red october, third violin, and the headless man

Spending money is morally neutral. Getting a speeding ticket is morally neutral. Making mistakes is morally neutral.

Being alive is morally neutral. It's not a sin to be less worse off than someone else. It's not a sacrament to be doing so poorly you inspire awe.

And yet, it does feel incredibly impossible. The youth are supposed to be beset with financial woes, drawing weak under the tide of endless payments and interest and collections, unimaginable groceries and electric bills and rent, or else influencer trust fund babies. Or else living at home.

I'm closer to being the latter than I am the former, aren't I? Attic apartment, yes, but independent nearing to independently wealthy, with past generations shepherding me around, buying me dinner, paying for my gas (or attempting). Used car, yes, but far nicer and kept spotlessly empty than those of any of my peers.

Could I cosplay poverty, by contracting a speeding ticket? Could I pretend that it's really so hard on my wallet and my mind?

But it's not. It just feels like it is. It just feels like it should be.

Should be? Well, but who says?

Somehow, a spreadsheet protects me from all ills. Because I forecasted it, it will be so. And an extra hundred dollars here, without explanation, to the wrong address, but not the catastrophically (cataclysmically) wrong one. Forecast twenty-five and twenty-five; see it borne fiften and fifteen. Move twenty dollars here, twenty dollars there. Taxes. Rebates. And the spreadsheet makes it so.

My perfect record keeps me perfect. My perfect record absorbs the blows.

How might I repurpose my perfect record (my eternal nightstorm in spotted mind) to absorb the blows of my life?

The church elementary school, K through 8, is going through a remodeling. Knock this building down. Construct another. And all those endless administrators, bus drivers, support staff and building subs--

There are so many people. Everywhere. So many structures. So many institutions.

So many places and opportunities at and within which to do work. French teachers. Instructional coaches. A living wage to do something which seemed startlingly minimal at the time, but now I can't think of it. Oh yes! Perhaps tennis coach (at a small private university). So many things to do.

It makes one wonder - how much money do I really need? What grand goal am I truly hurtling toward? What is the difference between me and a shoestring? A sense of calm, amid stability?

(A sense of untouched, uncanny balance. A sense that I'm not really here.)

But am I really calm? Can I be? Should I be?

Frugality. I couldn't possibly be knowing frugality. I save on groceries by not eating, after all.

And so I believe it is this - this lack, this semblance, this facsimile - that extends throughout my entire life. A sheer layer submitting itself between me and the person I want to be, the people I want to know (the people I want to be, so I can be good people). Pale, unpractised frugality. Should for should's sake.

Fling myself against the wall. The wall's not there. The boundaries refuse to present themselves for my arms.

Let's drive slower. But our body will not affix into rigidity so that we must ; there are no rules.

(The curb is there - let's hit the curb! Let's be financially responsible! Aw, dang it.)

I keep telling myself I have to go crazy in order that my tail should snap straight and show me where to point, on from there. I have to act out in order to figure out what acting in (what the cease of acting) looks like.

And maybe it is that invisibility I flirt with, constantly, after all. Maybe it is a thousand-fold crumple in upon myself - the crumple which is, of course, for attention, but the ensuing life as discarded something to inure myself to so that I can unfurl each petal with purpose and precipitude.

Being myself is morally neutral. So who is telling me that I need to be discarded?

It is the perfect record. It is the absolute shame. The embarrassment shed from the truth: to be so pathetic as to even acknowledge these wants that spiral, on and on.

I want something. God damn me, I want something. But what is it? What is it?

Do I want to be the nonexistent third violin?

(It's that quiet victory - when the concertmaster steps out, and without even thinking all defer to me. But I have not had to stand up. I have not been acknowledged. I do not say anything. I do not point. I do not sigh. I am quiet. I am noble. I am stern.)

I want to be helpful. That may be an effect, but it is a noble cause. I want to be helpful, to be available, to be generous, to be resilient. I do not wish that these qualities would disappear. I do not wish that this facet of myself would fade away.

I want to be appreciated. That may be an effect, but it is an understandable cause. Everybody wants recognition that they are alive, that they have brought cheer and not suffering. If I am appreciated, it's a better bet that I haven't inflicted some harm or wrong.

The third violin, the headless man, is both helpful and appreciated. The crucial cog doth turn and turn.

Do I even want those eyes upon me, that would beget me have a gazing head?

I want to salute those that would salute me, but I don't wish to be made available for ridicule, too. I want the smiles and interest and inside jokes, but I don't want the vulnerability that - apparently - accompanies along the way.

My mouth closed. I simply listen. Yes, a silent salute.

I have not had to prove myself, at work. I have simply arrived, and asked, and asserted what I claim to be. No challenges, no rebuke or redress.

At work. Through work. I do it. It does not do me. (But I do well to do it, don't I?)

And that's strange. It's so strange. My coworkers are people, and that's strange.

(Only people. Only people. Who am I? I'm only people.)

I have been scared, at points, it's true, but that fear has faded. I do the work I have to do. I request the resources and escalate as necessary. I am a moving part that moves, that moves.

The crucial cog - it moves, it moves!

Begin from neutrality. Which way shall we spin?

The headless man - his head doth turn, and eyes that blink, immune to spurn.

He lacks the record. He is invisible, among the crowd. He has no memory. He is but a cog.

He knows not what is about to happen, nor what has gone before.

But the headless man is no more noble than you or I. The headless man is not to be scorned for or by his apparent lack of needs any more than you or I would be mocked for being real, for being human.

Let the record not show that the headless man has done anything - any more, any less - than work hard, as if his head bowed. Let the record not show that the third violin has done anything - any more, any less - than smile, with her head aloft.

And their senses of permanence, individually felt, must be respected. We are as we show ourselves to be.

Let's not laugh. Let's not cry.

I think I want to have a head.