and antique bottles was fitted to a wall that jutted down a third of the way to the floor in the middle of the high-ceilinged restaurant, giving it an irregular shape. The stoney-faced proprietor sat at the back at a desk under a wooden staircase that presumably led to the lodgings upstairs. A mewling teen-aged daughter who came down to badger the proprietor disrupted my image of him.

I ordered a beer to drink leisurely with my bowl of noodles, making me an anomaly among the majority of customers who efficiently consumed their food and leapt back into the urban rush. The paucity of space and the obvious popularity of the place meant that customers sat alongside each other at the tables. A middle-aged female office worker, slim and well-turned out, sat across from me and polished off a bowl of noodles and a plate of pork and rice in workmanlike fashion. I nursed my beer and enjoyed the afternoon reverie but to stay too long was to risk everything.

An early afternoon sluggishness brought on by the beer and nothing better to do, the only way to grasp hold of such a rare but certainly ephemeral wave of peaceful calm was to while away the afternoon at a massage parlour.

I made my way there and was glad to be ushered into a private room, putting on the pyjamas provided and laying down on the bed. The middle-aged masseuse had a pleasant layer of chubbiness and strong hands. She administered a thorough and professional pounding, the muffled din of other fools rushing about to make a living far off in the distance adding to the tranquil feeling, furthered by the dimly-lit surroundings, the wooden fittings and walls, the restful atmosphere and the sense that this had been going on here for years and years...

To master that seeming shrinkage of our day-to-day existence that takes place as the mind learns to eliminate the banalities we abhor, to stretch time back to an earlier age...

The massage was finished and I paid, giving the woman a tip on the way out as she smiled in return.

There was still time.

Copyright Pistonhips 2004.