Anything Considered

Oh simple thing where have you gone
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on

I can't remember the concept clearly, but there's this thing about self-actualisation in GP that's always struck me hard. I think we'd always want to make something better out of ourselves, out of our time, and out of our present stages in life. It's probably supposed to be a process of sorts: we seek ourselves by trying and being faced by new and different things, growing with each success and failure until we become the finished product.

I'm afraid that for me it doesn't feel quite right that way. Some part of me clings on the status quo, another part longs for the good old days. I sometimes feel that I'm betraying the past when I want to take a journey to the future. The end result is the in-between, the not-quite-here and not-yet-there which makes for awfully conflicting emotions and thoughts at the worst possible situations.

I remember once imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like. I pictured having all these qualities, strong positive qualities that people could pick up on from across the room. But as time passed, few ever became any qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer. Until finally they got reduced to one, to who I am. And that's who I am, the weather man.

Nicholas Cage as DAVE SPRITZ, in THE WEATHER MAN

I watched The Weather Man on HBO last night. I abosolutely loved the movie. The pains and the flaws of the protagonist were so achingly human that I couldn't help but relate to the movie on a personal level. The monologue above sums it up well. There may be a lot of things about myself that I dislike, a lot that I want to change. But for the moment, right now, for better or worse, I am who I am. And self-actualisation is just a poor man's dream.