I can't quite remember the exact time or date I realized I was a man. Manhood was never something I felt I needed to seek-I figured it would find me when it was time. I do, however, remember when I realized no matter what, you couldn't take manhood away from me. I was thinking about doctors, lawyers, politicians-(you know, important men). I found myself feeling a little uneasy because I was none of the above. And then a voice came to me and said, They are no more a man than you are.
I guess what I realized is we shouldn't necessarily judge man by his achievements (said so eloquently by the world's greatest underachiever). I sometimes have to ask myself if it's just the concept of sour grapes I grasp to make myself feel better, but I know deep down inside that's not the case. Man is man-be he butcher or baker or candlestick maker. There was a time when a man was cool if he was the milk man, or a garbage man, or a shoe salesman. People actually used to support families with those careers. Now we mock the garbage man or a shoe salesman-and milk men, as far as I know, don't even exist anymore.
Achievement can be a tricky thing. For instance, you can ascend to the highest office in this country, and still fuck it up (I'm not pointing fingers or naming names...I'm just sayin'). I bet some of those presidents, at some point in their lives, wished they were just some average Joe (the plumber) that no one knew or gave two shits about. Which, in some ways, probably explains why I wallow joyously in my mediocrity-I don't need to climb to the mountain top to know that eventually I'll wish I was back at the bottom.
I was at the grocery store today and was having a conversation with the lady behind the deli counter about working from home (which I will begin doing as soon as I pack up all my shit and stop showing up at the office). She asked me if I thought it would make me lazy-my reply was, "Are you kidding-you don't get any lazier than me. After this comes death." I often mislead people in my attempts at humor and their gullibility is usually tied directly to their IQ, (suffice it to say the lady behind the deli counter really believes I'm lazy, which is fine by me).
I guess you can say I'm a closet overachiever. I love to push myself, but not too far and certainly not in front of a crowd. I hate when people say things like, "Oh, he's so talented at that." No I'm not-you could do it too if you weren't so wrapped up in meaningless activities (I'll have to remember that one the next time I say someone's talented). I guess I don't care for the attention and it's been that way as far back as I can remember. When I was about 4 years old I would always get compliments from the church ladies about my eyelashes. It was the most embarrassing part of the day for me (even more so than walking in front a room full of people putting money in a collection plate I had other plans for. It used to piss me off because my mom would hand me the dollar and I'd have it just long enough to walk up and put it in the plate-why couldn't she just do it herself, after all, she was usually right behind me with hers). But I digress-back to the church ladies. I got so tired of them with their cheek-pinching and their compliments one day I went home right after church, marched right into the bathroom, and cut my eyelashes off. My mom was livid! Needless to say, they grew back and the church ladies resumed their annoying behavior.
It took me a while to settle into the man that I am-and for now I'm comfortable. I've always done things my way-even when it appears I'm doing it someone else's. I make sure I inject a little bit of me in everything I do-it's the human equivalent to pissing on a fire hydrant. My female companions are usually unique in some way; toe-the-line types and I usually don't last long. I know I won't always be who I am now, but I when I look back, I'll understand who I was and hopefully that will explain who I'll become. One day I'll be an old man whose plumbing may or may not work; who may desire the young ladies but will be so repulsed by the difference between us the desire will seem ridiculous; whose accomplishments, although personal, may go unnoticed-but that's okay, I'm an audience of one and I really only need to please me.
Mike Tyson, (that philosophically intellectual pugilist), once said in an interview, "The only thing that matters in life is that dash on your tombstone-the one between the day you were born and the day you died and what you did in between". I thought that was pretty profound coming from a guy who gets hit in the head for a living. But it's true, that is all that matters. And sometimes it matters to others, but mostly it should matter to the person whose name tops the tombstone-and to those who loved them.
I don't know what they will say about me when I'm dead or how my loved ones will judge me. I guess I used to try to live my life in a way that allowed me to write my own eulogy, but what fun would that be? Why should those in attendance at my funeral be bored with my myopic view of myself? No, I think those who knew me should have their say-be it good, bad, or indifferent. And I hope that I've surrounded myself by those who'll be bold enough to give an honest account of who I was and what I stood for. For what it's worth, I did the best with the hand I was dealt. Life deals us all 5 cards from the deck. It matters not the face value of those cards-what matters most is how you play them. Winning hands come in all sorts of configurations. Ask yourself this question: could a pair beat a 3 of a kind? And the answer would be, it happens all the time.
TPOKW?
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