It's Too Late: Redux

It's Too Late (2002) 

"She said: 'Meet me at the gates at 8
Leave now don't be late'
She said one day walk away 'cause I was always late
Thought things were okay
Didn't' care though anyway
Say 'Sorry babe, had to meet a mate', tempting our fate
We first met through a shared view, she loved me and I did too
It's now 7:50, getting ready, better be nifty
Do my hair quickly - step out, it's cloudy
Mate bells me to borrow money, I got two Henry's and a dealer to pay
Call up on geezers to rid these green trees of my reeking jeans
Got a 'You think I care?'-air, out-glaring geezers' stares
I'm here and I'm there
Couldn't see past the end of my beer
What was getting near all the silence after the cheers

I didn't know that it was over
'Till it was too late
But if I ever needed you
Would you be there? 

She said: 'Meet me at the gates, don't be late"
But pretty soon the day came for change
And I was glad she never walked away
So I'm choosing what to wear, doing my hair with an hour to spare
When my life went pear, she'd been there with a thick stare
Big wheel climbed to the top, geezer stares bounced off
Standing at the top of this huge mountain, smiling and shouting, spring flowers sprouting
Not one inch of doubt in my mind as I reached the gates
Came 'round the corner at a rate
Risked her love, but I was gonna set things straight
Never again am I gonna be late
Never again am I gonna be late
Never again am I gonna be late

I didn't know that it was over
'Till it was too late
But if I ever needed you
Would you be there? 

I said: 'Meet me at the gates
Leave now, don't be late'
I waited for a while listening to her voicemail, mind set sail
Then the facts turned me pale
Wind, rain and hail
My fears unveiled for my fair female
She'd walked away, too little too late
I step up the pace, walk past the gates, rain runs over my face
Spirit falls from grace
I purchase a hazy escape at the alcohol place in the Chase
Sat down, got a fat frown
Weeping and drowning my senses
For this love game's expensive
I walk in a trance
Got a wounded soldier's stance
And the everyday geezers' stares throw me off balance
Now nothing holds significance
And nothing holds relevance
'Cause the only thing I can see is her elegance 

I didn't know that it was over
'Till it was too late
But if I ever needed you
Would you be there?"

The Streets / Mike Skinner.

 

I.

There's a certain horror in coming to know one's own patterns too well. Not necessarily because those patterns themselves have truly become known, but for the plain fact that what one believes to be a mere case of 'pattern recognition' is all too likely to be a case instead of pattern manifestation. 

And so comes the unspeakable and unpostable, that which cannot be uttered, written or made public. That which, by personal conviction, must be kept private at all cost. Now let the ineffable be said.

II.

In recognising the pattern, I repeat the words of Mike Skinner as cited above: It's too late.

I have found myself returning to this song for the better part of six years. With time, I've come to realise - or 'recognise' - that there's a pattern to my listening.

It's too late, I said. But when's the 'it'? That's the matter of the pattern - an issue closely related to the  a hermeneutic problem of beginnings. And the reality is that so soon as I come to listen to the song, I can confidently spell out my own end. It's Too Late marks the beginning of a downfall which I can reasonably and comfortably predict (the spaces to which an analytical mind brings you!). I listen to It's Too Late exactly because it is a song which, when it is Too Late, resonates all too deeply with me.

But this, too, I know: That it is hardly Too Late simply for that I have heard the song. The song is not some causally omnipotent entity which forces my hand and drives my life off course. Rather, the ritual of listening to Mike Skinner's story of self-destruction by negligence is essentially an a self-fulfilling prophetic act. The ritualised listening which takes places becomes the exact same self-destructive act of negligence which brings Mike Skinner himself down in the song. In this all-too-classical duel of fate and freedom, I must either suffer the consequences of an inevitable and (plausibly) soon-to-be-repeated downfall, or understand that my fate, in all of its deterministic reality, is a fate of my own making. The prophecy was spoken by mine own mouth - and so, in following a law of my own making, I must, surely, doubtlessly, retain my freedom and autonomy as I act in accordance with a truthfully all too human case of so-called divine providence. Time to self-destruct.

 

III.

With time, self-destructive behaviour can become ritualised simple for its self-destructive consequences. Such is the nature of genuine self-destruction.

There's a certain Kierkegaardian element to this pattern of self-destruction, of course, and one which is also expressed in Skinner's lyric.

In the face of repeated warnings, Skinner's story tells of self-destruction by what amounts to a form of spiritual impotence. Faced with a desire for change (albeit change conceived exclusively in mentalistic terms), Skinner becomes unable to actually Act. It is this inability to Act in a way different to his past which clashes with his spiritual impotence, and which consequently leads him into despair - and, in his attempt to cope with said despair, drunkenness. 

