7-26-2013

What have I gleaned from the day? What of it shall adhere? What of it shall fall away? Who was I for this fistful of hours?

Here's pennies for the ledger:

I drove too fast on the highway on the way to work. Not in utter oblivion did the construction cones pass me by, but the orange maidens fringed the road at such a remove, weltered so wallflowerish at the outermost edges, that their significance went unregistered. I did wonder at the unwonted leisure of my co-riders, for typically my bumper exerts magnetic appeal over my fellow wheelpersons and it is a lonely day when I cannot glance in my rear mirror and count the freckles on the motorist behind, but I rather attributed the irregularity to it being Friday. Yes. Friday. That was my conclusion. Fridays must attract a different kind of driver, I told myself, assuming, with reflex assurity, that all those vehicular titans, all those palatial perogatives of the American car industry that are as so many Ungoliants to my itsy-bitsy spider, all those pick-up trucks and SUVs, were being manned by Savannah gents in white linen, panamas, and loafers, with Louisiana jazz on the radio and long-island teas in their cup-holders. I honestly believed that everyone was going at an amble due to a universal end-of-the-week insouciance, and it didn't so much as once occur to me, until I sped past the "end of roadwork" sign, that the traffic cones could have anything to do with their repose. 

     What sort of imagination is this? What quaint and treacherous folly? I try so hard to be sensible, I try so hard to align my thoughts with actualities, but ever-and-anon I am brought into blinding realization of my default, daunting disconnectedness. What world do I live in, what bubble, that I can convince myself all Friday drivers are endearingly unhurried Gatsbys?

      I feel I have to try ten times harder than the average lass to approach even the layman's share of sense. Time, and the shortness of free-time, gnaw at me so strongly, primarily because I feel such a dire need of the stuff to process all the information my days throw at me, else-wise I am as one running miles without moving an inch, experiencing multitudes and not improving a jot; I am as one given the world without gaining a thing. And yet I am complimented for intelligence? Is it any wonder I feel such compliments misplaced, and believe them more a product of the bestowers' wishful projecting than of my own inherent merits? Is it any wonder I have no faith in the solidity of others' opinion of my intellect, and suppose that such folks as do acknowledge me for my mind have glimpsed it askance and mistaken it for something better, much as one might glimpse a sliver of glass askance and, due to a lucky refraction of light, mistake it for a diamond? I do not feel this way about other aspects of my being. I do not fret about people discovering one day that I am not as cheerful, or kind, or honest as they thought, yet I am ever persuaded that they shall discover I am not as sensible or sound-logicked as they had imagined. Yet I am hesitant to write this fretting off as a localized lack of self-confidence, nor to suppose that a dose of medicinal arrogance would be a suitable cure. If I feel the nip, nay, the brutal, bodkin-toothed bite, the keen, necrotic chomp of inadequacy where Reason is concerned, it is rather indicative of the heights of which I reckon Reason is capable. Good cheer, kindness, and honesty are comparatively much more finite than Reason. This is by no means to say their value is less, only that their mastery is a less complex, less expansive, and, at least in this respect, an easier affair than the mastery of Reason. The mastery of good cheer, kindness, and honesty relies almost wholly upon what is inside of a man, and not at all upon what is outside of him. With correct attitudinal coaching, one can be of good cheer no matter what befalls one, much as Democritus was of good cheer, protesting that he had all his valuables still with him, when Silbo (the city-sacker) asked him why he wept not for his razed-home and dead family. With correct attitudinal coaching, one can be kind though one lives in a world utterly bereft of kindnesses. With correct attitudinal coaching, one can be honest, though the return for one's honesty is naught but hardship. One need only resolutely believe in the overarching merits of cheer, kindness, and honesty, to become a paragon of all three (I do not say that I am such a paragon, mind you, but I say I am far more certain of these three within myself than I am of my intellect). Reason, however, cannot be attained through simple reverence. Reason does not rely upon man alone, but dwells in symbiotic relationship with reality. Good cheer, provided it is firm enough, will remain good cheer whatever environment it is transplanted into (the Nirvanic monk will maintain his serenity whether in a blossomed paradise or set aflame in roadside protest), but good Reason in one set of circumstances can prove absolutely atrocious Reason in another (it may be very good Reason to water one's flowers if they have thirsted all week, but very bad Reason to water them if they've been subject to monsoons since Monday). 

Yet it is late. Late. And I have to work again tomorrow. How long can my luck can hold out against my knavery? I wonder, but it doesn't seem advisable to take too many more chances. Sleep, then, dear Reason; sweet, deluded darling, sleep, taste the tender nourishment of a night's rest, and aim to make it off the highway four-limbed and fine-free again tomorrow.