Saturday evening falls, on a very windy day. Opening the front door to get out onto the hallway was an event. At least until the door reached some critical angle where it did that Tao "uncarved block" thing and became at peace with the wind. In the midst of this swooshing gale, papers flying around and flatmates hollering, the door suddenly stopped fighting and stayed in one place.
Do you have to choose with gabo? I've always told myself that the answer to that is no. That you don't have to choose one life or the other. A life of pretended normalcy and drudgery, but accepted into all society's highlights, or a life of rejection of normalcy, of acceptance of altered states, of fighting the state day after day, of expecting arrest, court, jail, they cycle enforced from outside.
I have an old friend who I don't talk to any more, sounds strange I know, but he chose the rejected path. Lives totally the drug lifestyle, never had a job, always facing the next court case, always gathering the money to score, always looked at askew by the "straights".
Whereas I have had a desk job for close to ten years now. Whereas I act to my colleagues that I have normal weekends full of wholesome pursuits, that I live purely to add material gains to my stockpile, that scratches on my car are Important and that I am Thinking about My Future.
I have followed this last path for a long time now. Before that I went barefoot and illegal. I expected the pre-dawn raid and had it many times. I did not have a worthwhile purpose to my life but neither do I now. I seem to remember being very stressed and at times scared, but also I had an inner strength that came from me doing what I wanted.
Or was that just the inner strength that all youth have? Would I have had it if I was climbing the BHP career ladder, the same vitality? Do I just miss it because I am waning?
I know these are age old questions faced a thousand times by people a thousand times smarter than me. But regardless, I still have moments of fear where I look back at the last ten years and shudder at accepting the Supreme Court judge (and behind him society)'s orders.
The moments are a little darker days like today, with the ebb of payday's shot fading into the chemical background. I know I feel a lot happier if I can go 14 days without a shot, but those times are maybe once in a two year period.
Anyways, atm I am learning XSLT 1.0 in leaps and bounds, I have taken out a book called "Java Foundations" (T Greanier) and I am off to Adelaide on Wednesday to review the Phoenix corebanking system. Plus today I took out "Olympiad" by Dan Simmons, Hyperion author. It's the sequel to Ilium, which was beaut. So life is good and bad.
Big surprise.