The processes that comprise my resurrection are slow-acting. My mental voice retains the sluggish intensity of a pre-infant whisper. I open my eyes and suddenly I am awake to a world of endless responsibility, but I cannot attach myself to it. Not yet. The chemicals in my body aren’t flowing fast enough yet. My entire existence hangs on the balance of retrieving my gumption from the farthest reaches of oblivion. Feebly, I realize this struggle cannot go on in this manner, so I painfully push myself to get out of bed and take my struggle to the shower. It is the struggle to become fully awake and I have fought it every day for many years.
The steamy water does not succeed in blasting my eyes comfortably open. They’re still painful slits as I dry off and put my clothes on. My mental voice gains confidence, but it is a bitter confidence. A resigned confidence. The Sun is not up yet, but it will be, and so must I. That is where my confidence ends. It seems so little ground in comparison to it’s lofty goals of becoming the Josef Green that my friends and family love the most. But it is ground I’ve gained, and I methodically accept it and continue forward.
Despair makes itself cozy. Despair is everywhere my confidence is not and as I push my breakfast around in my tray it makes use of its mirthless cackle. I ignore it. I’m trying to gain my momentum now. I show up to work, not ready, unenthusiastic, but there. My actions must endure when everything else in me fails. I’m rolling my boulder up my hill. Hours go by and I’m still struggling with my boulder. But my voice is louder now. Its edges are defined. It is a little more interactive in my surroundings. When I’m being spoken to, I’m no longer pulling levers and throwing switches in the most detached responses imaginable. Not as much at any rate. I’m fighting for my speech to be me talking to you and not just myself standing by and casually watching me perfunctorily respond to you, them, or whomever.
I fight to connect and submerge myself into my life. I am doing all I can to plug into the story that is exclusively my own. And then, after many imperceptible victories over despair and most of the 12 hour work day, I reach my mountaintop. My voice is the nuclear fusion of the Sun. And with that voice, comes a need. This need has been with me ever since I first learned how to read. It was the motivation that drove my ridiculous scientific disasters as a youngster, had me trying to run for class president at an elementary school I had attended for only a month, and had me trying to convince my high school friends to sell plasma so we could raise enough money to attend DEFCON in Las Vegas.
This need is driven by a fear. I am sure this fear wasn’t the root cause of the need, but as surely as I sit here typing, that single fear has developed. Subsequently I am driven to use the most accessible tools at my disposal to describe it. A rule we all learned in elementary school was that it isn’t adequate to define a word while using it in its definition. You can use the word in a sentence to derive its connotations and meaning, but in a simple definition, you must use completely different words. What about ideas about which it is impossible to convey their full gravity by using words alone at all? I would that my life becomes a legacy that defined an idea that could otherwise not be conveyed. I would that I base my life on truth, and not confuse opinions with truth. But what I fear most in this life is reaching my death bed having actively engaged in this world to the extent of a mere ripple. I have my voice back. I am awake. I am alive. The ocean and I are alike in our perpetual motion. I will be a tsunami. My raison d’être becomes my journey towards maximizing my life’s affect on the world. Anything less is not enough.
Of course, I am not a tsunami. I am not an indomitable force of nature. I am not Batman. I am a human. I make mistakes. Some of my actions affect others in ways I will never know. Not all those ways will be good. This is the fact of life; that action and reaction is chaotic because each of us can only control and be aware of so much in our surroundings. Many turn to religion for guidance and for wellness. Knowing that there’s someone out there who has everything in control would be a great feeling because I know that I certainly don’t. But it is not a truth. It is an opinion-based perception that is made tangible ONLY by faith. In no way is it made tangible by reality.
