So-so: A collection of writings

By Nicholas A. Ventura

So-so is a compilation of writings that cross genres through prose, poetry, and short stories. The author intends to weave both classical thematic elements, literary devices, and influences from classical and modern writers to form a style that leaves you feeling a hallucinatory experience that reverberates within the bounds of the collection. T

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicholas Ventura
• Release date: Jan 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869153432

Book preview

SO-SO

A collection of writings

by

NICHOLAS A. VENTURA

Copyright © 2024

Nicholas A. Ventura

All rights reserved.

DEDICATION

For my friends at home…

Y a paso lento.

..

Table of Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 PROLOGUE

2. PROSE

3. POETRY

4. SHORT STORIES

5. EPILOGUE

6. NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special thank you to my mother, father, grandmothers, and teachers.

1 Prologue

This obra or composite stream of consciousness was so close to being the beacon that I put up on the wall of the bedroom preceding a suicide that it isn’t even funny. The online catalog of guns shipped from the combination hardware and hunting store straight to one’s door was so tempting of a purchase that if it hadn’t been for the extra $100 of little casings with gunpowder, you would not be reading this text. I’m sure they will run a sale after soon. You do not know that feeling.

Because the neuropsychologists were so far away from us in this society and so far away in their research about childhoods and brain scans, I spent a lot of time fore-thinking about the relatedness of depression, anxiety, addiction, obsessions, and compulsions though they don’t all appear to act on the same plane. The layers of memories that incite emotional responses, the responses that incite actions on the spectrum of positive or negative, and further convoluted by the network of interactions that ensue in this undeniably closed ecosystem. The addiction to melancholy in cases of depression or obsession with the future and scenarios in cases of anxiety reached a tipping point that not even compounded medicines could balm through pure sedation.

Around this time I became numb from the pain of a relationship that was best likened to swimming against a current only to be taunted further by claims of dissatisfaction and admittance to lies that were committed along the way. The roses that I shipped to her door and the quality of the diamond ring only mattered to me at the end of the day. All of this during our first global infectious outbreak of which the coalition of media-lobbyists will try to re-air every two-to-four years now. I could not find a job commensurate with my education and professional experience after this. Ironically and at the tail end of this book, they aired the defamation of George Santos and other Republicans who once again were caught in dishonesty after their fearless leader led a failed coup of a 300-year-old government. Hopefully, a nice twist for those with Imposter Syndromes. For those of you that are here with me this far into this thing, what a shameful place this has become.

I recall the days on the playground in the early 2000s where the comfortable kids would run away or group up on another side of the blacktop at the elementary school. The one with the grass lot that had random patches of mush where the water was beginning to inundate and other holes baiting untwisted ankles. At the time, the other children really just seemed like aliens to me and I could hardly remember their names, though their faces came easily. This kind of misalignment is comical once the dust had settled on the memory. Now looking back I see the clear delineation between species and socioeconomics which are certainly intertwined not only in my life time or my mother and fathers, but even back to the kings, pharaohs, counsels who would forced interbreeding before they had set curriculae. It took a very long time for me to understand why things were this way and fortunately this is only a single perspective among many of the situation. The disadvantageousness of being a second-generation person, having depression, and being overweight, etcetera were too much for the sheltered and then polarized minds to bear and even being to understand. This is both hilarious and sad to me that we are still bound in this frame. In no study of mine were these blatantly a factor to success or happiness and it now begs the question that if these disadvantages are solved for early enough in life, how does the society progress in and after that lifetime by these changes among people. Scientific literature itself shows a vast spread of statistics among demographic links that always need re-validation. I accept fault for these shortcomings as well for not having created the ultimate, automated meta-analysis, but also do not regret the things that I say or think about the society around me.

About 50% of the writings composed between 2011 and 2018 did not make the final cut for this first publication and of which most are no longer with us. The purpose of this creative decision was to not focus solely on specific themes and instead instill my writing and ideological style of weaving these concepts together, so much so that they are present in each writing beneath the superficial imagery once you get the hang of the elements I bring with me. I threw out all notes from university science classes and spiral-bound notebooks where I kept the original writings while I was writing Little Bear. I wrote a lot between May and November of 2023 after leaving a few environments that did not suit me and as may notice later in the book.

As I write this, I now see how close this experience in youth and adulthood has been to the Darwinian theory that not even psychology and podcasts could mask. The confidence and brazenness of this group of people to think that Kantian economics would be enough to get into heaven (or more contemporarily transcend) or at least have good karma when it mattered like in early life. Again, this is not the case in or on this place that maintains gravity like a binding and suffocating trauma from our past.

It is because of this fall-from-sun or disillusionment that happens when a deep enough realization occurs that on many occasions, I have chosen to remove myself from the society, group talks, and boring disagreements that some spent so much time in the mirror debating before leaving their houses for the day. Despite directional claims with insufficient accuracy of genetic predispositions in an increasing number of publications and evolutionary dynamics observed that were previously described, there is still hope.

The regrets of most artists whether spoken or unspoken are of the inability to portray the experience or idea either due to time or lack of cognitive depth and connectivity. This is the case in this work as well. I recently was working under the alias x, y, z which was an ode to the massive body of work in mathematics around causal effects and complex relationships. There were times in my life when these points were as distant as they are in many of yours. When we zoom out enough, we are able to see the Rorschach of data points that represent a given situation. It’s painful to live this way, but it is also beautiful.

