9/06/2006

Sturm und Drang

I.
I was having lunch yesterday at the mall here just below the office building and Eurythmics was on the big screen at the food court and I stopped for a minute to listen to Annie Lennox because well, she rocks, and it was the video to When Tomorrow Comes…


II.
Tomorrow is a holiday then later on Sunday I’m going on this trip (for work) for two weeks down to a couple of our Southern ports because we’re kicking this thing here at the office in high gear and all this couldn’t be happening at a worse moment in time, because my personal life is a little… hectic… right now.
See, I pretty much liquidated most of my assets this morning and have this pile of photocopies of everything and the kitchen sink bundled up by my feet. I’m knee-deep in paperwork and barely keeping my head above the waterline; I’m f*cked up, I’m thinking I’ve probably bitten more than I can chew as usual and maybe I can’t handle this one by myself but I got no one else to run to- I’m swamped.

This is so cool.
Like, the first night I think I barely caught some sleep, if any at all. The second night I got kind of used to this constant feeling of being seasick 24 hours a day thrown in with impending doom, and slept like a baby.

It’s funny because what really scares the crap out of me is not the possibility of failing, not really, but of actually making it big:
Someone once told me I was either the bravest coward or the wuss-est brave man she’d ever seen and I kind of agree with that.
This is me, then: Eternally finding ways to jump before I look, knowing the odds of breaking my knees are insane and sorta crying in pain before I hit the ground- but then I jump anyway. Here goes nothing.
What do you know.


III.
There’s this song I’ve mentioned here time & again for the last couple of months because it’s really stuck to the back of my head. It’s The Whole of the Moon, by the Waterboys (a classic 1980s vintage), and I’m thinking I’m there at the turnstiles, with the wind at my heels, I stretched for the stars and I know how it feels, to reach too high, too far, too soon… and hoping to hell I’ve really seen the whole of the moon.
Then the song mentions wide oceans full of tear later on and that’s life right there, you know? Because that’s what life does to you, it breaks all your dreams right in front of you then mops the floor with them; it shatters your soul and mocks any aspiration for greatness you might have. Me, I want out of this crazy cycle of sorrow and nothingness, I want to fill up nihilism with laughter and I want to punch through its veil of deception like Superman or Jesus Christ bursting through concrete.

…I mean, supposing Jesus could indeed punch through concrete. Can’t be that harder than atomic reconstruction like he did in that bit with the wine, right…?


IV.
I don’t believe in Jesus and people tell me Superman isn’t real either. Fine by me. Everyone we ever get to look up to is in the pages of stuff tucked in the back aisles at the bookstore (which is, tangentially, one of the coolest stuff anyone’s ever told me, that I’m the one guy to head straight for the back aisles at the bookstore…) but I’m thinking this whole world is flawed and somebody’s gotta step up with a flag or three.
Still, where have all those ******* tzaddikim gone to? Thirty-six wise men and not one will step up to redeem us in life?!
Word to the wise: Nature abhors a vacuum so we’ll have to make do with anything that’s available. That said, I’m half-dumb, I’m not really rightful and a lot flawed too and still, if I don’t get to see anybody from the Justice League or the Bible popping up, then man, I’ll just have to make do with myself.

Very honestly now:
I want to be able to step up to you some day in the not-so-distant future and look into your eyes and tell you with all my heart, “Screw all of this, I want a better world”.
So let’s give it our best shot, because baby this one here’s for tomorrow…
Whatever it takes.


V.
All that said… This must be what people really mean when they say no guts, no glory, only nobody ever tells you how to make the butterflies in your stomach don their Kevlar… tri-weaving, twenty layers of it plus all those high-grade ceramic trauma plates…