Expedience

The bard strings his lute anew, the lethargic audience awaiting the return of his storytelling with mild curiosity, mollified by the prospect of amusement to come. Will the bard’s return be a song of laughter? A song of strife? Of woe? Of glee? Of peril? The goblets all are half empty. An old man in the corner dozes, the jester watches with bated breath, and the captain languidly sharpens his sword. Still others whisper mirthfully amongst themselves, and the first note is strummed.

…

The week immediately following my visit to St. Charles was supposed to be my vacation, had I not been laid off in December. That long-awaited vacation, the very assurance that got me through the hard days of autumn, was the first casualty of my being let go from the office. In some alternate timeline, I went to Bowling Green to crash with Josh Kalichman and revisit old f(r)iends before flying with Josh to Massachusetts to go “misadventuring” with Scott Blanchard. Alas, it was not to be.

And so, it came to pass that more months slipped by without me being able to un-bind myself from the City of Fountains. To keep up with one’s friends when they are all so scattered is impossible, anyway. Instead, we are to be fond from afar. That is what it means to grow older. Paths diverge. I have known this.

Instead, I found myself in a dungeon of desolation and incapacitation. Entering my third month of unemployment, the debilitating side effects certainly became… noticeable. I began to withdraw more and more from unsolicited advice, especially from certain unhelpful folk who excel in overstepping their boundaries.

And those who call themselves “friend” underestimate me even more than my supposed “rivals.” I had been cut down so often that I began to short-change myself. Then I took a sober look at my adaptive abilities and my universally applicable attention to detail. My ability to mince words, to adapt my demeanor and dialect like a chameleon, depending on the context of my surroundings. My ability to play on one’s expectations and manipulate an interviewer or other job “superior.” My ability to “slip into the role.” All this, combined with my cumulative work ethic, commitment, self-control, survivalism, powers of observation, and expertise in multiple levels of politeness and socialization, still did not prove to be enough, for one cannot fabricate opportunities.

I’ve said it before: you can have all the determination and motivation in the world, but sometimes you aren’t really the problem, because there is a lot of chance in the world. I have known this.

And the sickest irony is this: I could have had a few jobs by now, but my schedule at the house precludes me from employment at those places. I had a job interview that went swimmingly, but the lady in charge told me that my responsibilities at the house might be in conflict, so I was discarded.

I won’t give more specifics on my job search woes. Discussing it is not in my best interest at the moment, and no one wants to hear it anyway.

So expedience becomes my philosophy. A terminally flawed one, perhaps, but corruption is always gradual, isn’t it?

Plan ahead. Cover my ass. Never let this winter happen again. Ever.

Meanwhile, micromanaging my personal life has its own portents. While I have been woefully absent at the dojo, I check in once in a while for updates in the training regimen. There is a new fitness director at the rec center, which could be an improvement for us, or it could be worse. Sensei is certainly optimistic about this sea change. He also still talks of eventually opening an autonomous dojo, rather than holding training sessions at the rec center. His dream is my dream.

But my role during my absence has not changed: I am accountable for my own progress, and I have always been the philosophical one—a mouthpiece for the budo principles for the others to heed. I haven’t been doing it very well, but the responsibility of being a role model for the discipline of the lower ranks is a serious one. You should see my library. But books do not define one’s discipline; anyone can intellectually follow an ideal, but where the hoof meets the pavement… I guess that’s the difference between an enthusiast and a disciple. I have known this.

I have also started studying Japanese again, rather than just flip through the grammar guide and give up the routine. I have begun a notebook of everything I used to know about the language. For now, I am not worrying about the written part (kanji, hiragana, katakana), just focusing on the spoken language (its Romanization). I’ll brush up on the symbols only after a few more successful weeks of study.

Is it expedient to study Japanese? Yes. It’s another part of me that should have been kept up. It’s another edge, another advantageous facet of me that surprises the shit out of some people. But I had let it go because there isn’t a single Japanese tutor in the entire city—and believe me, I looked hard. So I’ll just re-self-teach myself and then check it against native-speakers, who seem to run rampant in Johnson County for some reason. In fact, just as I typed that sentence, seven Japanese people walked into the coffee shop. Holy kuso.

And tomorrow Fritz returns from his annual month-long vacation to Key West. I might add that Roommate Friction Level has been elevated to Orange, and it can only get worse from here on out.

And I am still drifting away from my affiliation with Metro Christian Fellowship and Life Group.

Mum’s the word on my musical endeavors of the past month. Why that is, I will not say. If you really give a damn, you can just wait until I feel encouraged to discuss it. For now, I don’t see any incentive.

Actually, I have found myself to be increasingly reticent about divulging any personal information, especially the justification of my thoughts or actions, and this blog has been the epitome of that feeling; once it became consistently more trouble than it was worth, I realized that it was one problem I could solve… so I took a hiatus, disabled comments, and I noticed that it was a relatively serene few weeks. You tell me, what does that mean? Figure it out. I’m sure you’re smart enough.

If you reread this post, you’ll notice that I am not being excessively and consistently pessimistic here, I am not “whining” about a single thing, I am not going off on a biased tangent, I am not being utterly frivolous just for the sake of posting, and I am not opening the door to any bullshit opinionated ethical intellectual moral debate. I am not doing most of the things someone always manages to find a reason to admonish me for. No. If you reread it, you will find that I am giving a lot of information (obviously), but it’s vague enough to protect me from the usual invasive criticism. Defiantly reclaiming some much-deserved dignity, only divulging what I deem expedient to do so. I guess you could say I’ve put my blog on probation.

If that offends you, then you are most likely part of the problem.

Mainly, my extended absence is due to the phantom obligation of having a new direction in life to talk about. I didn’t see the point in returning after exactly three weeks if all I had to report was the growing sense of humiliation for being unemployed for three months now. But lo and behold… here I am, in all my glory. Maybe I am a loser to some, but I have done far more constructive things with my “free time” than most “successful” people I know. I suppose that’s what this post is all about: pointing out my redeeming exploits. That is expedient.

Three months of solitude and hopelessness really changes your perspective on things. When any plan you had—be it a two-year or a five-year plan or whatever—crumbles to dust and slips through your fingertips like the grains of sand in the hourglass of your life… (that was tongue-in-cheek)

Instead, my detachment and displacement in the world puts me in a rare position to embrace almost anything on the horizon. I have nothing left to lose and nothing holding me down, so all that’s left is whatever tomorrow brings.

I will have more good things to talk about, and soon… for hopefully I am finally emerging from what I can only describe as absolute rock bottom.

…

So another season closes, another winter thaws, the foolish continue to gamble while the rich get richer, and the Man in the Moon smirks knowingly, for he alone holds the answer to the question that lingers in every mind as the bard ends his song: While we lie in blissful slumber tonight, who will plot and who will weep?