At the risk of sounding like a battered vinyl - Spinning on an antiquated phonograph in some long lost side street café that smells of cigar smoke and coffee beans; that hits scratches sending the needle back to play the same notes over at such regularity that the locals no longer notice it over the murmur of discourse and clinking of cutlery. I am lost.
Earlier I was thinking; or rather daydreaming (whilst pretending to work). About nothing in particular, wistfully watching time tick away and the daily routine of office life unfold as inevitably as the passing of the time I longed to be making better use of. When my imagination conjured up an image that seems to so perfectly represent me, or perhaps more accurately, seems to so perfectly represent my perception of me. At face value it might appear a portrait of desolation, but its simplicity made me smile (inwardly obviously, if I had smiled in work, the inquisition would have escorted me to the dungeon for interrogation quicker that you can say what the dickens?)
It was a follows. A solitary figure I believed to be me (despite a voice at the back of my head stating otherwise) dressed in a dusty grey shirt; with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, long khaki shorts, well-worn walking boots, and a baseball cap, with a compass hooked to a chain that hung about his neck. Sat on the corner of a large rock, kicking his feet against the uneven stone surface thoughtlessly. In one hand, propped on his leg, a water bottle; half full and in the other a tattered book that at the present engaged his interest. Sand showered a bag at the foot of the rock each time his boots smacked against the rock, slowly burying it.
A path once well traversed and easily distinguishable from the barren plains either side lead past the traveller’s resting place, and branched off into at least three directions. He was lost, or undecided as to what path he might take; his decision would perhaps be based on something he reads in the book. I had a fancy that were the view to shift round I would see the ruins of a once great city lain out behind the traveller. Once standing as a beacon of light and learning, at extremities of a vast empire, no but a monument to a dead people, on the edge of a forgotten wilderness.
I have often likened myself to the protagonists in those romanticised tales of adventure and discovery, set in times before technology shrunk the world and made everything to readily available. When the hero was intelligent, chivalrous, courageous and committed, setting upon achieving his/her goal with such determination that at times, the pursuit of which looked to consume them, as it blinded them to the dangers which always around close by.
I aspired to imitate these heroes because I wanted the adventure, the sense (some even the experience) of danger, and I wanted to have a goal that merely the thought of filled me with the focus and drive to succeed. For a while I was like that, once I discovered the self-confidence to make the first step. I was driven to pursue my goals, and did so at every opportunity, but now that drive seems to have stuttered to a halt. Now I am the traveller in my daydream, to my back the last of my adventures; slowly fading into memory, and before me confusion. The paths are all there, but they seem long and empty, and the effort that would be expelled in traversing them seems too great a price to pay, and so I sit idle. Lamenting my loss of purpose. The little victories that have on occasion dispelled this mood no longer have the desired effect. I need a bigger hit, I need to rediscover that I have apparently lost.
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