I decided to publish this book after being unemployed for too long, losing hope in my aspirations, and being forced back into the same room that I grew up hating. It is ok to stop reading here. This type of confession was likely present and previously buried underneath thousands of pages of arcane language and roundabout explanations about theological laws aimed to guide man’s decisions and explain rationale. The poets of old would not have agreed with the books on coaching and other management shortcomings. It was a difficult decision to make and like in any discipline, I regret not writing more, veering more true to my vision, and better representing the world around me. Hence the book’s title So-so.

Everything in this book is intentional from the paragraph spacing, to the margins, to the punctuation (and lack thereof in the case of poetry), and – my favorite – the diction. None of this was written by GPT nor does it contain excerpts from other writings beyond a quote from Jorge Luis Borges and a single sonnet from Shakespeare.

The authors, chefs, artists, filmmakers, musicians, scientists, mathematicians, and writers who helped form the inspiration for these writings are also present too as there is no idea that is begotten purely from nothing. However, I don’t doubt that they share some of these images and interpretations in their own work like a collective interpretation timestamped with the influence of a cohort of us alive at the same time.

To those who admit to battling mental health issues and who have lost the wrestling matches, I applaud you in your next decision. I’m sure it is the right one. Those are the costs to our society. For the rest of you, there was a time when I wanted you to share this agony even just for a day. I am showing you twelve years of my life, not so that you know who I am or have a guidebook for style and choice but rather to see some of what I see and think how I think. The space between the poems, prose and interpretations of the short stories is what you make it. I look forward to showing you more next time.

With what I have left in this place,

x, y, z

2. PROSE

The librarian (2023)

"¿Qué representa vos? No es nosotros, okay?

Esa pagina que me diste… puro mierda!

En mi opinión, ya estugo la estrategia, el amor, y la agua que tomes.

Realmente les vi los cuentitos como ‘cartoons’ y ni me hicieron reír. Como puedes asumir la voz de otro sin darle la gracia, ir a la basilica o darles ningún centavito. Que arrogante es esto de pasar el tiempo escribiendo, leyendo, llorando.

El cuartito con la extasie… ya no pega.

Las días en el museo… me copiaste… escupiaste!

La musica que oyes… pedo.

La solitud… quisas te dejamos allí.

Hubiera sido un buen lugar a empezar si decidiste si es el perspectivo o la persona que hace y representa la vida. Ese solución no te doy. Mejor hubiera sido uno de esos de ‘self help’. ¿Los encontraste ya?

Los escritores que capturen la esencia de la felicidad que sentimos todos nosotros serían como el Homer. Los cobardes se mueren. Y que me estás tratando de decir con esto es que los humanos tenemos el derecho de ser eso. Porque si ese sofismo es correcto, también deberíamos actuar de cualquiera manera alrededor de las leyes y reglas que hemos asumido. Ese si pega un poco, pero ya no con los ‘french fries’.

Te aplaudo por el gasto de papel… pero fíjese que después que todo este tiempo solo nos importa los pinches alimentos.".

Genesis (2012)

Sometimes I stare down at my hands. The longer that I stare, the more temperamental I become. From nonchalance to fear, to wonder, to distrust. I stare at them as if I’m waiting for them to blink first, but why don’t they? Why not! The frustration becomes everything.

I can’t respond to anything without a bark or bitterness. The day rots as I keep on this staring challenge. Blink, damnit!

If someone asked me to remember why or when I even started to stare at my hands, I couldn’t tell them. I clench my fists in hopes of them flinching, but nothing. Why must they challenge me so? I can’t bring myself to think of anything other than this. When? Why? The hands grasp onto my concentration and stare, while I grasp back, trying to explain it all. How? What?

The smartest nor the strongest man could make those hands into anything more than hands – especially if they tried. Since before my hands were smaller than a speck of dust, they had been destined for grasping, creating, destroying, staring.

epistle (2012)

Frustrated, afraid, you didn’t realize what I promised, only focusing on finding a desperate solution that you thought would save us both one day. I still feel like I deserve an apology for you stealing my heart, especially since you’ve yet to return it. I thought the watch on my wrist would help me get it back, but he refuses. I knew what I was getting into with you, I had a particular intuition concerning our fate. Amazing how the sand in an hourglass and the stars of the sky work together. Never have I witnessed such perfect imperfection and never have I been so captured by it. Imperfection’s grasp turned to mine back. My fists and eyelids are still clenched, for I fear that if I open them, whatever I have of you left will whisk away with the wind. While most would be relieved. I, empty. If the wind were to take you from me – if I were to let you go – what would fill my veins, reign my thoughts, and fuel my aspirations? Our names are nearly interchangeable. You are what makes me, me. Cliche, I know. Especially since my words are a futile expression of this mess.

It is very tough going to sleep, when all that runs through my mind are deep gazes, channel surfing, and the warm twitches that embarrassed you so at nap time. I’m in a peaceful place now. You’re here too. You’re always here – because I bring you. You’re quite popular, because anyone who has met