There is a hard ending coming and I know not if the images this song evokes will be part of it or not.
Maybe they’ll include me waving goodbye or screaming ‘don’t go’ or something entirely different. It is hard to say for certain because I haven’t ever been down this road.
I already have stated I don’t wish to be a member but everyone joins whether they wish to or not so my protestation is more for show than anything else.
Still there is a chance that maybe I’ll be given a shot to help put membership off for a bit. It is probably not an option but until I am intimately with familiar with all details I can’t say yes or no.
I can only say it is improbable.
What Can You Do With Six Months?
People ask why I insist on putting my hands in the fire.
“Joshua, don’t be a fool. You know it is hot. You don’t have to do that to prove your tough or that it burns.”
I shake my head, it is not to prove I am anything.
“It is just part of how I process. I step into the cold bathwater, scream ‘there was shrinkage’ and know that eventually it doesn’t burn.’
The thing is I know that won’t work here in theory or in practice. It will always be noticeable, but those days are still in the distance, even if we don’t know precisely how long.
So I ask what can you do with 6 months knowing that number isn’t as arbitrary as I want it to be and though it can be extended it might be shortened.
Though I am not sure if anyone knows for certain how, why or if.
Sure they say they do and they provide studies and data to support their position and I provide my own.
“You’re not a doc, you haven’t any training.”
I nod my head and say “you’re not one of us, you haven’t any experience.”
Maybe it is bullshit.
Maybe it is hope.
Maybe it is bravado.
Maybe it is all of the above and none of it.
For now it is mental masturbation and that is the sort of stroking I can’t give time to, not today.
There are other things that require my focus and attention.
Preparations to make, questions to ask and time to wonder what is missing knowing the big answer there.
Don’t Think, Jump
The Big Lug would have jumped with me. He wouldn’t have wanted to get on the plane, but we got on together he would have followed me out the door.
I would have run my hands through his fur, patted that giant head and told him not to think, just jump.
Thinking would cause paralysis.
Thinking would give every scary thought a chance to visit and that could be bad.
Except that Big Lug would have relied upon me to handle those scary thoughts for us and I would have.
It is what I have been taught and shown to do.
So I will do as I have been taught and as I must.
That is not without some regret but not the sort that you have when you are doing something you have a choice not to do.
I suppose if push comes to shove I can say I have a choice not to do certain things, but that assumes I can sleep at night with those choices.
Man is a Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute.
– ” Mark Twain, The Lowest Animal,” 1897
15,778,476 Seconds
If the math is accurate six months works out to be 15,778,476 seconds.
When you start to put hard numbers against time you start to look at the world differently. I am not the first nor the last to say it.
I suppose like so many others it takes life to move you into adopting different positions, which I suppose begs the question, What does it matter?
