Where do I start?
August 21, 2006
The only way I know how to share at this point is to be really, really vague.
So what do you do when you find out that everything you thought you knew about yourself and life is wrong? Or if not wrong, at least misunderstood? Glossed over, rushed by, mostly missed? That your brain doesn’t work like it’s supposed to? That your personal set of laws, your personal laws of physics, gravity, and reason, are based on false precepts? What if you’re all the way to 30 by the time you figure it out? And school is over, and wasted, and you’ve few options, and those who are willing to help you might have the same insiduous operating malfunction? And you’re weary, and frustrated, and full of anger and despair? And you can tell that despite those feelings, you’re going to have to work harder to ever, through totally uncharted territory, to get it right?
Like the whole time you’ve been thinking you’re playing one game, when actually everyone else is playing another, and you’ve been killing yourself just to keep up, and you’re in danger if you don’t figure out the real rules right quick.
C- commented
on August 22, 2006 2:03 pm
But that’s not really vague at all - it all makes perfect, perfect sense - if a somewhat abstract sense. Out of all of that frustration, anger, despair, drive, forward impetus to achieve, to master the rules that constrain you and exert force on you, you finally reach the epiphany, the realization that things are wrong, all wrong, and you have a good idea what would be right but - Jeebus! - how to correct things; it is a relatively calm and rational realization - the instant a rocket hangs motionless at the apex of its trajectory before weight returns, gravity fixes its grip, gives a tug and it plummets back towards a world that suddenly looks much different than the one it left - and there’s a lot of friction going back down… I’m not sure how it turns out, but it’s such a draining struggle, trying to alter your course when the only way you can see it going is straight down - and there are so many ways to try, too - do you claw and fight towards something that seems real? Do you try to muster discipline and will yourself to that place? Do you begin to drink heavily and watch a lot of daytime television? I don’t know - but you’re still young enough that nothing is truly wasted yet, y’know? Still, I appreciate the sense of urgency all too much… And who knows, really, how similar any two human experiences really are…