the quintessential human delusion...

       it's no secret that the last few months have been pretty tough for me. even i'm starting to get sick of all my whining and "woe is me." maybe it's the fact that it's autumn (by far my favorite) or that i have something of an income now, or perhaps it's simply that i'm getting used to the way things are, but the thought struck me this morning that i'm actually thriving. it might only be on a level equivalent to that of a bacterium in a petri dish (in terms of social standing, not rate of growth), but i'm bolstered by the realization that in some ways i've been at my best. i came to this conclusion after speaking with a couple friends in similarly tough times. their attitudes and feelings reminded me of my own, and the hope and optimism that i have for them allowed me to take a step back out of my own wallowing to see that the dark times often turn out to be some of my favorite.

       several days ago i happened through a bit of channel surfing to come across the remake of "the day the earth stood still." the character played by the wonderful john cleese, here proclaimed a world leader (as a thinker, not a person in a position of political or religious power), said "it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. only at the precipice do we evolve. this is our moment." my feeling has been something like that, a throwback to my old perhaps naive but still favorite topic of hope, a thing which the second matrix film profoundly characterized as "simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness," a statement that i've found to be quite true (which is perhaps the reason i'm so fascinated by the subject).

       i know that i have been evolving over the last couple months. faced with a precipice of my own, many times (and still) wondering if it would be better to give up entirely on my rather ridiculous dream of sustaining myself as an author, it only takes a glance at my notebooks and computer documents to see that i've written more in the last month or so than in all the rest of 2010. and i have a job which may afford me the chance to be self-reliant within a few more months. the economy is still very squarely in the crapper, as is my mood more often than not, but in keeping (relatively) up on current opinions and trends, there's certainly a note of cautious optimism. such is the case with queer rights (at least in the u.s.) as well. the phrase "all men are created equal" is still something of a humorless joke, but there have been several extremely important advancements in the courts as well as with public opinion (which, for the first time in recent history, the (still small) majority supports equality). will this be a great human precipice that will bring about some wonderful evolution? probably not. but there's hope, and that's the point.