crisis

I woke up this morning and the existentialist alter ego of mine took over as the main identity in my palette of mixed personalities. I put on my headphones and listened to a variety of thought inducing tracks while I stared out the window: Taylor Swift - Fifteen, Emily Haines - Reading in Bed, My Brightest Diamond - Golden Star, Kanye West - I Wonder, Kings of Leon - Manhattan; soundtrack of my life. I've finally achieved that state of nirvana when doing this, almost akin to when I was staring at the ocean off the coast of Peggy's Cove in Halifax. I'm able to see my thoughts stirring in a pot before me and better control how they appear to me - it's easier to understand yourself when you're omnipotent over your mind.

One thing I noticed lingering over all my thoughts was a cumulus stratus of unease. I zoomed real close to it like you would zoom in on your digital camera, and I found that this was the air of disappointment. Earl, my dissociative existentialist state (I just dubbed him that), realized that this portion of my mind is the choking smog that constantly swirls around me, hovering like the cloud of pollution above industrial countries. It is this air that continuously tells me I will never be enough, I will never be satisfied, I will always sell myself short.

So I pan out and observe my life through the lens of Earl's -5.75 and -5.25 degree glasses, and I see clearly. No ring, no surgical prowess, no semblance of artistic talent, no published works, no subscriptions to Nature Neuroscience, no understanding of social interactions and being part of social constructs, a lousy Scrabble score, an empty bank account, and a person that has never traveled anywhere he's wanted to go in his life. If I was Earl all the time, I'd kill myself.

God, if we are to be humbled, I am humbled so. I understand what it means to be at the nidus of this web of excellence yet be at the nadir of the ziggurat of achievement simultaneously, so please, I beg you, take me by the hand and show me where to go.