Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Bubble gum and pencil shavings...

Call in three months time and I'll be fine I know
Well maybe not that fine, but I'll survive anyhow
I won't recall the names and places of each sad occasion
But that's no consolation--here and now

So what happens now?

(Another suitcase in another hall...)

So what happens now?

(Take your picture off another wall...)

Where am I going to?

(You'll get by - you always have before...)

Where am I going to?


Man, job searching is certainly not an uplifting experience. The ups and downs, the back and forth, the false hopes and sore disappointments - it's a rollercoaster ride with your own life strapped precariously in the front seat, blindfolded. A recent disappointment of my own current job search put this song into my head. (Well, really just the chorus, but upon looking up the lyrics to ensure I had the right wording, the verse I included above struck a particular chord as well.)

I guess I'm struck by how so much of life can seem like a blind rollercoaster ride. Not necessarily even referring to any one area of life. Just life in general. It's unpredictable. It's exhilarating. It's terrifying. It's calm one minute and bumpy the next. It's amazingly adept at making our stomachs leap and our hearts race unexpectedly. It both makes us wish that we were anywhere but on this ride and that the ride would never end. It's hard to say whether its more fun to have someone beside us in the coaster car or whether the ride is more fun if that car is void of company - both are true at different points in the ride.

But we're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy...

I suppose those are Seal's words, but I hear them from Alanis Morrisette on my computer. It's true, though, right? I mean, I'm going on and on about this rollercoaster ride we call life - describing it's similarities with what we know of actual rollercoaster rides. But what does that really say? That life is crazy. It's unpredictable. It's fun, exciting, and scary. And then Alanis pipes in to remind me that we need to be a little crazy in order to survive this ride we've elected to take. [Okay, one could make the argument that we don't actually elect to take the ride at all, but that we're forced into the car upon birth...but I'm not gonna get that philosophical today. I leave it to you to ponder if you choose.]

Crazy - not in the "clinical" sense. More like getting a little crazy in the way we approach life, the way we take control of certain situations, the way we interpret experiences as they happen and after they've passed us by. Really, when you think about all the stuff we go through as individuals on our own coaster tracks of life, we kinda have to be crazy to continue to travel along those tracks, huh? There are so many things happening to challenge us - mentally, physically, emotionally. Job-searching and unemployment are the specific topics that I refer to in this post, but there are so many others. Love, relationships, friendships. Pursuits of happiness - in th workplace, in living situations, in hobbies and recreation, in social structures. Belief systems. Overall health - physical health, fitness, eating right - mental health - emotional health, admitting feelings we'd rather not, experiencing emotions we're not sure we can handle fully. Man, we're one crazy group of creatures!

I suddenly have no idea where I'm going with this. I guess I started it to get the Evita song out of my head, then to rant a bit in a general way about my displeasure in the job-hunt. But it got a little philosophical after listening to that Alanis cover of an enigmatic Seal song...and now I'm searching for answers to rather large life questions...or perhaps just rambling about big ideas and thoughts that bounce around in the background of my mind. Huh. Right then... now that I really have no conclusion, I'll leave you. [Hehe, man, I hate it when that happens...]

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Oh, the title? Yeah, I dunno. It's as good a title as any for this post, I say.

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