I keep tripping on a tight-rope, slipping across a knife-edge, straddling the fence between resilience and rage. Sometimes I have the luxury of choosing which side I come down on. Others... I find myself blessed with all the self-awareness retrospection allows, whilst also cursed with none of the control it should afford.
Welcome to the Hotel Post-Burnout: you can check out any time you like, but you don't get to choose when you leave.
In the end, choice was a luxury I chose to forego - I couldn't leave of my own volition because golden handcuffs kept my fingers off the trigger I couldn't afford to pull, and we should always remember Rule of Acquisition #109: "Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack," so I white-knuckled it and held on until I tripped, and fell, and made them sack me. It may have taken a score of them to take me down, but they only had to score once.Musical accompaniment: I don't know, have some Pendulum or some shit...
It doesn't matter.
Everyone, at least once in their lives, goes from being top-dog to finding themselves at the bottom of the dog-pile with a sack over their head, living through their own extraordinary-rendition of It Sucks To Be Me. Having a ticket that's been punched so many times it's holier than a stigmata extravaganza is supposed to be an exhibition of experience, but the only thing I'm experiencing is another broken nose, a bruised ego, and the taste of blood on my lips; it doesn't matter how much of it's mine and how much came out of the knuckles split on my backpfeifengesicht, the bitterness is overwhelming.
The worst part of Burnout isn't the trauma, or the exhaustion, or the PTSD you'll relive endlessly should you survive it, it's how much it overwhelms your self, and by extension your interactions with the world around you. You don't notice just how short your tether has become until the third or fourth lap of the dog park chasing a ball you can never catch. Suddenly you realise you've just snapped at something which would otherwise have passed over and through you, and the frayed mid-point of the leash you thought would keep yourself in check is lying in the dust of whatever you just destroyed. If you're lucky you get to go back and apologise, or bury it and rise above, but when you completely and properly fuck it up it will be you lying in the shallow grave with your face against the floor staring mutely up whilst the soil, shovel- after shovel-full, removes the sky, and with it all hope, from view.
And if that day ever comes I hope I'll accept it with good grace, rather than flail, and twitch, and dance the Tyburn Jig; for all the pride to be gained from staring death in the eye, there's dignity in accepting the sack which prevents the hounds baying for your blood from seeing it, or your tears, shed.
But as we walk toward the gallows there's still room for grace and dignity, because there's no dignity in punching downwards just because you've been beaten down, and there's no grace to be found in being cruel just because others have shown cruelty to you. Whatever befell, or was done to you, you can never presume that the same, or worse, hasn't befallen the person you're staring at. If that is true, then assuming that the next stranger irresponsible enough to incur your irritation is incipient of your ire indicates you're an idiot. We all have our crosses to bear; relegating someone else's so as to elevate your own is ridiculous when the result remains redundant, regardless.
So really, when the result is the same, there's no recourse but to be kind.
There are plenty of people deserving of your cruelty, but I doubt they're people who'll ever meet; the dumb-fuck at the mechanics or the checkout-chick at Woolworths are unlikely to be amongst them; the girl or boy chasing a shooting star they spotted as it fell from the heavens even less so, so forgive them; and if that girl or boy happens to be staring back at you from the mirror, consider what you might say if you were them, and they were you, and your roles reversed, and ask yourself:
What would I say if I were kind?
Then maybe, just maybe, say that.
It doesn't matter.
Everyone, at least once in their lives, goes from being top-dog to finding themselves at the bottom of the dog-pile with a sack over their head, living through their own extraordinary-rendition of It Sucks To Be Me. Having a ticket that's been punched so many times it's holier than a stigmata extravaganza is supposed to be an exhibition of experience, but the only thing I'm experiencing is another broken nose, a bruised ego, and the taste of blood on my lips; it doesn't matter how much of it's mine and how much came out of the knuckles split on my backpfeifengesicht, the bitterness is overwhelming.
The worst part of Burnout isn't the trauma, or the exhaustion, or the PTSD you'll relive endlessly should you survive it, it's how much it overwhelms your self, and by extension your interactions with the world around you. You don't notice just how short your tether has become until the third or fourth lap of the dog park chasing a ball you can never catch. Suddenly you realise you've just snapped at something which would otherwise have passed over and through you, and the frayed mid-point of the leash you thought would keep yourself in check is lying in the dust of whatever you just destroyed. If you're lucky you get to go back and apologise, or bury it and rise above, but when you completely and properly fuck it up it will be you lying in the shallow grave with your face against the floor staring mutely up whilst the soil, shovel- after shovel-full, removes the sky, and with it all hope, from view.
And if that day ever comes I hope I'll accept it with good grace, rather than flail, and twitch, and dance the Tyburn Jig; for all the pride to be gained from staring death in the eye, there's dignity in accepting the sack which prevents the hounds baying for your blood from seeing it, or your tears, shed.
But as we walk toward the gallows there's still room for grace and dignity, because there's no dignity in punching downwards just because you've been beaten down, and there's no grace to be found in being cruel just because others have shown cruelty to you. Whatever befell, or was done to you, you can never presume that the same, or worse, hasn't befallen the person you're staring at. If that is true, then assuming that the next stranger irresponsible enough to incur your irritation is incipient of your ire indicates you're an idiot. We all have our crosses to bear; relegating someone else's so as to elevate your own is ridiculous when the result remains redundant, regardless.
So really, when the result is the same, there's no recourse but to be kind.
There are plenty of people deserving of your cruelty, but I doubt they're people who'll ever meet; the dumb-fuck at the mechanics or the checkout-chick at Woolworths are unlikely to be amongst them; the girl or boy chasing a shooting star they spotted as it fell from the heavens even less so, so forgive them; and if that girl or boy happens to be staring back at you from the mirror, consider what you might say if you were them, and they were you, and your roles reversed, and ask yourself:
What would I say if I were kind?
Then maybe, just maybe, say that.
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