Natural Selection

I once wrote, in the tagline of a play I never finished, "What is the difference between revolution and evolution? The direction of the movement." It was a story about a war of ideas and beliefs, about confusion and loss, about being remembered the way we want to be remembered and not leaving that definition up to anyone else. It was a war, not a struggle, of one man against the world, then the world against ideas, and then the man became just another form of the ideas he was against in the first place. The main problem, of course, lies in the fact that truth, a sense of order, of right and wrong, is subjective, and contrasting ideas are not often discussed because...well, as we're prone to think, "Would anything I say make a difference?" I'd like to be the first one in this hour to tell you that yes, everything you say makes a difference.

If you've read all 64 blog entries before this (and...damn...if you have...wow), you would know that I'm constantly soul searching, asking the questions that I can wrestle with and leaving the other little mysteries alone until I can find relevance (like why I hadn't been able to get the song "More than a Feeling" out of my mind). Being out of work has risen this to a whole different level, because people have confirmed certain things about me, and I have to believe that I have those qualities going for me. My resume looks great. My outplacement program has involved all of us without work in a bunch of exercises to help us sell the best things about ourselves. I don't know where anyone else is in their lives, but I've had this...this habit of journal/blog writing...for 22 years now. Over that time I have fought my demons. I've believed the worst things about myself. I've even accepted defining places like my former job for years at a time, because it was just easier to stay in one place.

Do you know what feels more right than believing the worst? Love. Listen, you can call me out for being more of a dreamer than a realist, but I, too, can see that something is exactly what it seems to be. I can empathize with a bad situation or acknowledge a dead end when I see one. I have tried, and failed, and tried again, and found success. I have been rejected and then missed, completely alone, yet at one with the entire world in front of me. What gives me this kind of annoying optimism is the fact that I crave love, am addicted to it, so that is what I try to project. I will never say that I'm not worthy of it, because I have so much.

So we all have choices, as I keep repeating in my entries to remind myself, more than anything. I could try to understand the past, or worse yet, try to fix it, but at this beautifully even-numbered age of 40, I'm a little more occupied with the future.

This is my transition between revolution and evolution.