overwrought in murk

Photo by Plato Terentev on Pexels

it’s that tension 
between taking the first thing 
you can get 
because you are hungry 
and desperate, 
longing for an airlift 
out of the abyss 
and knowing that you’re worth 
more, and being patient, 
waiting longer, 
but potentially starving for longer, 
for who knows how long…
unsure there will be another helicopter 
anytime soon… 
maybe never…
maybe never? 
listen to what you’re saying 
I don’t know about all that… 
but it’s that tension 
that kills me, 
keeps me up at night, 
tossing, tumbling, roiling, 
rolling around 
in the possibilities, 
bouncing around the hypotheticals, 
the what ifs, 
and the yeah, sure, I could do this 
what kind of person will I be, 
can I be…
how do you know 
a good opportunity 
from a bad one 
how do you know when 
a curse could come disguised 
as your second chance 
I am afflicted 
with over-thought, 
too much tumult, 
feelings overwrought, 
mind spilling and splattering 
with conjecture…
clear the murk 
clear the mire 
I want a clean future 
for myself 
and for those who love me 
but it’s so easy to get stuck 
in other people’s murk

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“I stepped across into that freaked-out paranoid space with them, viewed it as they viewed it—muddled. Murky again; the same murk that covers them covers me. The murk of this dreary dream world we float around in.” 
― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

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Garbage Notes:

It’s interesting—I wrote this poem several months ago about some uncertainty that I was going through. Weighing a choice, worrying about the consequences of that choice.

In life there’s going to be times when you have to consider your options. You have to decide whether to jump on an opportunity that’s in front of you or wait for the next one.

It’s tempting to say yes to something because it’s right there—it’s in the here and now and it’s the only option you have. Maybe it’s not the best option, but it’s the quickest way out of whatever murk you’re in. Murk is the key word here. Murk.

I was reading Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly and the quote above stood out to me because all of our realities are muddled. We’re fumbling around in a hazy present that we can’t even feel, recovering from past events that we haven’t begun to process, and we’re worrying about futures we’d be foolish to even speculate upon. This is the nature of life.

So many times, we just don’t have enough data. Not enough information to make wise decisions. And the picture we think we’re being given about something, tragically, doesn’t add up to the full scene. As PKD says, it’s the murk that covers us all.

So, did I make the right decision back when I was writing this poem? I still have no idea. All I know is when I tried to peek through the mire, when I tried to see through that sludgy wall of bullshit that so often pervades our vision—I came up with something and I went with it.

I still don’t know if it was the best path. But what I do know is that we can’t stop choosing just because we’re unsure. And we can’t keep waiting around for things that may never happen.

You take a little sample of data, you lick your finger, stick it up in the air, feel the breeze, and go for it. We all want a clear future for ourselves. One where the decisions we make all fit neatly together into a linear narrative, a life we can think we’re the architects of. But me, I know I’ve never really felt this way.

Agency and perception of freedom—these are tricky things. Buy into their illusions too much, and you end up blind. Abandon the very notion of autonomy, and you end up frozen.

You have to straddle the line somehow, walk the high-wire of the uncertainty paradox, and keep swimming through the murk without drowning.

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Franco Amati 2024

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