With this knowledge I choose to be free of the guidance as well as the opinion-based perception. I cannot accept the opinion-based perception, and when it comes down to religion, it really is all or nothing. But for so long I had this idea that perhaps there was a subconscious part of me that was in touch with my road on a deeper level. I felt as if I could never regret any of my actions. That perhaps having an awesome life of a man of action would come effortlessly to me. I became too proud in what I was good at and forgot just how imperfect I am. My friends back in Tucson loved the Joe Green that was imperfect, who was always talking about being a ninja, who had horrible pick up lines. But in every aspect that could be observed, I was more imperfect than any of them. Even now, they are better people than me. I am loud about my good intentions, but they are doing more with their lives. For me to achieve my dreams, more effort is required of me. It is time I accept that.
Upon accepting this, I realize I need a code. Without a code I’m going to end up as another statistic, continuing cycles of suffering. I would rather end my life this instant than to live with the fact that I continue cycles of suffering. I need to deliberately choose my behavioral vectors. I need to think through, in detail, my own road, to create the schema of guidance that is suited to my responsibilities as well as my mental and spiritual needs. Spiritually speaking, I must pursue my legacy. Responsibility-wise, I must work in ways that maximize production and results. A world merely comprised of starving artists and hipsters is not substantial enough. I need to give back to the world. I need to find opportunities for activism and develop my will towards leadership. I need to earn for myself and my family. I need to supply the passion and stability for Jennifer, my son, and I to be a smooth and loving unit- truly a Ka-Tet. I need to become both an intellectual and a man of action (if there is a difference between the two. I’m not entirely sure there is…) in every aspect of who I am. I need to create in myself a bulwark against my old foe, despair. And finally, I need to never disclose that code I create. It will be for me and me alone.
With this need comes awareness. The sanctity of life is at stake in the Gaza Strip. In Lebanon. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In Libya. In Darfur. In Somalia. In China. In Portugal. In Japan. In Indonesia. In North Korea. In the Indian Ocean. In Brazil. In Egypt. In Bahrain. In the countless women and children being trafficked across the globe. On the Ivory Coast. In America. Just as I can see through the outrageous propaganda the Tulsa Public School System is putting out to make their School consolidation sound like anything other than a desperate move to cut funding on education in the area, I can see through the Republican and Tea Party masquerades, through their explicit demands and their implicit power plays. There is too much politics in American Politics-across the board- and not rational, educated calculation. On so many levels, in so many ways, this world needs concise, inspiring action. And I know that as one person I can only do so much, so I look to the peers of my country, America, I look at all the young and able bodies full of vitality and potential, and see…
People arguing over the simplest things. People watching Jersey Shore on TV. People concerned about no more than their favorite fashion, sports team, bands, or political flavor. People looking at all our problems and saying, “It’s out of our hands! God will provide!” Or they spew out conspiracy theories and over a few beers complain about how powerless they are and how little their needs are met by what is supposed to be the greatest and most democratic, “For the People” country in the World. If they even get that far.
Chuck Palahniuk had it right:
“The sound shivers through the walls, through the table, through the window frame, and into my finger. These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics. Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed… and this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
Mental baby food. That’s all we have appetites for, generally. It isn’t enough for me.
Because I am awake. I am making my code. I am imperfect, but I can see the world as it could be in my dreams. I can remember the dreams of my youth. I aim to do something about it.
But my nuclear fusion is too bright when night approaches. I push myself to the raggedy edge of my limits at the weight room to experience the euphoric high of physical exhaustion. I take a shower before slowly, awkwardly, climbing into my rack and closing my eyes. Then I spend hours just laying there, my thoughts too loud for me to sleep. If I’ve picked up a particularly good book, like that Harry Dresden novel I was reading last month, I’ll lay there, deliberately, desperately, lapping up the words. Desperately defiant of the time ticking away. In moments like those I have to make myself truly appreciate the pleasure of well-written words, of the escalating excitement of the storyline. I pause frequently to tell myself that it will be worth being extra exhausted in the morning, because there’s nothing I will be looking forward to this morning than another Monday, in a half a year full of Mondays, and my struggle just to once again wake up.
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