decomposition

Whatever makes you happy, right? As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, just pursue whatever makes you happy, deep down. That's what we're told, and it feels both like a mainstream thought and a much-needed piece of underheard advice all at once. It's said to make the most sense in the context of fiction: "Don't pick on X for liking My Little Pony, for liking Sonic the Hedgehog, for liking Dark Souls, for liking Marvel movies, for liking action flicks, for liking Twilight, for liking D&D, for liking Kirby, for liking YA fic, for liking YouTube cat videos, for liking memes, for liking BABYMETAL, for liking fanfiction, for liking slice-of-life anime, for liking Steven Universe, for liking One Direction, for liking Nile, for liking Tomb Raider, for liking Lego Star Wars, for liking Warrior Cats, for liking Edgar Allen Poe, for liking Game of Thrones, for liking Fallout, for liking Homestuck, for liking harlequin novels, for liking Sum 31, for liking Lady Gaga, for liking Pokemon, for liking house music, for liking theater, for liking daytime television, for liking Adam Sandler, for liking rock n' roll, for liking Michael Bay, for liking Full House, for liking Assassin's Creed, for liking post-modernism, for liking My Chemical Romance, for liking webcomics, blogs, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Crunchyroll, Google Wave, Fortnite, OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING..."

It's a point to rally behind, yeah? A matter of letting people be who they are, "leave us alone!"

"Some people like sports, some people like books! Let us be!"
"They're not 'guilty pleasures,' they're tastes."
"There's little difference between liking a popular thing and an unpopular thing, it's arbitrary."

I may still believe all of this.

Unfortunately, an image has attached itself to my mind which seems to want to present itself as a response to these beliefs:

When people see me reading a James Joyce book, I feel like a mummified fossil decomposing in the sun. Each page is another scrap of linen fluttering under the eyes of an observer, the words those personalized funerary spells covering the cadaver, making him an Osiris just like me. Preserver of a corpse, that's how I look compared to the man six feet away playing Soul Calibur II.

No one mocks me but I, and only in the eye.

There is no fandom for Ulysses's universe, no righteous defender of this ancestor of our thoughts. There are only strange looks, for I treat Finnegans Wake as if it merits a dozen rereads in a binge marathon just like a good rock album on an emotional night.

I've led myself out of touch, believing it to be for spiritual purposes, only to find years later I'm eleven thousand miles away from the frame of reference for anyone I care about. A sort of cul-de-sac, a dead-end street of the soul.

Yes, I focused on texts that made me happy. But what of it? Where now?