Panic and Fear: The Boy I Was

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or because I live in a new city where no one knows about my accomplishments, but lately I've been bringing up a decade-old Nick. I find myself talking about the twenty-year-old kid who played in a touring rock band, the twenty-four-year-old boy who taught existentialism at the state university, or the twenty-six-year-old youth who started his own tech company. My resume is making more and more appearances in my daily life.

It doesn't take a psychotherapist to tell me that people like to be recognized for their feats. It has, however, been leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I never want to live in my own shadow. I never want to look behind me to see the man I admire. These men are everywhere. Add up enough tiny victories, place them end on end, and it almost looks like a life. I'm afraid I might be turning into one.

You no longer get to tell people you're a musician, a philosopher, or an entrepreneur. You are a retail employee. Live with that. Your creative license has expired.* Forget the static past.

It's the price of being a man. You don't get to brag about yourself and you have to move forward. Instead of being a guy who used to play in a band, start another one. There are no groupies for men who used to play in bands. A guitar gathering dust is the most depressing sight you can imagine. Your talents are rusting. There are songs to be played.

You hear me, Nick? There are songs to be played. Pick it up. I dare you.

Pick up The Phenomenology of Perception. You're not finished with it yet. You never wrote a thesis. There's road ahead. It's paved and untraveled. It's begging you to take it. You live in a city filled with talented musicians, overflowing with universities, and immersed in technology. If not here, where? If not now, when?

This is you, calling yourself back to the life you want. Reminding you that you're working a job that dulls your senses in order to make this life a reality. Stop wasting it. When you give up you'll blame it on the politics of theatre and academia, the collapse of the music industry. You didn't try. Put your shoulder into it.