January 25, 2012

  • Coda

    Greetings!

    I know that all of you are waiting for the second part to my quantum physics and dating personalities, but I have put that on hold for a bit.

    I just wanted to relay this particular experience the other day while I was walking back home from work.  It was a darkening night, with clouds, but not entirely blanketing the sky.  You could still see levels of blue that shaded toward indigo lower on the horizon.  People were still out, making their own ways home, and the from time to time I heard the rattling of wheels on the CTA and the rumble of the bus as it took off.  I was listening to a song by Slide Show Baby called "Outro."  It's the very last song on the self titled album.

    As I walked home, I thought about my life in general.  I must admit that this was precipitated by a recent conversation I had over lunch, but that night, I had that "oceanic" feeling of peace wash over me as I walked home to the music.  It was a divine moment where I took in all that was going around with unusual detail, as if I was looking at the world from a 3rd person's first person view.  It was the curious sensation that I was watching myself, kinda like John Malkovich.  The music was magical.  It just fit with everything that was going around me.  The people walking by, the cars zooming past, the wind blowing past in various speeds.....the street lights as the glow yellow-orange in overhead in rows against the sky.  Surreal.

    The song has a 3/4 pattern, but I found myself walking in regular step.  Now, you music folks will know that walking in 3/4 is awkward.  You can't fit a 3/4 pattern well with a two-step, but if you stretch it to a 6/8, you can do a 3 on 2 that works.  It was exactly like playing Fantaisie-Impromptu by Chopin.  Well, perhaps it didn't work quite like that, but I found myself walking as I would normally walk, at a somewhat brisk pace.   

    What was going on in my mind?  Well.  I kept thinking that I'll never get everything I want in life, and it's not as if there is some quantifiable goal, thing, or number that once possessed will make me feel complete.  There will always be more.  There will always be things which I cannot have no matter how much I want it....be it a career, fitness, intelligence, or even love.  The key for me is not to get bogged down with the disappointment of not reaching any of those "goals."  In fact, some may have to be given up so that other possibilities may arise.  Does this mean that I will give up on fitness in favor or intelligence?  A career over love?  It might come to that, but I tend to think in parallel for my whole self rather than serial when it comes to overarching categories.  Career, fitness, intelligence and love are all separate from each other.  Within the category though is a serial progression.  As examples: I've had a serial progression in careers, and for those that have been more experienced in relationships than I, a serial progression of significant others.  Since it is a progression I am talking about here, decisions are made where one thing is given up in favor of another.  

    I find myself in a quandary over all these parallel circuits because each must undergo significant change in the coming year. 

    Why worry about these things you may be asking me?  Perhaps it's because I've reached a certain age, but my life is certainly different than I thought it would be.  Who knows, perhaps for the better?  To quote from the move The Rookie (with Dennis Quaid):  There are some things in life that you want to do, but then there are things in life that you were meant to do."  I sometimes wonder if I'm doing doing what I'm meant to be doing.  All that balancing of circuits with the finite amount of energy that I have must result in an ordered life right?  Or is life just pure chaos determined by random chance?  At this point I think that despite chance encounter, I derive meaning from it.  Moreover, I choose to direct my life through chance.  I work with what is presented in front of me.

    A bus zoomed past as the song ended, and it was fitting that I didn't get on it.  There have been many buses in life that I haven't gotten on, and many that I've had to exit prematurely.  In the end though, I still have myself with the buses that I have taken.  Why get hung up on the buses that I've missed?  In this case, life is the journey, not the stops along the way.

    Currently
    Slide Show Baby
    By Slide Show Baby
    "Outro"
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