Live the Questions Now
Why do anything at all? A stranger came into the cafe yesterday and after a long conversation about our mutual chronic dissatisfaction with life, he challenged me, or us rather, to start making YouTube videos to promote our services. We even shook on it. I believe he does video production and I do too many things to count. As of today, I’m 16,970 days old and if I live to eighty, I have 12,250 days left to live. What to do with those days? Promote my services so that one day, I may have enough money to relax a little? Why not relax now?
Today for instance, I woke with a slight hangover, just pleasant enough to lay in bed for an extra hour and unpleasant enough to consider that Sober October is truly in order. The plan for the day is to go fly fishing for a few hours, followed by the gym, and then the library to finish writing this blog post since I no longer have a laptop (the bastard died back in January and I’ve been too broke to buy another but maybe even a little too happy to not have to sit in front of screens, at least large ones).
Since moving into my new apartment last week, I’ve barely slept past 3am since that’s the time my upstairs neighbor wakes for her job. She doesn’t leave until roughly 5:30am for some reason and I’ve not figured out what takes nearly 3 hours to head out but it’s a new reality and torturous at that. The idea is to go upstairs with a few pizzas and beg her for some sort of solution for the middle of the night noise. I go to sleep with such anxiety about what’s to come even though I know what’s to come. I’ve been feeling very much like Ed Norton in Fight Club—severely under-slept. But Sade continues to play in the car, at home, and any job I’m working where I control the music (and I do control it) and keeping me somewhat sane.
In either case, Rilke said to “live the questions now,” and mine is: why do anything at all? Since meeting this stranger, I’ve had to consider just what it is would say if I were to make YouTube videos. What do I even care about or have to say? And is video the format for me to say anything at all with? In the middle of the night, after hearing footsteps upstairs that are impossible not to hear, I thought, “no, video is not the format for me. Back to the blog!”
So there you have it. Usually Unusual was born during a hangover and will god damned come back with another one (not that I plan to write about drinking, bars, restaurants, etc. any longer).
An aside. I notice a lot of people these days asking for favors (and simultaneously, a lot folks who aren’t talking to me, or even acknowledge my existence, post-break-up). All day everyday, I’m asked for rides or help moving this or that. So, I’d say, “why do things?” Maybe simply for the reason that when others ask for favors, you’ve got other shit to do. Instead of helping anyone at all, I shall head out to tie flies at the brewery (so much for Sober October) followed by some evening jazz. And should I one day have enough money for the future to retire, I don’t think I would do anything different so I’ll go ahead and do it now.