The lonely road...

How'd Tolkein put it?

"The road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began, and I must follow if I can, pursuing it with weary feet until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet, and whither then?  I cannot say..."

Somethin' like that.

What's beautiful about it is the honest melancholy.  It's just this damn long journey.  

So tiring.

I was in Vancouver over the weekend, working.  We were shooting some visuals for one of my new shows... 

('my show'=a show I'm producing or producing/directing not that I 'own' the show in and of myself...c'mon, cut a nigga' some slack [and I'm listening to Jay-Z as I write and he's the one throwing the 'n' word around as a casual moniker so who says he can use it and I can't?] anyway...) 

Let's try that again:

(I was in Vancouver over the weekend, working.  We were shooting some visuals for one of my new shows) and I kept feeling haunted.  Haunted because when you're out shooting  you're looking, and if you're worth your salt your looking is 'seeing' and if you're seeing then you can't help but be assaulted by all the sadness in the world.

What kept hitting me is how desperate everyone is to make money.

It's the hook of every conversation, the nexus of almost every relationship, the purpose behind most activities.  Why else is the pretty blonde waitress smiling at me?  (Well, yes, because I'm devastatingly handsome now that my Executive Producer is making me grow my hair back ["The ladies love you with hair..." was exactly how he put it I think...]) 

No.

She's smiling at me 'cause she knows that if she's nice, and just a little bit flirty, I'll tip her more.  And she's right.  "It's all about the Benjamin's baby..."

And the weight of it, of the 'earning imperative', put me into a funk really.

I've often wondered what the world would be like if we didn't have to earn a living.  But then I got to thinking, as I was walking through the hotel lobby alone, that this is how Britney (or whatever depressed celeb you want...) or Heath might have been feeling.  See, I was at a nice hotel, I had money to buy food, I had a job and nice clothes, nothing to worry about really even though I don't got a hundred million kicking around.  Not much difference 'tween me and them 'cause once you're up off the poverty line you're a person of privilege no matter which way you slice it.  Thing is, the two guys I was shooting with had gone out for dinner with these two girls that used to attend my Church.  I was asked out to dinner too but felt conflicted about it.  

Why?

Well, 1) because I was tired and knew that if I went I'd regret it and be a real pill 'cause I should have just gone to sleep.  But, 2) I didn't want the girls to feel disrespected like I could care less about seeing them.  So that was a real tension.  But then again, it's not like it's out of character for me to pass up a social opportunity in favor of hitting the sack.  I tend to keep to myself a bit.  

Then one of the dudes I was with laid it on me.  "It's not like after the initial 'niceness' of saying 'hi' after three years, that you're going to have anything to talk about anyway..."

And I felt so rejected.

"Nobody's got nothin' to say to me.  Holy crap!"

And I felt 'bad', not 'mopey', so don't feel sorry for me or feel like I'm whining 'cause I'm not. It's just that the enormity of it really hit me as I realized I've brought this on myself because I typically keep to myself.

So I lay there in the dark thinking I'm lonely and so's everybody else.

(I mean, sure, they were with people, having dinner so they were staving it off a bit just now...) 

But, it's not that far from there to here, y'know?  Lonely is our condition.

"And I must follow if I can..."

Sooner or later you got a road to follow.  Just you.  'Aint nobody going to walk it with you. 

Then I start thinking about my wife, and that reminds me that I'm not totally alone and I'm thankful for marriage a second but then I realize that, 1) my experience of a happy marriage is not necessarily universal and 2) there's still the loneliness of my thought life.  Wifey can't get inside my brain and, if you're like me at all, you spend a lot of your day thinking about things and that means you spend a lot of the day alone.

Then I realized I'm missing God a bit.

(and that's due, in large part, to the poverty of my 'Church experience' since retiring from my Church...)

The fortunate thing is that The Presence is only a 'fourth wall' away and I can press through that pretty easy.

"Hello Lord.  Todd here.  Miss You.  Can I breathe You a bit?  Glory.  You make glorious fir trees.  Mountains.  Glory.  Yes.  My wife is glorious.  Love You.  Thank You for my babies.  I love You.  Breathe.  Damn but that ocean smells glorious.  You.  Glory.  Breathe..."

It's not that hard.  

Then it hit me that all the people around me probably feel like me.  They're tired and lonely. Their lives feel like a rat race.  They feel alone.  They feel stressed.  They need money.  Such despair.

So how do you hug the world?  How in the hell do you tell them to 'breathe The Glorious' without pushing them away 'cause they think you're a texan right-wing nutjob?

In little bits.

You take the thing you do and infuse it with the life and the hope and the purpose and the peace and the glory.

People love that shit.

Glory.  Peace.  Purpose.  Hope.  Life.  Infusion.

WHOOO!

Gimme' that.

I need that more than I need money.  I don't really need money.  It's just a construct.  Blue pill? Red pill?

Jesus pill.

Mmmmmm.

That magic is the stuff you put in your stories.  That hope is the throughline you put in your show, your script, your picture, your sermon.

Hope.

Jesus pill.

Then you write it the way Tolkein sometimes switched it up to:

"...pursuing it with eager feet..."

Yes.  The eager feet.  How do you get the 'eager feet'?  That's the question the whole world's askin'...

Including me.

T