Tuesday

Twenty

The Sheik gets it, even if no one else does. The drama, the pathos, the quest. This, this whole fucking out of control, pointless, frustrating thing, I love it. It’s perfect. It’s too much drama and too much emotion and too much action and too much sorrow and too much joy. It’s all about being too much. It’s about finding the edge of limits, about finding that elusive internal fire.

The quest, man. Is there anything else that we want? To go and go and push and strive and brace ourselves against the worst things that could possibly come our way. Prepared to fight, die, kill, to run and jump and scream across the wilderness, to climb over walls and swim moats, to fling ourselves over cliffs, draw our weapons in the face of overwhelming odds, to feel our blood boil and our voices rise. Everything we got promised by Star Wars and Spiderman comics, everything we hoped for when we were pretending to be the team from S.W.A.T., the crew of the Battlestar Galactica. Every time we were brave GI’s storming across an open field to rescue our POW friends, every time we were jungle explorers, private eyes, pirates, cavemen, rock stars and the six million dollar man.

All that they gave us as children, all those dreams that rose up over the mundanity of the world, that made us think that we could be famous and important and brave and strong and essential. That allowed to ignore how miserable our parents were and maintain blissful ignorance of the trudging, slogging adults that hemmed us in at every side. The visions and hallucinations that kids are allowed to have, that are slowly peeled away by every timecard punch and hour in line at the DMV, drowned out by standardized tests, psychotherapy, by the 40-hour workweek and rush hour commuting.

We don’t get to imagine once we’re adults. Oh, sure, we have desires, have our fantasies, but we only dream of what’s possible. Minds filled with giant houses and wide green lawns, fast new cars, dream jobs with full dental and a 25% raise, spending our lives thinking about buying Jaguars and getting laid by the new redhead in the secretarial pool. We’re not allowed to dream about spaceships to Venus and submarines shaped like octopuses. We’re laughed at if we spend too much time imagining that we can fly, if we like to make believe that we’re wizards brewing up potions in the tallest tower of the biggest castle ever built. We can’t spend an afternoon in the woods building a clubhouse out of scrap boards and old shingles. We can’t wish to be heroes dashing across rooftops on our way to delivering jaw-shattering right hooks to purse snatchers. We can’t spend our oh-so-precious time wishing for things that can’t happen. We’re watching the clock and waiting to die and demanding of ourselves to hope only for those things that we can buy or fuck or consume. We’re forced to take the world and narrow it down to only those few things we can lay our hands on, to only accept those things that we can point to, that can be measured and laid out and examined. As children, we’re given everything. As adults, we have to fight for every scrap of food, every stitch of clothing, every gallon of gas. Dreams are cheap; you don’t have to fight to have them. In the world of the measured and examined, they’re utterly worthless and absolutely disposable. Laughable. Pointless.

The Sheik, he gets it. It’s all about dreaming, about desire and wish and hope. It’s all about throwing yourself into the void, trusting that you can handle whatever comes. It’s about your fantasies being as worthwhile as your reality. It’s about knowing there’s things that haven’t been laid out and measured and examined, and knowing that you’re just the guy to go find them.

Jesus. Starting to sound just like the motherfucker.

Out.

2 Comments:

Blogger The Mutant said...

Okay, so its taken me a while to get around to actually viewing your blog, but I have to say, I'm impressed your brand awareness and endorsement is impressive but somehow I don't think Honda, Hummer or Nokia are going to set you up for life, even with there respective mentions.

Meanwhile I'm am actually fairly impressed with your ability as a writer. To begin with I was never actually bored, and while I haven't read the whole thing I get the feeling I'll be likely to return.

Keep up the amazing effort mate

6:07 PM  
Blogger billyhank said...

I'm so happy I could just pee all over my shoes.

Thanks, brother.

Do I know you?

11:27 PM  

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