Thursday, July 21, 2016

Mid morning, July 21st, the glass is half full.

After dipping into a low hum all of yesterday; with such things as comfort food, inspiring music and a long walk not quite shaking my inexplicable melancholy, I woke up this morning all pumped and ready for a full work day. 

There's an interesting phenomenon I experience when I fall asleep, stewing in my own sweat after the power is cut. Perhaps the silence; perhaps the heat -- Or both. 

My subconscious seems to prioritize in vivid detail my greatest fears and most potent aspirations; spinning them together into yarns so visceral, the memory of those dreams linger well into the next morning. 

So I was motivated by a thought I couldn't even remember; but feelings I could almost taste. 
'Got up and started work bright and early, mug of tea in hand (It should have been coffee but I need to restock my supplies. Because this other brew just wouldn't do).

I started rendering out one thing, begun putting finishing touches to another, my desktop was festooned with virtual post-Its.

All was well with the world until about 7:15am, when the power suddenly cut.  

...Plot twist. 

And there wasn't even a drop of Lipton left in my mug for a forced sense of irony. 

Just the lingering pulse of energy suddenly made impotent, with nothing to do but blink stupidly at my empty screen as the CPU hum slowed and went silent.

After mentally pulling a handful of my hair out, and silently throwing a few choice expletives into the ethos, I sighed, sat back in my swivel chair and consciously avoided my knee jerk reaction to see my situation as indicative of all the nation's problems. 

Instead, I rolled a more Romantic idea over in my head. This was all an adventure.

After being audience to a staccato of political faffing about, endemic issues from service providers, after experiencing professional false starts and disappointment that would make stronger hearts despair and flee for apparent greener pastures, if one decides instead to stay; slug it out here, without compromise of ones character (A  thing that seldom survives the mill of the business world). If one somehow manages to succeed in this endeavor, that would be one for the books. 

It's not like this is the worst place ever. Far from it. But it is sort of like wanting to go to the moon right after having this one rickety jalopy you've driven for the past 10years croak one last time and give up on you. Your perspective makes the notion of inter-planetary travel appear entirely ludicrous. 

But if you don't resign yourself to the cards dealt but instead somehow manage, against all odds, to succeed in building that rocket, I believe there's an education for countless would-be astronauts currently with little more than a driver's license or a Kuffuor bus ticket, 

There's not just a pot of gold at the end of the heavy rain-drawn rainbow; there's posterity in a story well-wrought, and a story well told. 

For today, this thought is good enough for me.