All Man Can Betray Is His Conscience - Joseph Conrad
Once upon a time I was just a few brain cells short of genius. At least I felt so. This conceit came across smoothly, and no matter what I did it refused to leave : the floating sensation of a gypsy band travelling through the essence of reality, the Cirque du Soleil of being one with the universe; a blind date with Aphrodite.
All my troubles didn't start in Teba Hecatompilos, that was Borges' Alamo, but in a similar place: a local library. I was five years old when my aunt took me there and pointed at the wonder of the world. I don't think I was that much of an asshole back then, maybe an asshole's apprentice, so my scream had sincerity written all over it: "But what am I going to read once I'm done with these books?!: My dear aunt wasn't on par with the question, and my very first existential incertitude went uncomforted.
Even at this early age of mine I could clearly see the traces of betrayal, a foggish abbreviation from the path of genius: reading made me too comfortable from the get go - always a bad omen. I was forming a shell around me, a parallel reality; the more furnished that castle became, the less appealing the outdoors activities reflected in my binoculars. Then Winter would come, as it does once a year, and my father, grandpa, uncle Brne, and uncle Zika would wrestle a three hundred pound hog in the yard and slice its throat open, shattering my shelter into pieces and leaving me bare naked in the frost.
I picked up a lot of action in my early teens: street fighting daily, getting addicted to the fumes of rally cars, eyeing girls in the class. The latter two went on to supercharge the Fata Morgana, belittling my inside prodigy even further. Listening to this dubious scenario life was yet to be, full-blown and essential. At this rate of accelerated self delay, I was going to wake up one stellar morning into the splendor of being my future self, only to get crushed as it caved in on me under the weight of built-in void.
I became a Matrix freak who lives and fights while comfortably resting in a lazy boy (a tube sticking into his skull), a boy who cried holy hand grenade, a zombie at the end of a business trip. The only credible biographer of my petty existence would have been Marcel Marceau. And he'd laugh silently.
The Disney period of my life lasted until I turned nineteen, featuring a Mickey Mouse in every serious endeavor I approached. There went the most creative years, brain juices turned into soft drink and spilled out with bubbles gone, while on the surface I had the best of times. My perception was blurred with shiny objects of fun, those beads that bought the island of Manhattan from natives like me. Then Led Zeppelin came along, spraying tons of nitrogen into overheated crowds, making sure the song remained the same long enough.
The real - and I better be careful with this slimy word - the real tectonic shift occurred once I got my Fiat and went onto making an Abarth out of it. It was like an old-fashioned recipe: you take the engine apart, mix it well with tuned header, bored cylinders, a pinch of valves, and a sharp angled camshaft, and before you could pronounce piston (pissed-on), you can tailor desired horse power. Depending on the bore of your pockets, there was a class to choose: more money - easier prestige and fame, less competition; less money - more fun, much more competition, and wide proving grounds. Just don't forget your dog tags, since fatalities rise proportionally.
This coming of age phase, while exceptionally condensed, thrilling, and accomplishing, was the final blow to my genial future: from that point on all I could hope to attain was the title of genius on wheels, something Niki Lauda said about Walter Rohrl. By the time I was done with racing, only few years later, the integrity of my mental forces was sloping downward, the ease of style vanished, and the best case scenario morphed into friendly face of an idiot savant.
At this point I didn't want to count pennies, or split gilded hairs, I just wanted to figure out what to do with my future, if anything. Quite a sad point: I was in my prime, yet my alter ego mirrored that autistic Indian over there on the corner of lunacy and the main street, quoting from Black Elk with a natural ease that drove my namesake George Armstrong Custer hysterical. Of course, I could have done anything I wanted: there was plenty of time and juice to become, say, a brilliant writer, a vocation I always eyed with envy; or a professor of something, a millionaire. Even worse, I could have comfortably envisioned these paths to a diminutive vignette, smell of odors, indulge in applause.
I guess it was the predictability of desirable careers, or any other future direction, that robbed me blind. I just sat there.
