Looking within by looking without
There are some who accuse me of being a workaholic, or overambitious, or even "disgustingly capitalist". I'll admit to being, generally and to lesser degrees than those words connote, all of the above. But today I thought that there must be more to life than this constant trudge towards the weekend, elbowing the viscuous seconds aside day by day, just to reach the promise of time free of obligations, and those warm, dearly beloved arms. We work weekdays to nourish the weekends, but one might starve just as easily without happiness; the kind of happiness I saw today, watching the setting sun's rays engulf the sky in pink and purple flames, dragging twilight across the dome of sky as it eased into the horizon. The evening silence tasted like how the word vermillion lingers on the lips, and it smelt like cool fire.
That was the happiness I felt, wanting to inhale the scene and feel the sun in my bones the way I imagine birds do (because really, why else would their bones be hollow?). Today, mostly, I felt trapped, because, so it seems, grey walls are really hard to inhale.
But people are good at this: falling back into obligation. And my usual line of defense is, there's always room for happiness wherever you look, even if it's at a desk, watching the workplace grind in a flurry of important-looking movement, having your mind expand outwards like a receding camera
girl, corporate, at desk
now, corporate finance division
now, whole office building
now, the district, teeming at the microscopic level
now, the city
now, the country, and the world, buzzing with that same flurry of activity, but seen from this great height, completely static except for the drift of clouds across stoic land masses.
then, shift the view to the universe, and some distant star blinks slowly, and suddenly, sitting at your desk, you wonder why.
That's what I thought today. Then a new project landed on my desk, and suddenly everything rushed down to the microscopic again, and, well. People are inordinately good at this, I say.
I'm still ambitious, still a bit of a workaholic, still blissfully capitalist. But now and then, I catch a glimpse of myself that hearkens to something, someone else. Never mind whether it's someone greater or lesser; what's important, and what I can't decide, is whether it's a taste of a person to come, or a residue of a person who was.