"Time is the essence
Time is the season
Time ain't no reason
Got no time to slow
Time everlasting
Time to play besides
Time ain't on my side
Time I'll never know"
Blue Öyster Cult, "Burnin' for You"
Program Notes
Because of my rather disastrous burnout my season is now over. October isn't even over and I'm already taking time off before base building for track. My coach told me to do something that I had always wanted to do, but never could because of my training. I am taking this opportunity to venture into the wide world of insomnia, because it has always been something that I wanted to experience. Here are my observations, in all of their late night/early morning glory.
Space time is not something that I fear anymore. If sleep is not important, then I have more time to do things. This gives me a theoretical eight extra hours. I look at the clock, I laugh at the clock. I am laughing at time, because time no longer scares me. And time is the only thing that makes us aware of space, and the distance between things. Therefore I am afraid of neither time nor space. I am not afraid of space-time. I'll fight black holes, wormholes, neutron stars, Higgs-Bosons, whatever the universe throws at me, I'll take 'em! I'll break the speed of light, I don't care if those PhD's say I can't do it. So what, they have their hadron colliders and their fancy lab in Switzerland, but they are still afraid of the very fabric of which they are made. I have transcended science. I am an insomniac, for the time being anyway.
Schertzo: Coffee
It has been several months since my last cup of coffee. My life goal is this: I can only consume coffee if I am in a social situation, and I will have the minimum possible amount of caffeine, short of ordering decaf. I refuse to use caffeine for any utilitarian function. At a certain point, everyone who drinks coffee needs coffee. You know why the best part of waking up is Folger's in your cup? Because you're a fucking addict! "I'm a coffee drinker." "I'm a vegetarian." "I'm addicted to methamphetamine and as a result am HIV positive." All part of the same spectrum. No caffeine for me.
With that in mind, I decided to have four cups of coffee in twenty minutes.
I think I was part of an experiment, but I can't be sure. All I know is that there was a video camera in the room, and I had to sign a release before I could enter. (Maybe they just know that my squiggles will be valuable some day.) I think that the experiment was observing people talking in a room to study human interaction. They lured people in with free coffee and various munchables. There was sugar, Splenda, and powdered milk solid available, but I know that stuff is for pussies. I take my coffee like I take my men! (Oh my, I am tired.)
There were two types of people in the room: those who were there for the conversation and those that were there for the coffee. I was there for the conversation but ended up living by the old maxim: "when in Rome, attend a morally depraved spectacle of gratuitous violence, slaughter and assimilate indigenous people, and eat so much that you vomit all over the the entryway to your home in a proto-bulimic binge-and-purge cycle." So I had some coffee.
I sat there, gulping down bitter liquid. This girl comes in, and once she sees the coffee start to flow into her mug, she sighs and says "ambrosia," her voice quivering as she does so. We really are a society of addicts.
So twenty minutes and four cups of coffee later I start to notice something: my hands are moving. I am not really aware of this, nor am I consciously making it happen, but I am gesturing at something. I am apparently very passionate about whatever this object of my gesturing is. And I am talking, a lot, and there is just this fountain of bullshit coming out of my mouth. I am moving energy with my hands, I can almost see it! I am buzzing. Off of coffee! This does not make sense but it is happening. I get another cup. I am holding it in my hand. I am holding power in my hand. The energy seeps out of the cup and into my hand, energy through osmosis, my power level is over 9000! Power, there is power in my stride and power in my gaze, or there would be, if only I could look at something for more than a few seconds.
This is how they hook you. This is how and Starbucks and all those other trendy froth coming out their asses places rope you in. You can buy power in a cup. You don't need to sleep because now you can just get your energy over the counter. You get something without working for it, you take a shortcut to your basic human needs. And like anything else that you don't work for, it becomes meaningless, because eventually, it goes away and you're crawling back for more and pouring out your wallet so you can function again. We want the benefits without the sacrifice and we get both.
"Ambrosia." I'm fine with my food for mortals, thankyouverymuch.
Adagio: Panda Sauce
Orange chicken sauce, now that is ambrosia. It is made from everything bad for you: high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, MSG, and enough dye to render a whale infertile. Nothing tastes better in the wee small hours of the morning (while the whole wide world is fast asleep / you lie awake, and think about the girl / and never ever think of counting sheep) than refrigerated then nuked orange chicken. I don't care if it clogs my arteries, ruptures my pancreas, and turns my balls into barren bundles of oh-so-sensitive nerves, I will allow myself this one transcendental moment of pure indulgence. Because in two weeks, two weeks time, this haphazard existence will end and it will be back to my labors.
Finale: Structure vs. Volume
I live life differently than most people my age. My life is based on a routine. Yes, I may deviate from that routine, but the routine is the structure and the maintenance of that structure, and the benefits of that maintenance, are what motivate me to get things done.
For most other people my age, life is based on events. They get things done so that they can cram as many events into a frame of time as possible.
They measure success by entertainment. I measure success by the process of completing a task. One of these days, things will switch.
They will go into the wide world of jobs and careers and families and garages and bills to pay. If things go as planned, I will live life for experiences and the chance to grow with every misadventure, failure, and rake stepped on. They think that this is their last chance at youth. But that is only if they choose to grow up. (At this point anyway), I don't really care about financial stability and hallmarks of success. I just want to tell stories.
"I remember being that way when I was your age."
"Well I'm on a mission. Were you on a mission? That's what I thought."
IV-V7-I-V7-I
(pause, cough, is it over?)
ba-dommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
(Applause)
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