There is nothing quite like taking a nap on the edge of a razor.

Consistency is the burden of simpletons and fools.

When nothing is secret, nothing is free.

Perfection is impossible. You can always do better.

It (whatever that should prove to be) isn’t just going to happen to me. I am not going to wake up tomorrow or the next day and find that everything is different. That I am different. That the world isn’t the way it was when I went to sleep. Shit doesn’t work like that. And it is more than just “making it happen” or whatever the bullshit phrase is. It is more than going out there and showing the world you passion. Because any two-bit asshack can do that. It isn’t about passion. It is about talent. You can’t teach talent. You can’t force talent. Either you have it or you don’t. And no one can tell you. And you can never be sure. So what the fuck makes that obscure revelation so fuck damn important? Shit me. I don’t fucking know. I am certain of very few things. 1. I am unhappy with my life. 2. I am not sure things can get better.

I am coming closer and closer to the bottom. I don’t know how far I will fall in the end. Hopefully I will learn something from the experience. I am sure all writers go through this. So I know there is a way out. Two, really. I can either crawl my way to the surface struggling through my anonymity until I ultimately succeed in finding myself (or whatever it is that I am doing here) and publish my master work (or at least get something published and get myself started on a professional writing career). Or I will give up and silently slink off into the dark with only my broken dreams and shattered hopes to keep me company.

Instead of complaining that the glass is half empty or rejoicing that it is half full, I just wonder why the glass is so big.

***
I feel like giving up all the time. But not yet. I have to tell myself that it isn’t time yet all the time. It is one of the inevitable realities of my life; one of the many disappointments that I have come to deal with as my routine.
There is a picture next to my computer (my couch, whatever) of a palm tree on a sandy beach with a little bungalow in the background. As far as the picture goes, it isn’t very good. I bought it in the grocery store. I wasn’t expecting much. And that isn’t the point.
The point of the picture is what it represents. It is my dream to live out the rest of my life on a hammock in the shade on a beautiful white sandy beach surrounded by the bluest of oceans and the bluest of skies where the extent of my daily decision making process will be to decide between daiquiris or margaritas. That is my dream and as of right now it is pretty poorly articulated.
The thing about that dream is that it is symbolic of my having given up. Once I am on that island, on that beach, on that hammock, there is no going back. That is the end of my life. The rest is just ignorance, bliss and laziness. Which suits the dream just fine. What a perfect way to go out.
But it doesn’t suit me just fine. Not now anyway. I am not ready for that. Not yet. I am not ready to give up yet. I haven’t accomplished anything yet. I can’t retreat to the blissful anonymity of the ocean until I feel that I have done what I have set out to do. And I haven’t yet. I haven’t written my manifesto. I haven’t written my masterpiece. I haven't finished my magnum opus.
That’s why I am content for the picture to be such a lousy one. It serves as an adequate reminder of what I am reaching for while still allowing me to focus on the problem at hand. The problem of not giving up. Not saying ‘fuck it’ and tossing the dream to the fucking shit heap. Because as much as I fear that I don’t have what it takes, I know that I will never make it to my island if I give up and settle for average.