View from the Top

I spend the days spinning and spinning myself around and around in a blur of craziness, tunneling further and further straight down. And, every night I climb back up, straight up. Sometimes I run. Sometimes I only have the energy to walk. I might pass a slow jogger in flip-flops. Or I might get passed by a sprinting whirl of spandex and chiseled muscles lunging and jumping up the hill. We have only sweat, struggle and determination in common.

At the top I stop to take in the view. The air is clear. The breeze is cool. I turn up my music and tune out. Hills doted with houses and high-rises roll along the horizon until they drip into the calm blue of Lake Victoria. I imagine taking a step off the hill. Falling for just a moment, until the wind catches and empowers me. Floating among the eagles and jet planes. Everything below me is small and inconsequential.

Only an orange sky can redirect my wandering mind. I turn, again facing the road I came up. Someplaces paved, always potholed and rough. My sweat stained clothes cling to my aching muscles. I smile at the others just arriving, fresh out of breath. Again tomorrow we’ll each leave our homes, our offices, emerging from behind big heavy gates. Tired and defeated, we’ll head up, straight up. Because the view from the top is always worth the climb.

I need carreer counseling...or maybe just counseling

I have writer’s block. This happened shortly after I decided I wanted to be a writer. I like the idea of people asking me what I do and I say “I’m a writer.” It beats “uh…well…I don’t really do anything.” Or, “I’m currently a professional volunteer. What? No, I’m not 85, why do you ask?” Or, simply “I’m a slacker.”

Of course, the response “I’m a writer” is usually followed by “what have you written?” “Well, most recently I self-published a moving piece on tiny pools and phallic doughnuts.” Potential new friend slowly moves away…

It’s safe to say that whatever random career I try out next, I will hate it. I want to be an aid worker. I hate aid work. I want to be a writer. I have writer’s block. I want to be a surgeon. I will quite five minutes into my first surgery. “Can someone sew this guy back up?…I’m just not feeling this.” Just like I wanted to be a real estate investor. And, now I really wish my portfolio would burn down.

I just like the idea of doing things. I really don’t like to actually do them. I’m an ideas person. I’m not an implementer. I’ll come up with great ideas like the corner dishwasher; you go out and figure out how to make it happen. My only concern is that it be profitable. No, let’s just break even. The most important thing is that the factory be shaped like a giant corner dishwasher. I’ll have a legacy of unprofitable bars, coffee shops, housing developments, family-friendly strip clubs and dishwasher factories. And, I will have visited none of them. I’ll be too busy volunteering – stuck on some desolate island counting endangered sea turtle eggs, complaining daily and slowly developing a hatred for all sea life and the environment in general.