Once upon a time I was just a few brain cells short of genius. At least I felt so. This conceit came across smoothly, and no matter what I did it refused to leave : the floating sensation of a gypsy band travelling through the essence of reality, the Cirque du Soleil of being one with the universe; a blind date with Aphrodite.
All my troubles didn't start in Teba Hecatompilos, that was Borges' Alamo, but in a similar place: a local library. I was five years old when my aunt took me there and pointed at the wonder of the world. I don't think I was that much of an asshole back then, maybe an asshole's apprentice, so my scream had sincerity written all over it: "But what am I going to read once I'm done with these books?!: My dear aunt wasn't on par with the question, and my very first existential incertitude went uncomforted.
Even at this early age of mine I could clearly see the traces of betrayal, a foggish abbreviation from the path of genius: reading made me too comfortable from the get go - always a bad omen. I was forming a shell around me, a parallel reality; the more furnished that castle became, the less appealing the outdoors activities reflected in my binoculars. Then Winter would come, as it does once a year, and my father, grandpa, uncle Brne, and uncle Zika would wrestle a three hundred pound hog in the yard and slice its throat open, shattering my shelter into pieces and leaving me bare naked in the frost.
I picked up a lot of action in my early teens: street fighting daily, getting addicted to the fumes of rally cars, eyeing girls in the class. The latter two went on to supercharge the Fata Morgana, belittling my inside prodigy even further. Listening to this dubious scenario life was yet to be, full-blown and essential. At this rate of accelerated self delay, I was going to wake up one stellar morning into the splendor of being my future self, only to get crushed as it caved in on me under the weight of built-in void.
I became a Matrix freak who lives and fights while comfortably resting in a lazy boy (a tube sticking into his skull), a boy who cried holy hand grenade, a zombie at the end of a business trip. The only credible biographer of my petty existence would have been Marcel Marceau. And he'd laugh silently.
The Disney period of my life lasted until I turned nineteen, featuring a Mickey Mouse in every serious endeavor I approached. There went the most creative years, brain juices turned into soft drink and spilled out with bubbles gone, while on the surface I had the best of times. My perception was blurred with shiny objects of fun, those beads that bought the island of Manhattan from natives like me. Then Led Zeppelin came along, spraying tons of nitrogen into overheated crowds, making sure the song remained the same long enough.
The real - and I better be careful with this slimy word - the real tectonic shift occurred once I got my Fiat and went onto making an Abarth out of it. It was like an old-fashioned recipe: you take the engine apart, mix it well with tuned header, bored cylinders, a pinch of valves, and a sharp angled camshaft, and before you could pronounce piston (pissed-on), you can tailor desired horse power. Depending on the bore of your pockets, there was a class to choose: more money - easier prestige and fame, less competition; less money - more fun, much more competition, and wide proving grounds. Just don't forget your dog tags, since fatalities rise proportionally.
This coming of age phase, while exceptionally condensed, thrilling, and accomplishing, was the final blow to my genial future: from that point on all I could hope to attain was the title of genius on wheels, something Niki Lauda said about Walter Rohrl. By the time I was done with racing, only few years later, the integrity of my mental forces was sloping downward, the ease of style vanished, and the best case scenario morphed into friendly face of an idiot savant.
At this point I didn't want to count pennies, or split gilded hairs, I just wanted to figure out what to do with my future, if anything. Quite a sad point: I was in my prime, yet my alter ego mirrored that autistic Indian over there on the corner of lunacy and the main street, quoting from Black Elk with a natural ease that drove my namesake George Armstrong Custer hysterical. Of course, I could have done anything I wanted: there was plenty of time and juice to become, say, a brilliant writer, a vocation I always eyed with envy; or a professor of something, a millionaire. Even worse, I could have comfortably envisioned these paths to a diminutive vignette, smell of odors, indulge in applause.
I guess it was the predictability of desirable careers, or any other future direction, that robbed me blind. I just sat there.
