Long way home

Just like that I find myself in the "working" world. I've arrived at this distant location, hours away from my usual perspective. It seems like nothing has actually changed, since I've always been working. The minute I turned thirteen I found myself trapped in my uncle's dingy kitchen, working phones and counter at a little restaurant in a shitty neighborhood. I experienced my first armed robbery there at the age of three. So fitting I return at thirteen, this time risking my social life. Alas, I've always known steady work and made it habit to hold down at least one if not multiple jobs at once. By now, I get this strange sensation when I don't have imminent work pressing down on me.

I'm still trying to discern the pivotal modification that occurred when I became a citizen of the "working" world, since people keep welcoming me to it like I've never been. Their reactions make me feel like a tourist, a foreigner to this place. Like I should be walking around with that absent starstruck glaze in my eyes while in this region of employer paid health and dental. A fertile place for your 401k to grow strong and healthy. The land of plenty, plenty of retirement benefit options. Just a few details in the smoke, really. These seemingly minor alterations in the fine print of my life make the biggest difference. Man, I finally get that coveted 401k and does it make me feel any different?

In fantasy it always feels different to finally get what you've wanted. In fantasy, the picture pivots around you, the only anchor in fantasy. Building dreams through grains of sand, alterations easily made and without trouble. Suppose that's where the trouble lies, a foundation laid in loose sand holds no ground. So that any direction our will takes, keeps us relatively in one place. The true cornerstone is manufactured in reality, and it's got a decent warranty.

Reluctantly, I must look for better real estate in real life, since the commute from fantasy land to the working world is brutal during rush hour. I have a really cozy little place in fantasy land. It's fully furnished with hard wood floors and an open kitchen. It's perfect for little ole me and it's got those huge floor to ceiling windows I'm absolutely in love with. Still, I think I'm overdue for a change in scenery. This naturalization in the great union of "the working world" has me thinking assimilation is unavoidable.

Old As The Sun But Ageless

Good things come to those who wait. To those who seldom need to ask of others. Good things come in the nick of time and often in disguise. So don't fret my friend, your good thing is in transit and will arrive just when you think it's too late. The idea that something can be too late is a little absurd to me. Perhaps because my concept of time is that of an awesome lemniscate and it is only your false need that make the situation finite. The universe does not set a deadline, does not give you an ultimatum. Time is giving and time is patient. Time will survive your petty desires long enough to make you feel foolish.

It's not often that I will readily think of humans as absolute individuals. You could argue this point and I might even entertain the idea. Still, the more dominate side of me wants to maintain the image of a collective consciousness. Like time, bodies climb the corporeal peak before decay settles and the dissolution of our chemical cogs into availability provide necessary components to allow the rise of new molecules. We'd like to think we are unique but in truth we are composed of nothing but second-hand-gently-used-periodic-elements.

This infinite loop plays like a tape: you are but a speck of debris on a grain of sand, but those things you feel, the thoughts you think - are ever so deep and endless. You'd think no one else in existence could fathom this instance, this personal investment. No one could understand it and this loneliness in the depth of your own emotion makes you feel singular. It becomes another reality. Within myself I can find an eternity to occupy me, which I suppose is complimentary to this insignificant reality.

It's a daily practice to remind myself that I am nothing special, which is just my mechanism to free myself of inherent selfishness. I catch far too many people using their conscious or subconscious feelings as excuses and I will not be among them. My dreams, my love, my sadness, my pain will one day dissolve into the pattern and nothing I have done with this life will survive longer than a few cycles. Inventions in idol minds serves only to extend the links in this ball and chain we all share. How can we reach the surface of true understanding if we're anchored to a sinking ship? So for the transient good of all Earthlings, I suffer for your sake. For there will come a time when I am able to relieve some of that weight from your shoulders so that you may enjoy the remainder of what's in that hour glass.

Little fly,

Thy summer's play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

- William Blake

Songs of experience

"The Fly," Stanzas 1-3

(1795)