Prescribing Life Lessons: An Ancient Relic Worth More Than Silver & Gold

Mistakes can flip your life upside down, again and again, like a sports car over a guard rail. Even after your car gets towed from the scene of the accident, evidence always remains; skid marks, broken glass, twisted metal. So on and so forth. The situations decompress and magnify like the pulse of a gunshot victim. Life can be a giant charade at an elementary school or an award worthy film at the Oscars. Most of the time it's up to us, some of the time it's based on our surroundings; The light rumble of train cars barreling over the tracks in the cloudy distance, the sounds of airplanes soaring through a grey sky. Both symbolic in the fading friends and lost direction of this life we live. An atmosphere of sharp turns and stuttered words. Sometimes I can't help but fail, fail to understand the crooked misdirection that most of us live in. Especially myself. More so than anyone. After all these years, I still can't seem to get it right. But have I really tried? The discipline hasn't been grasped and the conviction of my craft hasn't been mastered. But it can be, and if I want it, it will be. Stephen King wrote, "Life doesn't imitate Art, Art imitates Life". It's true. If my soul isn't balanced, my life will teeter back and forth like a seesaw in suburban New York. Which will then translate into broken tomorrows and exaggerated satisfaction in the past. The potential and ability is there, I can feel it move through me, I believe it. I can sense it like a full moon in the winter sky. The drugs have stolen time but have gifted me with perception. I've been given more second chances than the junkie son of a police chief. 

Still, I choose to stay lost. Lost in my wicked ways and fabricated excuses.

Instincts don't always transcend into productiveness. I need to find my voice in order to thrive and prosper. And the only way to do that is to pour my heart into these ghostly pages. An immense ocean of concentrated misery and hopeful prerogatives. It's time to hop the fence, and test the waters on the bayside of this darkened metropolis. The vision has never been the problem. I could stand on the edge of summer and watch the horizon run from me for hours. Wishing and waiting for it to come back, only to watch it over and over again. Never capturing it's true essence, while always thinking that I have. A photographic memory doesn't always catch memories worth remembering, saving some that you'd instantly like to forget. That's the reality of the situation. All of our darkrooms are set up differently, it's how we develop these images that truly matters. Emotion liquefies into the portraits with an unruly presence. We can only ignore it for so long. Some of us are unable to come to terms with this intimidating fact. Hiding from the inevitable truth that is buried in the core of our being will handicap us, and it will do so for as long as we let it. 

I'm a living testimony to what I write. I try not to speak on what I don't know. And if I do, I submerge myself in it. It rushes into my mind like air into the parachute of a skydiver. There is no faking what I feel. Empathy will always trump sociopathic urgencies. The piercing wind on an evening in February leads me to think more than most. I guess that isn't always a bad thing. The search for serenity is much like the search for an ancient relic in the depths of the Amazon. Many never achieve it. Many never even try. There's no gimmicks or shortcuts when it comes to it. A strenuous search into places that you've never had to go; places that you've always chosen to ignore. There's always a way though. Nobody ever comes close to accomplishing such a magnificent task without a team behind them. Even when poison surrounds you, it doesn't consume you, unless you surrender to it. Your mentality isn't shattered when it breaks, a pressure crack doesn't always cause a cave-in. In fact, it's actually natural. So when you're in a canoe heading up the river of your soul, don't stop paddling. Never stop paddling. The jungle awaits you, as it awaits everyone. Seize the gift that God has given to all of us. An ancient relic that has existed since the creation of mankind; it's worth more than all of the silver and gold in the world.