Bad Things
You know last night some craziness happened to me. I won't go into detail about what it was but I think that craziness happens to everyone. Everyone goes through absolutle horrible times and despair. Well at least people who don't wipe their ass with satin do. And I'm not talking about the death of a loved one, or losing your job, these things happen to everyone and people move on. I'm talking about the moment where your ass in the dirt and you can either get up and dust it off or you can lay there and cry. Moments like someone has cancer, your dad is in a mental ward, the house blew up and the dog got impaled on the neighbors fence. These eccentric awful things happen to everyone and everyone's family maybe once or twice in your life. So what makes some people carry on, and what makes some people fold and crumble into pity and depression, personally I think it has a lot to do with running sprints until you puke, cheating on tests, and drinking at a young age (pardon the humor).
I think if you've ever wanted to do something so much in your life that you were willing to run until you puke, then you can overcome almost any obstacle. If you just played a Junior Varisty sport and the coach pounded your head into the ground everyday and made you respect something pointless and trite and love something that was otherwise unlovable by others that you saw everyday then you start understand something about secular strength. You start to realize what you are made of and what sacrifice is. You start to contemplate that life sucks and that there are bad things that are going to happen to you. You learn that you don't get what you want and sometimes you have to work entirely too hard to even get a little taste of something great. These are the things I learned on the baseball field throughout years of pain, sweat, tears, and absolute wonderful joy. You learn that life isn't fair and that sometimes you can work your ass off and still fail, but you get back up and you run some more because you know you want to drink from the fountain of joy that is so rare but so worth it. You run until you puke and you get stronger every time. That strength of knowing what it feels like to run and run and run not get there, run some more, and finally get there, will keep me moving.
Cheating on tests can get you through most situations as well. Now I myself was a great cheater, I had ways of cheating people hadn't even thought of. I had the whole game down to a science of psychology and timing rather than luck and desperation. I learned to analyze moments and oppurtunities and holes in the system rather than my text book on physics. I made bold moves and quiet moves, I hacked computers and I swindled elederly professors. I learned how to network with fellow cheaters to bully the weak into giving me answers and then manipulating them to do other things. This gave me strength in some weird way. This gave me the ability to feed off of people and to constantly stay sharp in my persuit for survival. Now, ultimately this mentality of cheating fades away as you move into the working world but the lessons you learn and the talent you cultivated never does. You can still manipulate and stay sharp by reading the angles and playing the system to the edges and finding holes here and crannies there to hide and squat and wait to take advantage of the next nerd with too many books in his hand. The ability to stay sharp and read people are tools that I am currently using to ovecome this craziness.
Drinking at an ealry age is the third component that I feed off of. If you drink at an early age you obviouosly have a social life. You may have gone to a big college or had a local hang out in the woods and a mom who didn't have a lock on her liquor cabinet. The point is you were social and you had people to hang around with who also wanted to join in the taboo act of drinking before you were 21. You make bonds with people that you may have never bonded with before. You learn little things about yourself and have stories that can last for years to come that can be exchanged at yearly or semi-yearly get togethers. This stregthens ties and makes lasting friendships, much like sports (or for you ninnies out there...clubs or whatever you kids did). This web of interaction and friendship, all-be-it often fringe, farsicle and rather flimsy, is still a nice safe house when things really do hit the fan. If I hadn't started drinking at an early age and partied my youth away I wouldn't know half the people I know today. And the great thing is, as you get older, and if you fraternized with relatively adjusted normal people, the drinking and partying goes away and you start to just enjoy each other's company over crappy things like golf or cards. But, the important thing is that "early age drinking" made me social and hence gave me a network of friends that I can call upon when bad things happen.
These are my three pillars of life. This explains why my house is always tilting...hahahahaha...a house on three pillars...how absurd Holmes...(say it in a really deep English accent now)....how absurd Holmes....