Much as any other genuinely self-destructive person, Skinner appears not just to be impotent but also entirely self-absorbed. On the first and surface level of 'analysis', Skinner himself even appears to be aware of his own self-absorption. Sure, he may not be able to 'see past the end of his beer', and sure, he seems to be aware that his relationship was based on a faulty premise, seeing his (now ex-) girlfriend simply as someone to love him. The true self-absorption, however, is present in the fact of the lyric itself, which is inherently introspective, 'incurvatus in se'. This incessant introspective quality of self-destructive thought patterns, I hold, must be seen as the true story beneath the surface of the lyric, indicating, unfortunately, that Skinner likely hasn't learned much from the breakup. You've got to ask yourself whether there isn't some point at which introspection must come to an end and be replaced by something new and novel - namely real change as present in genuine action.

Now consider the author of this post.

 

IV.

What does 'self-destruction' really mean anyway? Surely we're not speaking of the actual and factual destruction of some given self, which would amount to literal and physical suicide - I'm still writing. Which is the self of self-destruction, and what is destroyed? I think, at the core, we're speaking here of temporalities and modalities.

In what I think may well be counted as the prime 'ontic' example of Heideggerian ontological guilt - whatever all those words mean. The reality is that if the way we understand ourselves as selves is primarily by means of a temporal extension into the future as the result of projects, actions and undertakings, then the self of self-destruction must be counted among one of those possible futures. Which in turn reflects back even on the present. If my self, who I am, is understood in the mediated sense of who I might be, then the act of self-destruction which destroys a future self must be understood also as the partial death of a present self, namely by the exclusion of its possibilities. And so the present self takes on the double role of also being that very person who ruined the future. Self-destructive acts become those in which I presently ruin my own possible futures. And what I lost, what it is now too late for, will never return. Which means that I am now forever the one who lost my shot, the one who ruined that possible path in life.

Still, comparisons with suicide don't appear entirely inapt. In a certain sense, self-destructive acts is in a sense a kind of preliminary suicide. Rather than facing the full abyss one believes to lie around the corner, one instead self-destructs by freezing and refusing to act, unaware that the earth beneath and the world around one has not stopped moving. Self-destruction is a pitiable state of affairs, pitied perhaps most of all by he who self-destructed himself, who mourns the loss of something that never happened - not for that it wasn't principally possible, but because the reality of the possibility change was too unbearable to face. 

And so the necessity of the inwardness of self-destructive people stems from the fact that anything else would require an acceptance of chance and change. In the overtly inward, it is possible to freeze the world, the world having been reduced now to oneself. Which reflects only further on the soteriological of who might ever save you. For, in truth, the idea of pulling oneself out of such a state of pure self-absorption is, to use a classic example, as absurd as attempting to tug oneself out of a swamp by pulling one's own hair. Absolute and self-destructiveness thus relies on the negation of the Other, insofar as the Other might actually be able to reach down and help the self-destructive person out of the swamp that they themselves have chosen to jump into. The swamp is the choice of us self-destructives. In it, we can be physically frozen, unable to move, forced by external circumstances, comfortably forgetting that it is by our own doing that we ended there. And at some rate, the slow sinking seems preferable to the horrible abyss which could have lied around the corner. 

V.

It's been a few months since I wrote the above four parts. And, surely, there's a pattern to my listening of 'It's Too Late'. But the day came for change and I actually changed. I stopped the pattern of self-destruction, chose to face things, head-on, rather than fearing the turn around the corner. Not that I ever really feared what hid behind that corner. Fear, as multiple classic thinkers have pointed out, seems to require for itself an object - anxiety, in turn, is totalitarian.

I didn't succumb to anxiety, and I didn't succumb to self-negligence. I kept my head high as I turned the corner, as I turned the page, as I opted to move on alongside the world rather than keep my feet fixed, glued to the ground on which they rested.

I am in genuine pain. My chest hurts. I had to leave a party with friends whom I had invited. I only lasted an hour there.

I turned the page, and what I found was not some sweet bunny-rabbit, sitting and waiting there, ready to debunk my old fears. I found the abyss. I found stress and sleepless nights, I found pain, ongoing pain, pain which doesn't really recede so much as the awareness of it does. On occasion (and never a voluntary one), when my mind eventually circles back around to it, I know the pain will be there, waiting for me. Which means there's only one thing to do: distract yourself.

And it's not like there was anything at stake, either. Not in a concrete sense at least. But turning the corner means confronting a possibility. And what I found was that it wasn't the abyss itself that was intimidating, but something within it. And it's not like the abyss stares back at me. It's just waiting there.

I can hardly think for the pain. 

It was supposed to be so easy. 

