Yet again, you exceed the grade.
Exactly that. There is hard work, and there is the rebel. Each will have to contend with the reality of the other at some point.
I remember Richard (appeal to authority warning) talking about when he was an artist, leaving all the work to the last minute, then blitzing through it on the potter’s wheel.
Standing in the gallery, with people praising him, he knew that he had nothing to do with it. The work had done itself.
As far as being a “rebel”, the truth is I am not that at all. I read it all, wrote journal after journal, thousands of voice notes, I am the ultimate conformist, in reality.
The bravado is a Hail Mary. As it has always been.
I am actually the one who believed that if he did the right things, he would be rewarded.
I did the right things, and there is nothing but emptiness.
Which is also to say, there is absolutely nothing to loose for me.
You imagine yourself to be talking with a peer. A fellow “actualist”.
I am no such thing.
There are billions of me.
Men and women who did the “right thing” and were not only cast aside, but vehemently condemned as being sub-standard.
One can break out the “little violin” for such, however it’s also a gift.
I see them, working hard, nose to the wheel. Like I once was.
I see them look down on me.
Pity. Despicable too.
But I haunt them. I anger them. Enrage them.
This is what I am challenged to give up.
Not the glory.
Not the esteem.
Indeed, it is precisely the rebel they want that ultimately isn’t a rebel at all. Who gives up his rank.
