I have a big list, see.

I've wanted to be married for a long time. And now, one month out, I want to be married more than ever.

Because holy crap will I have a lot less stuff to do once the wedding is over.

The Smallest Trick of Light

"Write with the learned. Pronounce with the vulgar." --Benjamin Franklin

All you need to do is read Ben Franklin's autobiography to see what a great guy he thought he was. That's got to be a rule somewhere: Anyone who writes an autobiography is probably a dick on some level.

But being self-important doesn't mean you're not regular-important too, as Ben Franklin would likely point out. It might even help achieve it, if you're into that kind of thing. Which I maybe sort of am.

I was listening to a song tonight; the lyrics were about how the singer felt when he was a child: invincible, dreamy, important. I tried to make myself the protagonist of the song's narrative (like you do) but I couldn't. I don't remember feeling important as a child.

I remember feeling timid and small. I remember having some big dreams... being a famous journalist or writing novels that people enjoyed... but a half-assed pragmatism got in the way. I knew I didn't know how to do those things, so therefore I couldn't. It didn't occur to me to learn how to try. I just knew I couldn't. Blind assurance of competence never occurred to me like it does for so many self-important people. I just knew I wasn't good enough. The end.

I've learned better since, but I still forget. Even now, I'm surprised every time that it occurs to me fresh: If you don't know how to do something, you can find out how. And if you don't know how to find out, find out how to find out. Keep unraveling with that method until you succeed at the thing you were after in the first place.

I don't know why I learned stopping was better than going. I don't know why I still act like that's the lesson.

There is still time enough and chance to be different. Unlike dancing or boxing or sweeping chimneys, writing is not strictly for the young. But it's frustrating to learn the truth in the middle of the run instead of at the beginning where it could do the most good.

I don't want to be self-important like Franklin, but I do want to get stuff done like Franklin.

Apocalypse Any Minute Now

Driving home from work today, I was thinking about heat. Wondering why, what with all the vast cold in the galaxy, that heat from our planet doesn’t dissipate into space, killing us all. I don’t need your science nerd answer—I know why it doesn’t happen. I’m going somewhere with this.

I wasn’t paying much attention in the ‘70s, but in the ‘80s I was pretty aware of the USSR’s ability to kill most of us, and ruin Earth for everyone else. It made no sense for anyone to use their ridiculously destructive weapons, but no one ever seemed to suggest that no one would. We just hoped.

My favorite role-playing game then was Gamma World. Trying to eke out existence in a ruined quasi-sci-fi world where nobody knows what went wrong, that was.... Was it fun? It was not exactly fun, but captivating. Imagining that world was scary and creatively invigorating.

Our world-ending threats now are different, but no less creatively fertile. After the bomb is after the fact these days. Now our Gamma Terra would be based on ecological upheaval. Or pandemic. Or economic collapse. Some people even get worked up over rogue asteroid impact.

It seems like people my age have been under some extinction-level threat our whole lives. Surely constant threat of vague doom—that's got to affect you. Maybe this helps explain hopeless chic? People my age, we’ve never lived through optimistic zeitgeist. We’ve pretty much always been under one gun or another. The deformation of mind and spirit living under them has squashed us into some weird shapes. A joyless bacchanal.

I wouldn’t classify myself as the sort of dude who sits around thinking of the end of humanity. I don’t even really think it’s possible. It’s just... the '80s kid remains wide-eyed aware that things can get fantastically worse on short notice. And there's nothing we can do about it.

That might be one of my favorite “proofs” for the existence of a benign God. We have an infinity number of ways to die spectacularly, but instead we keep on living sort of normally. That seems unlikely without frequent intervention.

Brow Beaten

A couple of years ago I was on a fantastically bad camping trip. Walking to the camp store, I passed two girls and one said to me, "Don't look so miserable!" My face unclenched into a tired smile.

Lately, I notice my brow furrowed a lot. Like, I'll just be talking and hey my face feels all tight, and then I relax it and ah, that feels better.

How long have I been doing this? Do I look mad a lot? Am I secretly troubled? Am I concentrating? What am I concentrating on? Is this one of those things everyone notices but nobody says to my face?

I kind of want to find the girl again for another shot of disarming candor.