When it falls

Drinking Johnnie Black. The tiny remote from my Jetson-like Ipod speaker system is clipped onto my ear, hanging off like a dangling, urban accessory. "I met a boy, wearing Vans, 501's, and a dope Beastie-T..."

Don't get me wrong, shit is nice. Shit is what it's all about. But it's true what they say: It does start to own you. But more than that, it ties you down; to a place, yes, but more so to a metaphysical place that's very difficult to crawl out of. And that ugly type of crawling, as from a grave, in nail-shredding agony.

I have a sense that there are the happy ones out there who find their small plots and build on them. But for the most part, for the most of us it's just collecting shit until you're up to your neck in clutter. And it's at that point - where you know that you've moved from a few, indispensable possessions to that choking feeling of clutter - that you take five things with you and move on. Burn the rest.

There must be nomads out there who are happy. It's the motion that completes them. Then there are the ones who wander forever, just looking for that perfect plot. And it seems that the difference between the two is nothing more than being born with the right set of chemicals on the brain. Pure, simple chance. Like the men of the Brittania, stranded in a lifeboat for 23 days in 1941 off the Brazilian coast. I'm sure for some the experience altered them somehow to the point of greatness, a lesson that pushed them to the brink of their potential. And at the same time, there are the ones in this world who don't have to eat their friends to stave starvation, who accomplish theirs without ever breaking the smooth rhythm that was vested naturally in their souls.

Here's to the 44 Brittania lifeboaters who kept the rest of their friends alive. L'Chaim!