It’s been just about a month since my last post, and my how things have changed yet stayed the same. In fact, the only thing that has really changed is me. To be more precise, the more idealistic view I’ve had of the world has changed. I’ve always known there was, for lack of a better term, evil in the world – greed, lust, malice, all that seven deadly sin business wrapped up in a 6-billion strong human antpile. But part of me also believed strongly in a code that all people shared, a kind of honor among thieves. That if you treat people the way you want to be treated, you’ll get that in return, that you can trust those closest to you to be honest as long as you are in turn honest with them. And after many years of fighting it, I’ve come to the realization that dreams are nice, but sometimes you have to live in reality.
I’ve finally burned through all the anger and rage to be left with the cold hard reality that when it comes down to it, people are out for number one first, foremost, and everytime. People go to the polls on election day and most of them either choose the letter next to the candidate’s name that their parents have always chosen, or just flip a coin. Then they pretend to be upset when things don’t change. And I don’t speak from a position of higher authority – I’m guilty of it too. When you wait patiently for something positive to come your way, all you end up doing is waiting. You start to live the joke where you tell the doctor “It hurts when I do this”. Bashing your head into the wall still hurts when you do it, regardless if you do it over and over, or wait a while between crashes. You allow yourself to be trapped into a never-ending cycle of repeating the same mistakes.
The oddest feeling is to be both ignorant and enlightened at the same time – to make a mistake all the while knowing you’re making the mistake, yet continuing anyway through the force of momentum or just plain foolishness. The biggest mistake, of course, was to assume that I was the only one going through this. I’ve been wrapped up in my own issues that I’ve never fully realized that everyone is just as screwed up as I am. We’re all just stumbling through the dark looking for the light. Sometimes, we find someone we can stumble with that makes the journey a bit more bearable. Sometimes we just find them for a short period of time and move on. And as I can attest to, sometimes you just walk the road alone with nothing but your own thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears to guide you.
So, gentle reader, what does this mean for your favorite protagonist? I think I’m going to listen to words of Bob Dylan and put my useless guns in the ground. I’m going to stop expecting people to appeal to their better natures and just accept that they’re just as fucked up as I am. I’m going to stop chasing after impossible dreams and, for once, let them try to catch me instead. This Don Quixote is going to stop tilting at windmills, hang up the white knight armor, and stop trying to fix everything. I’m no longer going to assume that there’s a deeper hidden meaning in the actions of people around me – for good or bad. What it means is that I’m just going to accept that things aren’t working, carve out a little bit of happiness for myself, and just try to enjoy life. You know, just like everyone else.
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