How to Shoot at Someone Who Outdrew You

I decided that the way this afternoon was going, I should take a walk.  It was a nice day, like yesterday, and I thought that I should not let two nice days in a row go by without being outside in them.  I had destinations in mind, errands to run.  But I abandoned most of those plans somewhere around 12th street and Avenue A.  The best course of action for this afternoon became wandering aimlessly.  As far as my scrawny legs could carry me.

All I really wanted was to turn my brain off for a while, but that never really works for me completely.  So I settled for turning off the part of my brain responsible for my self preservation and well being.  I wanted my eyes to glaze over.  I wanted there to be nothing behind them.  I wanted to walk slowly on crowded sidewalks.  I wanted to be the one in the way for once, instead of everyone being in mine.  I wanted to walk out in front of traffic.  I wanted to walk a hundred blocks up the east side and end up in Harlem.  I wanted to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes on the way.  But those things are like 12 dollars a pack now.  So fuck that.  More than anything I wanted to feel the kind of alone that can only be felt walking around on an island of a million people, and you don’t feel connected to any of them.

And then I had a disturbing thought.  You know what?  I should get a job.  Like a real job.  The kind of job you don’t have to lie to your parents about.  But what the hell would I even do with one?  I can’t imagine anything would last longer than a few months.  I think I’m just having a little crisis of confidence.

The thing is, we all know that everybody thinks they’re right.  We all necessarily think that we are right about the way we go about our lives, the stuff we value and the thoughts we think, otherwise we wouldn’t live that way, right?  I know there is a school of thought that says that you should just do what is right for you and that’s all well and good except that I just don’t see any way that can work.  I mean, not everybody can be right, can they?  Certainly not everybody is happy and if that isn’t the end in life I don’t know what is.  I mean, life isn’t supposed to suck, is it?  Oh, it is?  Well then.  Clearly I’ve been mistaken.  Clearly I’ve been wrong about a few things.  Which, in a way, kinda makes me right.

I don’t think I’m really trying to decipher between right and wrong right now.  I think I’ve made peace with that fact that I probably am never going to know for sure, which of course seems right and if you factor in the very real possibility that I could be wrong it just leaves me with a colossal mind fuck.  Another colossal mind fuck.  And I don’t think I’m really going to try to get a real job either, which just leaves me with that little crisis of confidence.

What I’m really trying to figure out is if life really isn’t supposed to suck or if that’s just something those of us who live in the first world have the luxury of believing.  I mean, probably at least 3/4 of the world would be envious of the position that I’m in.  I’m well educated.  Even with the shitty economy I could find a job and make 50k easy.  I had one of those jobs and I hated it.  It was soul draining.  I was miserable.  So at the beginning of this year I decided to write the novel I always wanted to write full time.  And now I wonder if I had a right to my misery.  I didn’t earn it.  I haven’t earned anything, really.  The thing is, I don’t think that I want a real just to have a real job.  I think I want a real job to be around people who aren’t me.  I spend way more time with me than I really think I should and I’ve had enough.  I’m kind of insufferable.  But I’ve spent enough time around most people to know that probably isn’t going to the trick either.

The truth is, whether I deserve to be having this little crisis of confidence or not, the problem isn’t that I am too selfish or that I should get a job.  The problem is that my imagination has slipped.  You see, it used to be that the thing that kept me going, whether I was working or writing or whatever, was that I could imagine something better.  I could imagine something good.  But I struggle to do that now.  It makes me feel old.  It makes me feel conventional.  It makes me think I should count my blessings.  I don’t know how to jump start it.  I don’t feel like I’m saying or thinking or feeling anything new.  It makes me feel less confident about the things that I’m doing now.

I usually regret anything I’ve written immediately after I finish it.  This might be the first thing I regret before I finish it.  It doesn’t make sense and it seems whiny.  But it’s the truth.  That can’t be all bad, can it?  And, um, I took all this time to write it so…