Distance

There's not much to write tonight. I just started an internship/job this week and I'm loving it. I'm also scared out of my mind. There's a moment, when work is piliing up and responsibilities are increasing, where you have a moment of "Oh, shit". I had that moment today. I'll have more moments like that, I'm sure. Some people call it "growing up". I don't really know what that means, but I think that if I were to be charitable to the people that use that phrase, they mean "becoming more aware of reality" when they use it. I used to think that "growing up" meant that I got hair on my face and drove a car with a girl in it. Later on, I thought that "growing up" meant selling out to "The Man" by getting a job you hated and marrying someone you didn't like, much less love. These days, I think growing up means learning to live in reality. Reality has some nasty step-children that follow it around that have names like "Bills", "Stress", and "Fear". There are more, but those are the ones that I saw today. It's a funny thing, looking into the abyss and realizing that the only thing between yourself and fairly abject failure is a lot of work. It presents you with a simple equation for self-preservation, for sure, but I can't pretend to say that I always find that equation attractive. I don't think that risk is much more than a word, and some words are just sounds. Maybe the word risk is just a sound someone made that got misinterpreted, like when you are in the next room and you hear someone crying and you begin to empathize with them only to learn that they are laughing. Under the conventional meaning of risk, what isn't risky? Love is, business is, having a family is, driving to a restaraunt to eat with friends is, leaving home without voicing your feelings is, writing music is, drinking malt liquor is(I've never had it before, too risky). Try and think of something that doesn't entail risk. You can't. Maybe that's because the word risk is creating a false dichotomy. Maybe it identifies something that isn't there, like the word unicorn or ghost. I wasn't risking anything when I moved to Raleigh, incurred debt right away, and started a job wherein I wasn't getting paid. I was trying to take some steps to reduce the distance between myself and a lifestyle that is more in tune with reality. I don't know of anything that's safe. I used to think that love was safe, but I had seen too many movies. I actually don't even know what love is, but sometimes I get glimpses of it. Yesterday, while I was smoking a cigarette on my uncle's porch, I got a glimpse of what it would be like to love someone. Just in my mind. You should have been there, it was amazing. I think that what we call risk is really an attempt to cross that distance between ourselves and reality. Some people decide its not worth the effort and, instead, live in an illusion called "safety". I'm on my way to shorten that distance between myself and reality. You should come.