The motion of progress, the direction of change.
Or, in our case, the relapsing events like some kind of drug crazed form of deja vu, where only the strong survive because they not only eat the weak, they sodomize the dead bodies of the weak and then become the stars of the glowing boxes in our living rooms.
The stars we have come to call our friends. Our companions. Our little dirty secrets that we would never bring home to Mum. And while most of this holds true for society at large, here in this little patch of green grass untouched by the Apocalypse, we just refer to it as pure and simple garbage that is better off left for dead than rehashed and revised for a 2nd season.
Sixteen. Your life would not make a good sitcom. No matter how many times you hear someone tell you this, it simply is not true. What worked for Seinfeld will not work for you. You will not become the star of some reality show, and you will not gain millions of adoring fans who tune in each week to find out what crazy shenanigans you’re up to currently.
You will not receive an invite to Oprah, you will not marry the creepy co-star of your so-called life-drama and you will not reap the benefits of franchising, commercialization, or a Straight-DVD-Movie-Release.
In short, you will never be famous, you will never be rich, and you will never be popular. Unless you’ve already achieved this. And if you’ve already achieved this, chances are, you aren’t reading what you’ve just read.
The funny thing about life and the ability to be isn’t that it’s just a game with no restart buttons, no cheat codes, and no do-overs. It’s the fact that people treat it like it is. We aren’t coming back in syndication, we aren’t coming back in a sequel, and we aren’t getting picked up for a second season.
Once life and the ability to be becomes life and the ability to have been, that’s it. All for not, not for all, and everything in between. Blank screen, roll credits. The people came, the people saw, the people left.
You will not be receiving any refunds, you will not be receiving a customer satisfaction card. You will not be receiving a follow-up call, a call-back, or a business card to do lunch.
There are no gift baskets waiting in the dressing room, and there are no after parties.
You can’t recast, re-shoot, Take 5, or call for break. It happens in real time, and I’m not talking about an episode taking place over a period of weeks that results in a nice little action packed cleanly cut one hour episode, commercial breaks included.
And no matter how hard you try, who you are, what you do, and where you go, the end result will always be an epic fail.
Because everything that is good happens in the now – everything that matters (for the most part) either happens in the future, or not at all. And it’s the people who can understand this – really understand this – that will learn that that, too, is irrelevant.
And nothing can mean any more or any less than what it means to you.