THE REAL COST OF PRACTICALITY 

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JUST. LIVE. SENSIBLY.

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Too practical, like when everything you want out of life becomes suppressed, crushed down, and smushed together by a skewed ethic of responsibility. A slowly shrinking ballon. Shriveled, the commitment, driving you up a wall. In an attempt to get some fresh air, onto the roof, but there’s only another wall of sensibility, which meets you abruptly. It’s texture, flat. Dashing your freedom to pieces. According to cultural standards, you’re building higher and growing bigger, but, inside, you’re sinking deeper into a disillusion of dizzying proportions. Propped up, you’re constantly pushing aside what could be for what is. You are a martyr for everyone else, but your gifts have long sense been abandoned for what you’d call a proper life, but, in the end, things don’t feel very proper at all. This can’t be it. One practical choice after another.

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Too practical, like a mother duck with all her ducklings in a row, except the one which strays, swims wild, and loose. The crick in your neck, becoming insufferably menacing to the point of preoccupation. How dare the “one” veer off the predetermined track? Don’t my plans know there’s no time for wild hairs? Eyes forward. Chin up. Adventure causes more problems than it resolves. Important things need to be taken care of in the proper order and what we wish can’t get in the way of our (wilting) sense of duty. Practicality is a straight line and each variation a quibble worth fighting, instead of an enlightenment to be embraced. If each variation is to be accepted, then what will become of the parameters and how would structure be produced? Practicality is a constant flustering that’s exasperating, instead of a clue opening the door to the present. If there’s no intentional flustering, then stillness may become too great a teacher and what would become of the beloved anxiety?

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Too practical, like a large boulder clinging to the side of a tall cliff. Always on the edge of exploding into pieces down the hillside. Tied with frayed ropes, anchored to other weak points, and attempting to hold it all together. A precipice you’ve come to know entirely too well. Out of breath. Out of line. Many, if not all, of your facial expressions communicate a lack of constructive outlets you can call your own. Scrunched. Your face. No where to cut loose and let life ride. No slice of time where you say: yes, this is exactly how things are supposed to be. Terse and short, every word spoken is an expansion into the rafters of infuriation. You begin to scream on the inside. At first, softly, but as the the years proceed, with ever increasing vigor. How did life become so simple and meaningless? Or, why, in the simple way in which life came to rest, were you unable to find any bit of extraordinary meaning? Even an ounce. Not even a drop. Poof. You can’t find a release button. Not an escape hatch per say, but a meaning card. Things are the way they are because they must be this way, but not because they’re meant to be this way, or because they belong this way. They just are.

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Too practical, like a cumbersome paper map you’re always tied to, but aren’t sure anymore if the destination is to anywhere valuable. You’ve heard all along and been told by many people that this is the map of life: be careful, watch your step, and follow the tried and true. Just look at us? We’re on our way. But, now, later in life, you find the directions lacking in key areas and instructions on reaching the mountain top appear rather vague. The summit is mentioned, yet briefly. The map has a message you understand, but only in terms of concrete progress, which is only sometimes fulfilling. Empty, you’re thinking there’s a different map, but you’d hate to speak up now, as everyone loves what makes sense and moves life along amicably. You ask yourself: is there a blank one, perhaps? One that doesn’t have all the treasure marked out with lines of gold. One that’s, in effect, open for interpretation, too valuable to pin down, and extremely rare?

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A

MAP

OF

DREAMS

To break free from the suffocation of constrictions, sooth the angst of constant variables, still the inner rage of lost meaning, and quell the emptiness of unfulfillment. A life map that finally opens the conscience parameters long since closed by the search and satisfaction for what’s practical. Could a map like that be found again today and would it be followed?