Glory

I am pret­ty con­sis­tent­ly pulled in two dis­tinct direc­tions. In one, I feel that my life should be full of celebri­ty and glo­ry. That I should be famous and con­tribute to the bet­ter­ment of mankind. It rejects the com­fort and mun­dan­i­ty of work­ing a nor­mal job and liv­ing a nor­mal life.

The oth­er side, is of course, work­ing a nor­mal job and liv­ing a nor­mal life. The rel­a­tive sim­plic­i­ty and less dream­like goals that this one con­tains also appeal to me. I see noth­ing wrong with liv­ing a qui­et unam­bi­tious life and gain­ing per­son­al celebri­ty and glo­ry through small things done well. It rejects the Amer­i­can Dream men­tal­i­ty.

In either case though, I still feel like I’m buy­ing in to some sort of sys­tem. I guess I am since cul­ture and soci­ety are sys­tems. Per­haps it is bet­ter to say that I feel as if I were betray­ing some­thing by choos­ing one or the oth­er. I can’t fig­ure out what oth­er options are avail­able. I can’t seem to reimag­ine or think out­side of these two box­es.

I think I am miss­ing glo­ry at this time. I think of where I was in col­lege, being on a Nation­al Cham­pi­onship team, being per­cep­tive where it mat­tered, writ­ing poet­ry that seemed to impress peo­ple. And it isn’t com­pli­ments or recog­ni­tion I am par­tic­u­lar­ly fish­ing for. Those are nice, but glo­ry only shows up when I know it for truth myself. And yeah, glo­ry is fleet­ing, that is what makes it so spe­cial. But it is addic­tive too, I want to feel it again. That is why I want to do things that are Large or Impres­sive or Per­cep­tive. But I can sort of see the glo­ry and pride of hav­ing a good mar­riage and rais­ing some kids that will be Larg­er and Impres­siv­er and Per­cep­tiv­er than I am.

But here I am again, only see­ing two options. There have got to be more.