 

VI.

And so, suddenly, the countless utterances of those words, 'perhaps in another world', 'perhaps in another life', coalesce into the recognition of the possibility that, perhaps, it is I who am not meant for this one.

Except face to face with the dread and despair contained in that possibility, one is truly left with little choice. Or, rather, the choice which one is faced appears less a choice and more reminiscent of Rilke's poetic ultimatum: Du mußt dein Leben ändern - You must change your life. 

VII.

I faced the abyss of a world for which I was not meant. A world for which I am unsuited, a world of difficulties which I am simply incapable of facing.

Not all too inappropriate, I went climbing today, bouldering, and attempted a climb towards the end which was too difficult for me; I simply couldn't get a proper grip. I think that's a common theme throughout, in turn. And I'm not sure how much training my grip strength would do to resolve the issue. This all feels much the same. I simply never got a proper grip. And much like any other self-absorbed introspective, I much prefer to ruminate on the reasons for my lacking grip strength to actually working to improve it. What else is this blog?

One of the easiest solutions to the problem, a solution made all the easier by living in a society pathologically obsessed with making everything pathological, is to blame it simply on faulty wiring. Which insinuates, of course, that there is a such thing as correct (or un-faulty) wiring, but also entails a conviction that those happy (or at least happy-looking) people by which one is surrounded are happy-looking (if not happy) not for their choices in life, but because of their wiring - a different wiring. Which of course only worsens the issue, further cementing that core narcissistic belief in an ontological difference - not Heideggers, the one between you and me. Practical solipsism.

Much of introspection serves simply to look for these differences. The more confidently I can spell out some made-up difference between us, as humans, or rather as different things both called humans, the more confidently I can consequently refuse to take responsibility for the real faults of my life, namely my choices. I was fated to suffer, is all. Such is the nature of my kind.

 

VIII.

I've long pondered the possible remedies of the existential loneliness of it all.

'We're all on each other's food chain. All of us. It's an individual sport. Welcome to the meaning of individual. We're each deeply alone here. It's what we all have in common, this aloneness.'

'E Unibus Pluram,' Ingersoll muses.

Hal looks from face to face. Ingersoll's face is completely devoid of eyebrows and is round and dustily freckled, not unlike a Mrs. Clarke pancake. 'So how can we also be together? How can we be friends? How can Ingersoll root for Arslanian in Idris's singles at the Port Washington thing when if Idris loses Ingersoll gets to challenge for his spot again?'

'I do not require his root, for I am ready.' Arslanian bares canines.

'Well that's the whole point. How can we be friends? Even if we all live and eat and shower and play together, how can we keep from being 136 deeply alone people all jammed together?'

'You're talking about community. This is a community-spiel.'

'I think alienation,' Arslanian says, rolling the profile over to signify he's talking to Ingersoll. 'Existential individuality, frequently referred to in the West. Solipsism.' His upper lip goes up and down over his teeth.

Hal says, 'In a nutshell, what we're talking about here is loneliness.'

- Infinite Jest, Wallace 1996: 112-113

I think distraction is the easy route. Simply keeping occupied. But I tried it, and it doesn't work. Somehow, the thoughts still find their way, and a cold and lonely night still lies ahead even on those distracted days during which you're entirely preoccupied. Matter of fact, it can even make matters worse. Work yourself too hard, and you'll find yourself too tired in the evening to do anything - at all. Which also makes you a prime target for despair.

Still, there are certain kinds of distracting activities which seem up to the task. The way, to solve Ingersoll's issue of the 136 deeply alone people all jammed together, to turn them into a community, is to make them drink. Alcohol. It's not that I think alcohol necessarily creates a community. In truth, I don't know that it does. But it makes all those possible members of a community exactly dumb enough that it doesn't matter. It doesn't take a lot of alcohol before introspection becomes an impossibility. Well, at least in the beginning. Tolerances do change.

That's the path Skinner took, anyway. Even if it didn't stop his introspection. The issue to me seems to be that he didn't drink enough.

 

IX.

I don't know that there's a cure to this sort of thing. I don't think there is one, anyway. Which means that it's a matter of simply suffering it. Self-destructive acts ultimately tally up, and the burden of their weight grows. Somehow, you've got to find a way of carrying it. Unless it's too late already.

Some claim you get to choose who you are. I think that's a lie. Others do. Language does. But you can change who you are within that frame. Except that imitation assumes a degree of familiarity with what's imitated that I can't confidently claim to possess. What does 'happy' mean, anyway? Sure, I can fix a smile to the front of my Fassbinder face, but what good would that ever do?

Truth is I was never really there.

I think, perhaps, that it is finally time to eat the apple. To lose myself to paradise.