The power is more addicting than I could've imagined. I didn't think it would be, and the resistance of it is even harder than I'd like to admit, but so far I'm managing. I seem to have more discipline in empowering and letting what be shall be then the discipline in other parts of my life. It was nice to get off of work before the sun went down today, and I was only a little perturbed in the fact that I didn't have the normal sunglasses in my car like I would on a weekend. The fact of the matter is that I hadn't been out of work when I needed them in so long, I didn't think I needed them.
I can see how easily one could lose sight of the purpose of being where they are. Rapidly and without warning, you're hit with self image and protection of your new found power. The one's underneath of you become a stepping stone to push you further up or at least keep your head above water. You can't allow yourself to think this way, and yet it seems only natural at times to do so. I resist. Hard. None the less, I have already made decisions that wouldn't be comprehensible to a recently past self. My empathy, my sympathy fades and I see myself stepping into the hard shells of predecessors.
It's a battle, and one that perspective has changed in me; allowing one side to grow stronger than it had been previously. I try to verbalize it, but none of it makes any sense to me when I hear it out loud. It might be only something that can be conveyed through the experience that eventually leads to institutionalization. I fear that, and on this current path could reach that. Think 'make sense,' outside the box is a foreign concept. It's not necessarily one that can always be achieved though. The values, the ethics of every individual are so vastly different in the youth of America, and I'm so amazed at how many problems and 18 year old kid can have, one's that I can only imagine their parents were dealing with before.
My world is one that is like none other. It's a young man's game in it's need of arrogance and immortality, yet the responsibilities that these young crusaders undertake is comprensible to the stress levels of some of the top CEO's in our nation. The physical and mental aptitude can sometimes only be conquered with a push for greater and harder achieved things. And alcohol.
I watch the bubbles run from my lip and wonder how I've been able to now compartmentalize my days so well. I don't have a dog or a wife; no real hobbies during the week. I like to be off of work, but similarly miss it when I'm gone. Thinking of the war I left, I hated and loved; I miss it. Headphones coarsing with music while I drink beer or scotch has been a great way to escape my loneliness. I enjoy it at times, and despise it at others. People are unpredictable, and shallow. I hardly relate anymore, and hate myself because of it. I'm reaching what most men do at sixty, or perhaps never come to realize. Life is balance, life is short, life is cliche. We are what we make of things, and those things are what make us. We can choose to set our boundaries and hold firm, never to cross them and hope that they never cross us. We prepare for the future and live in the past. There here and now was then, and you just missed it.
Stepping back from the cliff of reality I get a good view of how close to the edge of understanding I am. I shrink, my lungs gasp for air, and my stomach curls. The likelihood that I'll learn more in the coming years is futile. The age old question enters the mind, and I wouldn't have a clue how to answer it, or know someone who could. It's these things you dismiss if you ever want to feel like the center of the universe, and sometimes that exactly where we want to be. I ignore it this time; there's not enough scotch left in the bottle to unlock the door to that answer in my mind.
I'm lost and found. I'm inside and outside. I'm open and closed. I am who I think I'm not, I am. That's what I say, but most people just say 'confused.'
... so lonely in my own company...
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