Risk

Nothing is set in stone, nor moving unilaterally toward whatever mangled interrelationship I might be capable of. But I feel both comfortable and challenged . . .there was this sensation for just a moment last night . . .

My boss and close friend out here in the mountains has gradually come to the revelation that this thing we call American society is on the brink; and without a radical revision to the way we conduct virtually every aspect of our lives we will soon either adapt or die in a new world we've been ill-prepared for. And to watch him come to this conclusion, one that has lived in my ribcage for years now, is to watch the assumptions of a lifetime dissolve. What about my mortgage and my new house? What about this job that I have slaved away at for decades? What about these objects that I own, that enhance my life? What about democracy? What about the faith in mankind that I've held close to my heart since childhood? It is not that these things are completely cast to the ether, but the understanding that they are little more than illusory has sunk in.


I've held massive contradictions in my life, and still do. I don't mean overt hypocrisies or mis-matches between word and deed. But I've followed uncooperative trajectories, divergent career paths that make my spine creak; currently striving to be both warrior and poet; been the most reliable and capable and yet simultaneously the most drug-addled and rebellious; been the rowdiest introvert and the most reserved party-host; been richer than anyone I know while sleeping on the floor and letting wolf spiders crawl over me; been absolutely broke drinking champagne as though the entire city were my kingdom; retrieved my car from impound in the nick of time to ace university exams . . . the rewards of all of this that I now have an epic to look back upon, and the evidence required to believe that anything is possible.