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Michael considered fate at 01:51   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

i have been kind of bummed out lately. i haven't sorted it all out yet. lots of ins and outs. it is lonely, and lately i have been plagued by feelings that this is kind of a waste of time in the grand scheme of things. probably just in a funk that will pass, because if not this, what else would i be doing? there's the 64 000 question, and there is no answer. so, in the end, this is probably just as good as anything else. man. i also have this horrible guilty feeling, and i have sorted it out today as probably due, simply, to my shortcomings as a person. specfically, i dither and ponder and wonder about shit like this (oh no...is it the right job...oh no...i have a crush on a boy), and 99 percent of the world has infinitely worse problems than me. so, in a way i wish i was more compassionate, but also know deep down that selfish is the only way to be, but maybe only because it is the only way i CAN be because i can't be bothered to change. hence the guilt.

what to do? probably nothing. we are a privileged sort of subgeneration with no guidelines...there is no pressure to settle down, get married, have a job...

This and other experiences today have lead me, as well, into a bit of a funk but it's a clean clear funk that I swim in. This is nothing like last year where I was truly hateful at the world, at everything, especially myself. This is a silly chuckling funk that sees the humour in things, and appreciates a good bit of irony. Am I more now than I was then? No.. perhaps? How much is pure visceral experience worth, even if it gets you nowhere? Certainly, a bungie-jump off of a cliff for one who is afraid of heights might be quite cathartic, but does walking down the street gain me any.. well.. street cred? Do I get any points for just being around? Or, do I need to be knocking on doors, surveying the public, getting the info, learning what it's all about? Doesn't Fox News cover that part for me? I jest. I joke.

When things are looking up - when the funks are clean and clear - then I know it ain't all bad. It's when those funks are deep and dark that really fucks things up. It's a constant battle to keep them on the up and up, maintain a rock bottom that is scrubbed clean of the muck and mire, so that when you descend down to such depths it's not as bad as you thought it could be. Like keeping your room picked up. Mental house cleaning. I know it's not spring but I gotta do these things constantly in order to even think I might have a chance to keep up and if I don't, well.. if I don't.. it just gets ugly.

Life, though, has a way of living itself when you're not paying attention. The experiences do start to pile up - even if you don't notice them flowing by your window-eyes - and eventually, even if they're all just a bunch of short films of a guy walking down the street, well, you've at least seen all there is to see of a guy walking down the street. A guy walking down the street stone-cold sober at 8am on his first day of work, a guy walking down the street stumbling-mad drunk after a break up, a guy walking down the street screaming happiness at the world after his red sox won the world series after 86 years of the curse, a guy walking down the street quietly smiling at his summa cum laude degree, a guy walking down the street with a bounce in his step because some girl asked him for his phone number, a guy walking down the street morosely berating the cops, the politicians, the bureaucracy of it all, a guy walking down the street grinning ear to ear with a winning lottery ticket in his hand. These experiences, trivial perhaps as individual instances, but as a whole they add up and eventually you start to see what's possible. And what's not. And more importantly what's really worth worrying about. And about what's not.

And life, the more of it I see, the more of it becomes easier to handle, easier to take. It's not because I think I'm becoming used to, it's because I'm starting to appreciate it.