Wasn’t ever a huge Rage Against The Machine fan but some of their music has caught me now and then more because it has been useful for working out to than anything else.
Got Bulls On Parade playing now cuz the fire is burning a little bit hotter and I may move into Killing In The Name but I’ll move to something else after that.
Used to tell people I wasn’t that angry when they asked why I didn’t listen to more rage or I’d mix it up with I didn’t need music to piss me off
Heck, could go with the Gipsy Kings cover of Hotel California and focus on translating the Spanish into English and exercise my brain a little bit.
‘Cuz something around the 25th hit me harder than expected and so I have been somewhere between processing and acceptance…ain’t life a peachy thing.
Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.― Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Fifty something year-old Josh remembers sitting in a bar overseas as a twenty something listening to a guy try to convince everyone around him how worldly and educated he was.
I wore my baseball cap backwards as I often do and laughed when he tried to make me the butt of some joke about Americans.
The moment was a cliche of sorts, he said something about whether I would prefer to use my fists than wit to fight back.
I don’t remember my precise response, but I held my own and told him if I bothered to give it any thought I might be irritated but I didn’t consider him my equal.
The woman he was trying to show off for thought it was quite funny and laughed. Her rebuke was the real source of power.
“Go scream into the abyss Frenchie, you’ll have better luck.”
And so we move back into the present ‘cuz reminiscing time has passed and it is time to be like Jim and say I have got a name.
Like The Fool I am And I’ll Always Be
Had a moment today where I twisted my body and part of me mutinied. It was a wonderful experience of sharp pain that didn’t want to go away.
Slammed my hand down on the counter intentionally hoping that would make it go away but it just made one more part of me hurt.
That made me laugh.
It was a ridiculous moment and I responded in a silly manner and that is what worked.
Gave me a moment and I stretched out various parts and the part that had been pissed off relented, released and surrendered to my command.
Did I mention I made a mental note to do more stretching and work more on my core?
Figure it can’t hurt and can only help. This aging thing isn’t for the weak or faint of heart.
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.― Friedrich Nietzsche
It is the damn music and the bells– I can hear them. It goes away for a bit but it always seems to return and that is something I am trying to follow up on.
That’s not news, profound of particularly insightful, at least not to me or some others.
It is just a reality I live with alongside the uncertainty that comes with sailing upon uncharted waters.
You don’t know where the rocks are, what sort of sea creatures populate the deep blue or what kind of weather you might encounter.
Maybe I should be the one screaming into the abyss. Maybe I should jump overboard and see if muscle memory pulls the competitive swimmer back to the surface.
It is a funny thing…memory that is.
Time was I could swim for hours. I was good in a pool or the ocean, both were comfortable. I knew what I could do and even if I couldn’t go faster I could usually go longer.
Can’t go as I once did for as hard and as long but the water is still my friend and in many ways among the very best.
If I choose to return to its embrace it will show me ample love and not beat my bones as the cement does.
It will cradle me, but only if I pay it due respect and put the time in otherwise it will drown me without a second thought and instead of screaming I will sink into…the abyss.
No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.― Friedrich Nietzsche
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