The torture of Prometheus

Tuesday 4/21/26

On Sunday I was as close to drinking as I've been in the nearly ten years since I stopped. Had there been a pill in front of me that would have ended my life had I swallowed it, I would have taken it with little to no hesitation, and I think probably none. Drinking would be another way of giving up. Being done. Drinking equates to the same thing.

I was up for something like forty hours. I sleep so little as it is. I didn't run stairs on Sunday--I got as far as the field the letter mentioned; I don't have a good relationship with that field; it's where I went--or ended up--in the moments after learning Molly had left--nor yesterday. I likely look as I would if I'd run many circuits of stairs but I feel like I look this lump of not-completely-cold-yet death.

I know it can only get worse, too. That there's no hope with what I do and what I am in this world.

Yesterday I tried not to think about this as much as I could by, ironically, thinking entirely about the work I was working on. The informal part of that, as such, involved what I wrote on here, including that second entry on David Szalay and the endless corruption of this evil system of publishing.

I hate having to do that so much. But I have no choice. Or, rather, the only other choice is to let these people get away with it.

And so as a moral person who is being abused and discriminated against because of nothing but good qualities, I can't do that. It isn't an option unless I am to be a bad and weak person who as a result would also be ashamed of himself. And one who would in essence be against his own work.

It's like you have this person you love, who is kind and good and true. The best. A person who is a light in this world. And people are doing unspeakably evil things to that person. You can't just sit there and watch. You have to do something. Or what are you then?

I'm unsure how long I worked on "Dead Thomas" yesterday. And then, despite how long that was, I turned right around and worked on "Still Good."

At various points I also worked on a piece about Bob Clark's 1974 film, Deathdream, for this horror film book that won't ever be allowed to come out even if I do finish it. The film utilizes the "Monkey's Paw" trope from the W.W. Jacobs short story, which I equate with a jazz musician improvising over the chords to "Cherokee."

I wonder what I'd do with such a monkey's paw right now. You have to be very careful, of course. Everything has a catch to it based on the wording. Imagine people wishing now in a world where it seems like hardly anyone can go a single sentence without saying the word "literally"?

I sent things to people who will discriminate against me. Any sending of anything is really but an early part of the process of crafting an entry on here about those aforesaid evils and exposing discriminatory practices.

There is next to nothing that involves me, no matter how absurdly overqualified I am, no matter that the editor or publisher knows how much better that work is than anything they publish, that won't be met with discrimination. A twisted kind of revenge taking for what I'm able to do. Or is a result of someone else who loathes me for my abilities telling that person to discriminate against me, or not pay me the money they owe me, or whatever it may be.

And when you write about one of these people on here in exposing what they're about and how they behave, you're often having to write about many other people, because it's all this interconnected evil. It's exhausting. It takes so much out of me, and it's not even the work I should be writing, even if there's a very real, just about certain chance, that the best work that has ever been written by the best artist there ever was never gets seen or experienced by anyone save him and the few people who don't hate him that he sends it to.

An email starts the clock on having to do those kinds of entries here, which are basically inevitable, because the chances of evil and bigotry not determining the result, so to speak, of that email, or what follows from it, and what doesn't, are nil. The recipient won't matter. It matters what I am, and how these people react to that, how deeply they know that, and how they tell each other what to do, how to treat someone.

I left a friend from college a voicemail on Sunday. It felt like I was saying goodbye. I called my uncle too, who must have been out. I couldn't help from crying on the voicemail, and my college friend called me back from their kid's soccer game, which I felt bad about.

One of the reasons I'm still alive is because I'd be so embarrassed by someone like my sister having to come into this apartment after I'm gone. For anyone to see how I live.

I didn't go out yesterday. Didn't even open the door yesterday on Marathon Monday. That's not good Bostonian behavior. And especially ironic given its me. I haven't been out yet today either but I see it's 33 degrees outside. I think tomorrow, when the Monument reopens, will be similar (which means it'll likely be 47 degrees or so by 1 in the afternoon when that happens).

It feels ridiculous talking about sports given everything else. It always does to me. I'm not like you, where I can look forward to something. The totality of pain that is my existence is never lessened. The pain is overwhelming. Every day. There is nothing but torture and pain. I don't look forward to watching a game. I live in a space that an animal wouldn't live in. The toilet hasn't worked in a long time. A person has no idea what this is like. I don't have lights. You can't move.

People underestimate how much small things mean. Things they don't think are things, which they take for granted. A leisurely drive to the market down leafy roads. Having a lawn to mow. Mowing the lawn. That would be like a portion of utopia to me, living how I live. And knowing it can get worse. I can be homeless. I will definitely just die at that point. I won't try and endure that, too. Live in a room in someone's house with their family out of state. Again, I'll just end it first. I couldn't. I know that to take me from this place would be to kill me. I can't exist outside of Massachusetts. It's like a breathing machine I need to breathe.

I'll write about sports on here because no one has ever known more about them than I do. It's part of what I do. My art. The overall, endless range of my art. And my bottomless knowledge. But that's what I'm doing. I'm always in the process of being tortured. When you're tortured, when that's all you know and think about and experience, with no let up, whether or not the Bruins blew a two-goal lead in the third period of their opening game of the playoffs doesn't come within a million miles of moving your personal needle one way or the other. But I write about what I write about because I do it better than anyone else could dream of doing it. It's who I am. It's what I am. Having said that: I told you about Charlie McAvoy. Many times.

Art is different. Art is everything. Art always offers something. Art is all that's enough for me. But I thought I should make a little note about why I touch on sports matters in this record with things being what they are.

Over the last couple days I find myself haunted by that entry I'd written on here last summer about art and failure. A life that is just suffering. Like that's the natural course, the only possibility, the way of it.

I wrote a big list of things to try and work on today, so that's what I'm going to attempt to do now. I'm doing something that has no reason for me to do it other than to do it which isn't a reason. As I'm making the best things a human has made or could make. But that doesn't matter. I don't even know that it should. And almost certainly not in this world.

Prometheus stole fire so that humans could have light. He went to where humans aren't supposed to go. Even as he was trying to do something for humans. For this, the gods changed him to a rock in the mountains. And each day, an eagle came and ate the liver out of his flesh. But because Prometheus was so strong, his liver regenerated, and then the eagle would come the next day, and so on, every day. His life was torture. But he was unable to die. I'm Prometheus. It's me. I didn't steal anything, though. My work is that light. And as Prometheus gave everything to try and harvest the light, I've done everything and more for my work so that it is this light. And I'm here now--and have been for so long--chained to this rock.