Sublime

I knew what I was against, but I couldn’t imagine what stood on the other side.

I was quickly coming to the realization that my creative anxieties about whether there was anything original or new left to say about the world were quite generic.

was responsible for my friends’ safety, and for their enrichment, too.

I even felt protective of him in that moment, surprised, and slightly awed, by the fact that he held on to such grand visions of what life could offer.

What I prized was seriousness. I wanted to apply it to some small world, hidden in this larger one.

He led us down a trail, pointing us toward out-of-the-way landmarks. Casting about for those other territories became my reason for being.

Maybe those were the last days when something could be truly obscure. Not in the basic sense that a style or song might be esoteric. But there was a precariousness to out-of-the-way knowledge, a sense that a misfiled book or forgotten magazine could easily be lost forever. Learning about something a few minutes before everyone else converted to a k