War of My Life

What does it mean to fear and to be fearless? What is it I'm fighting? If you have a response, let me know. Hard to admit this publicly, but I love John Mayer. I'm playing his album Battle Studies over & over. I'm at the door of my life - that's what he says. In fact, he's singing it - in a really sexy way with just the right amount of acoustic sweetness. And it helps me deal with my life right now.

I've been taking some risks professionally and personally. No more job. Home a lot, sending out resumes that get rejected & trying to cobble together a business plan for an idea in my head that I don't know if I really like, or just entertain because I can't seem to figure out what else to do.

The thing about risk is that sometimes it feels like you ought to be rewarded with things working out nicely since, hey, you did this brave thing and took a risk, right? But things don't work that way. Sometimes, you take a risk & it doesn't work out at all. Perhaps it even ends in a messy, difficult, unsatisfying way. Not fair! "Naive" you say? or "unclear on the concept"? or maybe just "loser"? I get that. When you take a leap though, at the very least, you don't drive yourself crazy guessing about what didn't happen due to your own cowardice. At least there's that.

The photos are of a bust of Geronimo by Scott Fife. He made it out of cardboard, glue, screws, scraps and stuff. Whatever was around and cheap, it appears. The bust resides in the basement of the building where I got my parking pass. Seattle is neat that way. The sculpture was striking to me. So I stopped and spent some time looking closely at the materials. The nuances of his face: the pock-marked skin; the lines around the mouth; the stringy, greasy-looking hair; the shading of different textures & different sides of cardboard (different types of cardboard maybe); the brilliant use of color - yellow where you don't expect it. Those deep eyes. That expression of serene ferocity. His roughness and lack of polish.

Pema Chondron said something like true fearlessness is making friends with fear. If you don't feel the fear, then you aren't fearless - there's nothing courageous there if you don't let yourself feel the fear.

On Madmen, earlier this season, the psychologist said something about most people's central conflict being about the difference between what's expected and who we feel like we really are. I've been thinking about roles lately - and how we're expected to play certain roles in life. In family, at work, and in love too. Fulfilling a role that someone expects of you: good husband, good wife, girlfriend, boyfriend. Employee of the month. High earner, over achiever. Good son or daughter, etc. So what if we didn't? Not just in the sense that we fall short. What if we just walked away? I think of Alanis Morissette's song: "That I would be good... ev-en if I did no-thing."

I felt so sad tonight for some reason. It's true that even when you're in a group, and even when you're with people - good people no less - you can still feel painfully lonely. It's almost worse. Tonight, I fled from our weekly tv gathering & it was so bad that when I got home, all I could do is sit down at my dining table, crumpled posture and all, and just cry for a very long time. Then, I put in a CD and played John Mayer somewhat loud, and felt better.

Don't know what I'm doing here anymore. Seattle is a hard city to break into. It's true. And these days it feels like I need to do all of it myself again - figure it all out by myself, again. And it feels like too much. How the hell am I supposed to do it? I have no idea.

Come out angels
Come out ghosts
Come out darkness
Bring everyone you know

I'm not running
I'm not scared
I am waiting and well prepared

I'm in the war of my life
At the door of my life
Out of time and there's no where to run

I've got a hammer
And a heart of glass
I got to know right now
Which walls to smash

I got a pocket
Got no pills
If fear hasn't killed me yet
Than nothing will

All the suffering
And all the pain
Never left a name

I'm in the war of my life
At the door of my life
Out of time and there's nowhere to run

I'm in the war of my life
At the core of my life
I've got no choice but to fight til it's done

No more suffering
No more pain
Never again

I'm in the war of my life
At the door of my life
Out of time and there's no where to run

I'm in the war of my life
I'm at the core of my life
Got no choice but to fight til it's done
So fight on, fight on everyone, so fight on
Got no choice but to fight til it's done

I'm in the war of my life
I'm at the core of my life
I've got no choice but to fight til it's done