February 5th, 2009 by Hoopleton

We live these lives that we never chose hoping to see the reason why we play our parts at all. To make sense of why things happen to us, or why we do the things we do. The most important decisions seem to be made for us before we’re even born. Our families, our countries, our cultures and faiths. I did not choose my appearance. I never had a say in the language I would speak. And once we’re set free into the world we run around like bulls in a china shop, trying so desperately not to disturb the plates.

I often wonder what kind of person I am. If Heaven exists will the scales of Gabriel tilt in my favor, or will I be damned for the sins I’ve committed? Will I be shamed for my mistakes? Or does salvation exist? Does redemption? Is it possible to hit reset?

A few years ago I stood on the balcony of the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar in the dead of night. Despite it being early January the air was warm. In the distance were the lights of supertankers bound for North America, most likely traveling from the Persian Gulf. I looked down into the mass of swirling water, a mixture of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, crashing against the rocks two stories below. I remember that for an instant of a second I considered jumping.

It wasn’t suicide I was contemplating. I was just overwhelmed by the idea of escaping into another life. Of falling off the face of the Earth. Of hitting the reset button. Of being reborn. If God, or destiny or my own choices had led me here, wasn’t it possible to take control of my own fate? Wasn’t it possible to become the man that I wanted to be?

Philosophers and artists, saints and prophets alike have struggled with the meaning of this life as I have. As we have. And in all their musings, in all their attempts to unravel what is essentially the meaning of existence the furthest they’ve ever gotten was a cold resignation that the moment is the only thing we can ever truly possess. It’s a nice thought. It’s a sad thought. Ultimately I can’t accept that it’s enough.

Maybe the answer isn’t to try and hold this life together before it shakes itself apart. Maybe the answer isn’t to hold onto every fleeting moment till it becomes the sum of who we are. Maybe the point is to find enough courage to leave the safety of what we know behind.

I don’t accept my flaws. I don’t want them anymore. I don’t accept the limits of my life. I can do without them. What I want, what I truly want is the kind of promise that only the western horizon could ever possibly provide.

February 2nd, 2009 by Hoopleton

Feeling kind of wired last night I spent the better part of the early morning tossing and turning in bed until I finally managed to pass out around six in the morning. You can therefore understand my consternation when there was a sudden frantic pounding at my door just an hour later.

Half naked, and barely able to get my eyes open I stumbled to my door and found a desperate looking man shouting over the wail of a dozen smoke alarms, “Do you have any water?!”

I frowned.

Had I been teleported to the Sahara desert? Did the world’s oceans suddenly dry up? Was I in fact on fire but simply didn’t know it? Was I just having a very vivid dream?

As I eyed the baseball bat I have propped up against the wall near my front door for situations just as this, he added quickly, “There’s a fire upstairs!”

I frowned again.

“Do you have any water?!” He shouted.

Not being a member of the fire brigade and not having the slightest desire to remind him that there were fire extinguishers on every floor, I slammed the door and climbed back into bed. It wasn’t a lack of self-preservation that made me so indifferent. It was actually the voice of my building manager screaming, “You tossed your cigarette into a plastic fern?!”

On the one hand the guy “tossed” a lit cigarette into a plastic fern. Secondly, he apparently owns a plastic fern. Thirdly, instead of putting out the fire himself with one of the handy extinguishers, he decided to run around the entire building asking tenants if they had any water thus advertising his stupidity to everyone. Evolution dictates that this man should probably be allowed to die, or at the very least, that his apartment should be allowed to burn.

Any hope of getting sleep was quickly dashed, however, when five minutes later the fire department showed up and most of my neighbors who hadn’t gone to work yet had congregated in the hallway to hack and cough as smoke began to fill the building. For another twenty minutes I lay staring at the ceiling as I listened to a man I assumed was the fire chief yelling for people to go back into their apartments unless told to evacuate.

Finally, after the smoke alarms stopped screeching and the commotion in the hallway had died away I rolled over in bed happy at the prospect of at least a few minutes of desperately needed sleep. And then my alarm clock went off.

I was pissed.

I’m a big believer in the idea that all human beings are born with a certain amount of potential. That life is precious. That despite our many flaws we have a right to breathe, eat and procreate. However, as I sat on the train this morning, nearly dozing, thinking about the events at my apartment building, and as I watched a fairly large woman struggle to ascertain why the sandwich in her hand, still covered in plastic wrap, tasted kinda funny, I began to wonder if perhaps I’ve been too liberal in my attitudes toward the sanctity of all life. I wonder if this is how Stalin got started?

People make bad decisions all the time. Invading Russia, not accepting Hitler into Art School, selling mortgages to poor people with bad credit, producing Christina Aguilera albums, but at what point do you go from making a regrettable mistake to being the mistake?

I really hope I get some sleep tonight.