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More Midnight Ravings
May. 16th, 2017 04:09 pmOnly a little more than an hour after I went to bed and fell asleep last night, I woke up with a coughing fit. Unusually, I also had one of my 3 a.m. scares - unusual because these 3 a.m. sweats have always been their own independent occasions. "Oh, my god, I am 52, for real, and my life is going to end this way, living with my dad, never having had a friend or a career, the biggest failure you can be without ending up in prison! ... I should have been somebody. I have talent! Even my old blogging buddies saw it. I should be somebody!"
I couldn't go back to sleep for a while afterward, and I got in some more of heartblood reading with Hayman's biography of Mann. And in this bout of nocturnal restlessness, I began to see clearly, for the first time, how silly I am to think that I should be somebody. If I should be somebody, why couldn't I pass those law exams? Why couldn't I write those 20-page papers? Why couldn't I even pass that public affairs program?, for crying out loud! Moreover, if I ever need to get over myself as a writer, I should just pick up some of my old journal entries, especially the ones Dr. G. got to see. Does that really look like something that might have a place in the pages of the New Republic or the New Yorker? That drivel wouldn't make it into a good high school paper.
In the end, I was fortunate enough to hold 'opportunity' in my hands, but it was too heavy for me and I simply dropped it and watched my future shatter on the floor.
This is not to say that I am so dumb and useless that it is crazy to think of me having a position as a highly paid bullshitter, one in an army of empty suits, but I would have had to be very lucky in making the right friends. It's not something that I was owed. It is not a travesty of justice that I should be living as I do. You might say that justice is what I have. It's just that one cannot help thinking that mercy is twice blessed: "The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath!" But maybe my interest in rape-porn and my sex life with prostitutes kind of spoiled that. And although it seems far-fetched, maybe Kelly really was a test and not merely a fluke of fortune that landed a naked teenage girl in my bed, a test of my character, a test that I miserably failed. I did not show her mercy, and so mercy was not shown to me - like the Jew of Venice indeed. Though, I at least got my pound of flesh, and then some.
I couldn't go back to sleep for a while afterward, and I got in some more of heartblood reading with Hayman's biography of Mann. And in this bout of nocturnal restlessness, I began to see clearly, for the first time, how silly I am to think that I should be somebody. If I should be somebody, why couldn't I pass those law exams? Why couldn't I write those 20-page papers? Why couldn't I even pass that public affairs program?, for crying out loud! Moreover, if I ever need to get over myself as a writer, I should just pick up some of my old journal entries, especially the ones Dr. G. got to see. Does that really look like something that might have a place in the pages of the New Republic or the New Yorker? That drivel wouldn't make it into a good high school paper.
In the end, I was fortunate enough to hold 'opportunity' in my hands, but it was too heavy for me and I simply dropped it and watched my future shatter on the floor.
This is not to say that I am so dumb and useless that it is crazy to think of me having a position as a highly paid bullshitter, one in an army of empty suits, but I would have had to be very lucky in making the right friends. It's not something that I was owed. It is not a travesty of justice that I should be living as I do. You might say that justice is what I have. It's just that one cannot help thinking that mercy is twice blessed: "The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath!" But maybe my interest in rape-porn and my sex life with prostitutes kind of spoiled that. And although it seems far-fetched, maybe Kelly really was a test and not merely a fluke of fortune that landed a naked teenage girl in my bed, a test of my character, a test that I miserably failed. I did not show her mercy, and so mercy was not shown to me - like the Jew of Venice indeed. Though, I at least got my pound of flesh, and then some.
