Space Monkeys

*** Warning, Warning ... This is a positive post! ***

I was able to do something I've always enjoyed but really haven't had the opportunity to indulge in lately. I finished two books in two days. Ahh, the rush of a good book, how I missed thee. Slowly I enter the world I used to know: casual reading. No more taking notes, learning terms, worrying that each miniscule detail will haunt me later on a midterm or final.

But nonetheless...This isn't what this entry is about.

As I was mowing lawn, I took the opportunity to reflect on the uneasy feeling I have been immersed in. It came down to being disappointed that I had to settle into the "rest of my life" and I was frustrated because I wasn't where I wanted to be at this point. (then a light bulb clicked on saying that i didn't have to! 22! This isn't a stagnent part of my life)

Athletes, actors ... Famous people ... say they always knew they were destined for greatness. I never knew that, quite the opposite. I knew that if I was to have anything at all, I needed to work and fight for it. And it this point ... I lost the will to fight.

I don't know how it happened, I settled into a mindset that circumstances commanded this was all I got. I had no control.

I had no further goals, no ambitions. What was the point? This was it.

It was best materialized and visable when I was looking at magazines sadly--checking out the "managing your time," "asking for the raise," "health issues you should know." No fun stuff. Then I was watching kids at our golf event, they were so cute and having such simple fun. And I couldn't relate. I couldn't remember how to feel that way. That realization gave me such pangs. I never wanted to lose the childish spirit.

Mowing lawn, it came to me.

I lost focus--the problem wasn't that I was stuck and there weren't any goals or opportunities left for me. I was creating my own anguish. I was so worried about all of the stuff I didn't have and couldn't control. I questioned every decision I made and beat myself up for every wasted moment. I lost focus, I lost my path to greatness.

The dangerous part of the daily grind is that numbing lull in the path. It distracts you from yourself, hides your path even though you are steps away from it. It kept me unsettled. Distracted me so I couldn't find a routine that would give stability as I continued my journey.

My chest tightened. I can't recall many times before that I felt evil so close.

This is either lofty thinking or totally unoriginal. But it is real to me.

I read Fight Club yesterday--maybe that's why it clicked. Last year, I watched the movie with my mom. After declaring it was fucked up, I told her how much I could relate. She looked worried.

There are many truths there though.

You always here about near death experiences (near life in the book) and how it wakes people up from the droning hell of their life--but the point of a near LIFE experience is to shake the drone by actually living--a quaint concept, really.

Sometimes their realizations scare me with the statement of greatness and all...But when you're asked what you want to be when you grow up, its something larger than life ... And from grade school on it's just one big reality crashing disappointment.

But what it comes done to is being true to yourself, staying on the path, controlling your destiny. Not sitting back, internalizing the condeming lull, letting Tyler Durden take control. I was letting my internal Tyler tell me I was a space monkey, shot out to do the bidding of the Gods who didn't care about my safe return.

I am NOT a space monkey! And I kicked my Tyler out, I'm sure he found a nice comfy corner in the back of my mind to settle in for a day when i'm feeling low. But he's not going to be popping up making soap right now.


...

"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything."


"We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact."


"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a revolution against culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression."

...

all from mowing the lawn.