tick-tick-tick, work-work-work (I Be Illin' wit' Gilli'n)

tick-tick-tick, work-work-work (I Be Illin' wit' Gilli'n)
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

tick-tick-tick, work-work-work

Yesterday I wrote—“I actually like my day job.”

Well, that was yesterday.

Today, I still like my day job per se, but this morning I realized that I only really like it because I’m resigned to it, as I am resigned to making the most out of every situation. Thus, my fairly persistent gloss, shine, sheen on everything—come what may, come rain or shine, no matter what, bring it on….

Raindrops keep falling on my head,
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning
Red—
Crying's not for me,
'Cause
I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
Because I'm free,
Nothing's worryin' me.

- B.J. Thomas -

Yet, this morning was different. Albeit, the sun was out in full splendor and the fall was tenderly making it self known with a cool breeze wafting through the window, I wasn’t feeling that usual burst of energy, that tide of delusional “I can do anything,” that gritty optimism that often pushes me full-steam-ahead, into the day and out and over into the late hours of the evening.

No, this time I was just too tired. And in addition to being pooped, I was perturbed. Thus, I wasn’t feelin’ it, I wasn’t in the mood to take on the day, seize every moment, and make my way through toward my true-true destiny.

Granted, although I had yet to have my usual triple espresso, there was something more than this that made it feel as if there was something else amiss.

For one, I had overslept. I hate oversleeping.

I had gone to bed at one AM, with a heavy list of to-dos penned and ready for review, impatiently waiting for me at the edge of my desk.

I had written them down right before getting into bed, so that I could rest easy, knowing I was prepared to proceed from where I had left off four hours earlier.

Once the alarm was set for 5:00 AM (imagine glaring bright red LCD display here), I closed my eyes, wearily but serenely, now satisfied that my agenda was in order.

Sure enough, I woke up at five.

And sure enough, I faltered and hit the snooze button once, and then twice, and then three-too -many times, so that ultimately, I ended getting up at 6:30.

That extra time in bed is often a precarious luxury, more peril than pearl, because it usually means I’m pushing myself out of the middle of a REM (Rapid Eye Movement) state, as opposed to just getting up during the wake of the last REM session, even if it means getting only four hours of sleep.

For I’ve found over and over again that having to wake myself up out of the middle of a dream has strange and agonizing repercussions. Because that’s when the mind is essentially putting things in order—cleaning up, taking out the trash, and getting you ready to deal with reality once again. Ultimately, if you disturb this cerebral processing, you’re simply postponing your nightly janitorial services, letting things pile up and get a tad too untidy.

As a consequence, I’ve found that by the middle of the day I’m a mess. I’m falling asleep in the middle of important roundtable meetings, and subsequently torturing myself to stay awake with sharp pinches and overdoses of caffeine. Unfortunately, it is often a futile battle.

For it is at these times that I literally can feel a deluge of warm serotonin rush through me, my gut indifferently pumping out a drowsy dose of the hormone that helps put us to sleep.

It is at this critical juncture, teetering between states of conscious and unconscious—ness, that I frequently find myself sliding back and forth between the two, experiencing intense moments when my dreams are unbelievably vivid and their vespers, willows of clawing sleepy spirits cling to me and attempt to pull me back in, just as I’m trying to pull myself out of the netherworld behind the looking glass, and back into the world of so-called reality.

It is at moments like this when I feel that I am verging upon the precipice of insanity, that at a certain point I might fall over and never come back, that the neurotransmitting time machine will be driven into overdrive by my errant aspiration, human vanity, and a mortal desire gone wild.

Hence, after a couple of days like this, perhaps it is no wonder that this morning I felt different about work-work, about my day-job.

I really wanted to feel at liberty to call in sick, because I didn’t want to spend another day listening to the tick-tick-tick of the clock looming above my cubicle, I didn’t want to feel that once again I was spending the limited time of my life working on something that ultimately had no relevance to me, to who I am, and to who I yearn to become; I didn’t want to whittle another wasted moment away at my desk that I might other wise apply toward fully utilizing my creative talent.

So, once again, maybe its not that I don’t like my day job, but rather, simply, that I have to have one.

Alas, so do most other people.

And that is why this unsettling feeling is simply another reason for me to work harder at what I love to do, another reason why I write and take photos everyday, and another reason why I’m willing to go the extra mile every night, despite how awful I tend to feel the next day.

This is why I plan to break free out of this place, working, preparing, applying myself, so that when my time comes I’m ready to jump! So that when a moment of synchronized opportunity and preparation veers my way I can hop on board and be propelled upon an ellipse of personal bliss from which I may never return…