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14 August 2005

do you want new wave or do you want the truth?

here you are. you know how to build a website, and how to record a song without a band. you know how to create things that don't really exist. your father can build barns. your mother can paint paintings. they were able to make you. you can't make anything. this is who you are.

you are a master of speaking without saying. sometimes you wonder whether you should have been a politician, to utilize this skill for more than just charming people in whom you have no interest, but who have something you want. or maybe that's all politics is anyway. you give the impression of being able to speak clearly, think clearly, and act decisively. maybe you should have been a politician.

but less and less are you able to justify your actions to yourself. decisions feel more and more permanent, and increasingly misinformed. why did you move to this city? why did you kiss that girl? why do you create only that which is essentially intangible? how come you're not contributing to a retirement savings plan? why do you get out of bed in the morning, only to return there at night feeling as if there was something you should have accomplished during the day, but you didn't?

this is you not taking your own advice. this is your best effort at a public apology. this is your half-hearted rededication. this is another thing you've created that you can't touch with your fingers.

and so you raise a glass to aimlessness, disorientation, insecurity, lonliness. only you call it independence. and you go to work in the morning, and you drink coffee, and you spend your money. and you sit in your apartment with your guitar and you want to tell the world something. but you don't know what, and even if you figure it out, you still have to find a way to make people listen.

most people will be forgotten soon after they are dead. you are probably one of those people. many will be forgotten before they are dead. you may even be one of those. time will tell. but it won't tell you.

this is who you are. you're not getting any younger.

1 comment:

  1. I like how you write this in the second person and it actually does pretty much accurately describe my life. Except for the 'graf about being a politician. I'm way too insecure to do that.

    But, dude, you're a rock star. No worries.

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