Friday, January 12, 2018

Steppen into the Future

I have neglected The Clog with remorse likened to that of a hangman's, but still I want my fingers to hit the key with the eagerness of a race horse.  May the blog lords forever grant my soul mercy for failing to post anything in the highly revered month of December.  Ha, I jest, burn me at the stake for my insolence.  The old ways have been trampled over, and even dust is starting to gather on the dust that has gathered on the traditions once held so sacred.  Sacrilege paves the way for righteousness and new monuments shall be erected from the dried bones of those past Clog entries who gave their flesh for the new order.  I think I need to take a deep breath, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and write a book review.

 

Today I am pairing a cup of Sight Glass coffee, made from unmeasured and improperly ground beans, with Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf.  It should be noted that Siddhartha, another work of Hesse's, heavily influenced me during my gloriously awkward and angsty teenage years.  The damn book basically made me toss away all my petty cares and become a Buddhist, ok maybe just an antisocial skateboarder.  Steppenwolf focuses on a middle-aged man going through a spiritual crisis wherein he believes his psyche is divided between passive human tendencies and the wild animal urges of a wolf.  Am I hinting that an early onset midlife crisis is tearing my soul apart?  Is the wise and all knowing Herman Hesse going to deliver me from my plight as he once did over a decade ago?  Has The Clog overstepped its bounds and become way too heavy?  How the hell should I know, I am barely scraped past forty pages of this thing.  Steppenwolf has yet to quell my self-destructive urges, and I hardly think it will, but it makes me question myself every time I feel too complacent in life and decide to embark upon a drunken rampage through town.