At Least

Dear Internauts,

As I sit behind this desk at work, once again waiting for the local authorities, having moved my car in probable futility against those breaks-in's which the previous shift informed me occurred in surprising multitude earlier this evening, I wonder why I'm here.

As my coworker's shift around and the environment of my employment, once so warm and welcoming, has become an eery reflection of the desperate, rude, entitled, and often intoxicated presentation of those guests for whom I earn an hourly wage, I wonder why I'm here.

As I read through the message from the last oasis of encouragement--a manager whose confidence in my ability to lead is weighed heavily against my struggling desire to care very much about a job where respect is a dream more distant than the rain-drenched flowers on the other side of this ever-thickening window, I wonder why I'm here.

As all sense would tell me that writing something about my job in this manner while at work and then proceeding to share said thoughts over the internet simply to prove some abstract yet oversimplified existential concept of self-worth is too big a risk, I wonder why I'm here.

As I reflect back on how last night's concert--a guerilla, DIY, all acoustic musical experience on my back porch for a little over ten audience members featuring very un-Nashville-like Nashvillian artists--contrasts so greatly with the plastic, expensive, and overhyped nature of the contemporaneous CMAFest while still serving as a springboard for my dearest hopes and personal aspirations, I wonder why I'm here.

As I write all these wicked long sentences, the soundtrack of traveler's gossip and Springtime downpour in the background, I wonder why I'm here.

In a town of wanna-be's and has-been's, I wonder why I'm here.

"At least you've got a job," she said.

"Well, sure," I replied, "At first I was simply grateful to have something to eat, then to have a job, then to have a place to live, and now I'm complaining about being fulfilled."

Maybe Maslow was right and the big questions are a privilege for those who've got the rest in the bag. Or maybe Green had it right, that as humans, we are all complexities and questions, and no matter our situation we want something bigger.

Perhaps desperation breeds the necessity for those big questions as pain breeds art or any extreme situation can squeeze the deeper truths and higher beauties from our choking lungs.

Truth is, every day I see people on both sides of this desk who want things and are afraid to reach out for them. We become comfortable in our miserable mediocrity. We think ourselves safe inside our cars, using the anonymity of the metal box to pollute the air outside with toxins and the air inside with curses. We dream of absurdities and let fiction teach us morals and about what it means to believe in ourselves, because the alarm will always beep too early.

And we live our lives hovering over the snooze button.

But then, the other day the alarm sounded and for the first time in who knows how long, I was so incredibly excited to get up. That night I would get to live my dream, if only for a few minutes on a stage in my own backyard for only a few people.

"At least you have a job," she said.

It won't ever be good enough, I thought, because as blessed as I am to have "at least", I only wake up smiling for much more than that.

Eh, I don't know.