...too much to consider
It
boggles my mind when I get those sudden bursts of insight of just how
much there is to consider just in the everyday living of one’s
life. The choices are just so dang overwhelming. It starts for me at
4:49 a.m. as I awaken automatically and stare over at the clock and ask
myself whether or not I should get up or stay abed for 11 more minutes.
I usually defer to my “restful” side and roll back over.
I roll back over but the thinking process has, however subtly, begun.
I think about my family and how they have to be supported and why that
should even be a problem which makes me think back to my semi-involuntary,
premature, gilt-parachuted retirement from a large American corporation
which since has gone down the chute because they didn’t run the
place the way I thought it should have been run and because they didn’t
keep up with current technology. Well, they did keep up with the technology,
but a wee bit too slow to get finished product to market in time to beat
the competition. They were slow to get products to market because of
the infernal internal ego and politics that bogged them down. If only
they had consulted me. I think of my friends and former co-workers and
wonder how they are managing these days of global readjustment and then
I extrapolate this into a larger picture and wonder how everyone is making
out and realize I can’t solve all these problems now because it
is 4:53 and I haven’t yet had a nice hot cup of tea yet. I switch
gears.
The thoughts of what I left unfinished from yesterday start to creep
in. It seems everything I started had a slight snag attached to it. The
printer that was smearing and had to be cleaned, the sudden run I had
to make to the other side town to pick up lobsters for supper. I feel
so lucky to be able to have lobsters occasionally...I should count my
blessings. Then I think that perhaps lobsters are being overfished because
so many people in different parts of the world are developing a taste
for them. Then I remember it was some famous actress or television star
who was so vehemently against people cooking lobster because she viewed
it as an act of cruelty. I had to put thoughts of her out of my mind
for fear of losing desire for one of my favorite meals. What business
is it of hers anyway? Hmmm, I don’t want to dislike her just because
of this simple lobster difference. Other than that, she seems like an
okay person. I don’t want to get too far into her head, but I don’t
want her getting too far into mine either.
And what of the overfishing of lobster stocks. I can see both sides of
the issue. People have to make a living, but if all the lobsters are
gone... I don’t want to go there now. It’s too early.
There’s too many people on Earth anyhow. Yawn.
I wonder what the Thunk is in the front end of our van when you take
a right hand turn.
Ewww, my back is a little sore from those plastic benches at the baseball
stadium yesterday. Pretty mediocre game up to the last half of the ninth.
4:55 a.m.
I think about how our other car needs an inspection. I say to myself
that I’ll call later this morning. Then I think to myself, that
I’ll probably forget because I’m getting old. Then I think
that I won’t forget now because I was thinking that I would forget
it and that by just having the thought in my head that long will help
me to remember. Then I think that I’ll forget anyhow. Then I switch
to thinking about some of the other aspects of aging and how I try to
accept them with grace.
I have a flashback to a time in a high school English class when the
teacher woke me up from my daily post lunch nap and how angry I got at
her. So angry that she didn’t have to even call the office and
that I left the room of my own accord to go down and turn myself in.
I have to reprint those seven pages that got smeared. Wait a minute,
I already thought about that. I wonder what a new printer would cost
and think that the old one is still usable and I don’t want to
see the current one go needlessly into the “trash” cycle.
I think about Florida.
I wonder how the new American Idol is doing. I try to remember her name.
4:59 a.m.
Looks a little overcast out there. Maybe those few small patches of lawn
I reseeded will start to green up and grow. That sure was some big ant
hill in the front of the house the other day. I wonder if those big ants
I’ve been seeing in the bathroom are carpenter ants.
Oh Geez, I have to write an eight hundred plus word article this morning
and I have no idea what to write it about. I’m sure something will
come to me. Maybe I’ll write about these crazy thoughts I have
before arising every morning. Naw, that would sound too crazy.
5:01 a.m.
It’s gonna be a long long day, I can tell.
J. Jules Vitali is a sculptor, columnist, inadvertent moral philosopher
and poet who resides in Freeport, Maine. He is the creator of the art
form StyrogamiTM which can be seen on the web at www.styrogami.com. He
is also an Artist in Cellophane (www.artomat.org). He tries to have fun
in life. His work displayed at Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport
through July 10 and is on exhibit at the Sangre de Christo Arts and Performance
Center in Pueblo, Colorado through August.