ambition as the root of discontent
Occasionally, when I ride to work, I fall prey to a certain male weakness. If I see another cyclist on the bike path, I have to catch him. It doesn't matter if there's a hundred yards of headwind between us, or if, from a distance, I can see that he's another road racer who can totally leave me behind if he really cared to try. I have to chase the little red blinking tail-light. It's stupid alpha male behavior, but I tend to excuse it by believing that catching up with road racers and riding their draft makes the rest of the commute easier. I've flown through Lexington by tailing road bikes that aren't encumbered by 30 pounds of gear, and it's felt magical, but it's also felt rare. Most of the folks I pass are older, on poorer bikes and generally aren't in a hurry; the ones worth tailing are more difficult to catch. The number of times I've actually caught a fast rider early enough to make a difference in the 15 odd-miles between workplace and home can be counted on one hand, but the number of tail reflectors I've watched vanish into the horizon seems innumerable -- and whenever it happens I tend to make the excuse that they've got the better bike, the reduced baggage or a shorter distance to travel. I never tend to think of it as a weakness in my own legs.
There's probably a metaphor there for those of us whose reach chronically exceeds our grasping.
So what have I been doing since I turned 30? I noticed that my last post was before the birthday -- which makes for more than a month of silence. I wish the reasons for it weren't so mundane, but they are. The pace of work makes it hard to slack off and jot out an entry. My focus is shaken, and it's hard for me to track thoughts that should go in the journal. Gem-like sentences that I might compose in the middle of a ride are forgotten by the time I get to a keyboard. Senility is probably setting in.
It's not that I haven't been writing, but the resurfacing of some old friends and the trials of current ones means that most of my typing is usually directed at private e-mails, and those seem to use up my daily ration of wit and bon mots -- an allotment that seems to grow smaller and smaller as the years pass by. It is this dwindling that scares the shit out of me.
In the past, when I'd talk to an old college classmate, I'd get from them this envious sense of astonishment that I was still "living like a twentysomething." Staying up past midnight on a weekday, giving in to periodic wanderlust, doing anything besides coming home and waiting to go to bed; all of those were supposedly temporary things, vanishing in the inevitablility of adult responsibility. I never gave that sort of talk much credence, and thought that it was just old peers growing rusty. But I come home now with sloth over one shoulder and pride slipping away behind me, and I wonder if the inevitability argument has some credence to it.
Last year, when I ruminated on being 29, I said that I was happy with who I was, and that's still largely true. However, there's a growing sense of discontent with where I am. We make choices and decisions in our twenties that are supposed to determine the course of our lives, and sometimes we won't see the consequences of those acts until we're thirty. It's easy to look back on some choices and make excuses. We went to a particular school because it was the best one that gave us a scholarship. We chose a particular job because it was the best port in a storm of unemployment. I can do better than this, but I didn't have a choice at the time, and perhaps if I wait a little longer, a better opportunity will come by. Though, sometimes, in the waiting, it's possible to think, well, maybe I can't do better. Maybe this is the best that I can do. That, too, scares me, but the only way I can dispel it is to prove it wrong.
There's probably a metaphor there for those of us whose reach chronically exceeds our grasping.
So what have I been doing since I turned 30? I noticed that my last post was before the birthday -- which makes for more than a month of silence. I wish the reasons for it weren't so mundane, but they are. The pace of work makes it hard to slack off and jot out an entry. My focus is shaken, and it's hard for me to track thoughts that should go in the journal. Gem-like sentences that I might compose in the middle of a ride are forgotten by the time I get to a keyboard. Senility is probably setting in.
It's not that I haven't been writing, but the resurfacing of some old friends and the trials of current ones means that most of my typing is usually directed at private e-mails, and those seem to use up my daily ration of wit and bon mots -- an allotment that seems to grow smaller and smaller as the years pass by. It is this dwindling that scares the shit out of me.
In the past, when I'd talk to an old college classmate, I'd get from them this envious sense of astonishment that I was still "living like a twentysomething." Staying up past midnight on a weekday, giving in to periodic wanderlust, doing anything besides coming home and waiting to go to bed; all of those were supposedly temporary things, vanishing in the inevitablility of adult responsibility. I never gave that sort of talk much credence, and thought that it was just old peers growing rusty. But I come home now with sloth over one shoulder and pride slipping away behind me, and I wonder if the inevitability argument has some credence to it.
Last year, when I ruminated on being 29, I said that I was happy with who I was, and that's still largely true. However, there's a growing sense of discontent with where I am. We make choices and decisions in our twenties that are supposed to determine the course of our lives, and sometimes we won't see the consequences of those acts until we're thirty. It's easy to look back on some choices and make excuses. We went to a particular school because it was the best one that gave us a scholarship. We chose a particular job because it was the best port in a storm of unemployment. I can do better than this, but I didn't have a choice at the time, and perhaps if I wait a little longer, a better opportunity will come by. Though, sometimes, in the waiting, it's possible to think, well, maybe I can't do better. Maybe this is the best that I can do. That, too, scares me, but the only way I can dispel it is to prove it wrong.