Konstantine

In less that one hour I will be another year older, a year that will weigh a little bit heavier due to the increasing number of them that have passed.  A day that is really nothing to the majority of the seven billion people on the planet, is, for me, something that is (in theory) supposed to be celebrated. I did manage to get the day off from my job to celebrate/mourn the day of my birth. As my loyal readers will know by now, if they bother to be either loyal or to read, I share my birthday with a fellow by the name of Eric Blair. Known to the general masses as one George Orwell. That is a tough thing for me to share.

George Orwell wrote some really fantastic books, and is one of my favorite authors. I write a shit ass blog post that might be five pages long, and is generally filled with either spelling or grammatical mistakes, and is probably not worth reading. See the difference? Perhaps I see it more clearly than other people because it is, at the end of the day, my difference. My inability to measure up to the standards that I have set for myself. I can't imagine, because I lack the imagination, where Herr Orwell got all that wonderful material for his books. Though some careful research has unearthed a couple of points of inspiration for a couple of his books. But, I still can not imagine all the things he saw, and all the things that he left out of his writing. How much of what he saw that even his genius could not capture on paper. Like it or not, I figure that a lot of any sort of 'inspiration' I have comes from my personal life, a life that has ticked over another number on its odometer.  A number that is only going to get higher until it reaches it final number, a number that I am not sure of, and am terrified to contemplate.

The 365 days that it has taken me to age another year have taught me a few things, but some things I just don't seem to be able to learn. The last year of my life has seen me make a decision that will affect the remaining years of my life, and it is a decision that was not taken lightly, and it will not be a popular decision, but me and popularity have never been close friends. I am not the popular type, and I never will be. I prefer to think of it, if I bother to think about it at all, that I am an acquired taste, and if you care to take the time to acquire me, you will probably regret it.  Regret is another thing that I have carried around with me for the last 365 days. Regrets, big and small, that, in many ways, have helped to define the last year of my life. Regrets have a tendency to do that, define things, for both good and bad, usually bad.

Regrets make us realize the mistakes that we made during the last year, but there is usually exactly fuck all we can do about them. Regret is a great teacher for students of life that are willing to listen and learn. I am not such a student, I am hard to teach, and no matter how much I listen I can't just seem to discern what I am being taught. It is a bit like listening to the last transmission of Vladimir Komarov aboard Soyruz 1. I know that he understands he is about to die, and that he is saying the last words that anyone will ever hear him speak, but he is speaking in Russian, and I don't understand a bleeding word of it, I just get the idea that he is trying his best to say all that he needs to say for a lifetime in about 22 seconds.  And all of this horror happened just over 2 years before I was born.

 Komarov didn't have the chance to die a peaceful death in his bed, he smashed to Earth at an incredible speed and all that was recovered of his body was a smashed heel bone. An entire of life of 40 years summed up in a brief transmission of rage at the damn fools that sent him to his death, and a state funeral for dying because of some other damn fool's incompetence.  Don't you think he deserved a little more? Red or not he was a brave fellow, far braver than I will ever be, and today who the fuck remembers him? For that matter, I realize that I won't die a heroes death, and the number of people that remember Komarov (no matter how small that number is) will still be more than will remember me. And that is exactly how it should be.

The truth of the matter is that tomorrow, while slightly disappointingly important to me, is just another indistinguishable day for the majority of the world. Which is also exactly how it should be, after all, the date of my birth is nothing to be celebrated, anymore than an atheist would celebrate Christmas as being the 'birth' of Jesus.  As the last seconds of my 43rd year on this planet tick away, and I am left facing a new age with its new problems, I realize that escape is impossible. We all pay for the violence, or foolishness of our ancestors, and a couple of my ancestors were very violent fools. 

 As that clock ticks away I am reliving the last year of my life at a supersonic speed. Trying to cram all of the emotions, both good and bad of the 43 year of my life into its last quarter of an hour. It is not a easy thing to do, and there were quite of number of mistakes made during this year that need a lot longer than a quarter of an hour to fix, if they can be fixed at all.  And now that the clock has struck midnight, and I am a year older, I realize that time is just as ruthless as gravity. It is a force that you can fight all you want to, but you are never, ever going to beat it. Time marches on, and you have to follow whether you like it or not, just like you hit the ground if you fall because gravity doesn't give two real shits about you. It just is gravity it takes no delight in what it does, or doesn't do, it just is. And maybe, just maybe as I thumb through my well read copy of "1984" I need to learn to realize that perhaps just being 'is' is the best I can hope for. Welcome to a new age.