Throwing Poo

It was John Lennon who said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."  He also said, "Holy shit, some asshole just shot me!"  Kind of screamed it, actually.  He was a Beatle, you know. 

Anyway, it is one thing to not have any direction in your life (i.e., it just happens).  It is an entirely different and altogether worse thing to have a sense of direction yet feel powerless to pursue it. 

For the past two and a half weeks, I have been consumed by work.  By work, I mean the unsatisfying, nomadic, badly managed, blackhole of a fucking job that I waste all my free time bitching about.  As a result, this very internal analysis (the adjective form of "very", as to emphasize importance; not the adverb form which would sound invasive and require lubricant) that is supposed to lead me down the path of enlightenment - or at least to a better gig - has been put on hold.  This leads me to an all-important question:  Am I totally fucking retarded?

Despite KNOWING what is important to me, I'm easily and constantly distracted with insignificant or irrelevant tasks.  Some are piled on by my worthless, do-nothing boss.  Others I pile on myself - like remodeling the bathroom, paying the bills and bathing.  Regardless of where these tasks come from, I feel compelled to complete them - and not necessarily begrudgingly. The immediate gratification I get from shaving the cats or reorganizing my porno collection chronologically is, well, gratifying.  But it's just life candy (OK, I was trying to come up with the equivalent of eye candy or ear candy, but couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Sue me).  The satisfaction is short-lived and soon I need another fix.

While I can, with some effort, avoid doing this work, I'm incapable of ignoring it.  These tasks build up and compound; each one another nagging little splinter in my brain.  Increasingly, it begins to feel like everything is spinning out of control.  Then I implode and go on a to-do list bender that lasts for two weeks straight. 

And here we are.  Point being, I guess, is that this is an inherent problem; part of my make-up.  Call it O.C.D. or anal retentiveness; it doesn't matter.  Anything short of prescription medication means I'm going to spend valuable time digging out these splinters.  Hopefully I can figure out a way to dig enough to relieve the pressure but not so much as to cause infection. 

Whew.  That hurt me more than it did you - and you know how much I enjoy getting spanked.

Anyway, back to the topic: Things I want to do before I die.  Here are the items on the list that I still haven't addressed:

Study philosophy and religion
Write my blog
Complete and publish some form of writing
Write and film a short movie
Take guitar and drum lessons
Find a group of untalented wannabes like me to play "music" with
Write and record a song
Perform in front of an audience (unlike my ex-girlfriends, size would not matter)
Learn about digital audio production

Study philosophy and religion
If I'm truly serious about pursuing purpose and meaning in life, then this is how to do it.  Using the *ahem* Socratic method, one can easily deduce that nothing is more important in life than the study of philosophy.  Unfortunately, you can also easily deduce what a completely boring tool I am. 

The thing is, smarter people than me - brilliant men and women (mostly men, though.  Hey, I'm just saying!) - have spent centuries configuring, analyzing and debating the eternal questions.  What do I, with my business degree from a mediocre college and a bookshelf full of Christopher Moore novels, seriously think I have to offer?  I'm the clod who shows up to a black-tie event wearing sneakers and eating fistfuls of Fritos right from the bag.     

To be honest, it is also just one of those things that I think I should do, but don't ever get around to because I don't actually enjoy it.  It's like Netflix.  Our Netflix queue is chock full of documentaries and foreign films we think we ought to see.  But then when Friday night rolls around, we set "An Inconvenient Truth" off to the side and go rent "The Dukes of Hazzard" from Blockbuster.

For the record, let me also say that I'm not dumping on religion, either.  It just doesn't interest me.  If someone feels the presence of God, then I can understand it.  That has never happened to me.  I thought I did once, but turns out it was just a bad burrito.

That's it for today.  It's Super Bowl (Stupid Bowl, Super Bore, We Don't Like Football But We've Become So Desensitized To Commercialism That We Think It's OK To Sit In Front of the Television for Four Hours to Watch "Cool" Advertisements) Sunday, so I need to cut it off there.  However, I promise to finally finish this list by the end of the week.  Lucky you.