Happiness #19 : Hero or Zero?

"All I have to do is swing and I'm a hero.  But I'm a zero."

This line floated into my consciousness as I was listening to music and typing away a useless paper like a madwoman.  I don't know how many songs have passed through my ears, in and out of my consciousness during the several hours I have been sitting in Think Coffee. It is so interesting to think that your consciousness must still be hyper aware of more than you are at any given moment.  Even though I wasn't thinking about that age old question "What am i going to do for the rest of my life?" clearly my deep consciousness has my back and is thinking about it for me.  Anybody else have a busybody brain?

Here I am, vigorously making an argument about how Thoreau likens the futility of government to the futility of writing, when this melodious psychoanalytic piece of lyric comes floating in the breeze of the ether waves of the universe to lodge itself firmly into my brain- right before the end of one written paragraph and the formulations of the next paragraph.  It lodged itself like a spike mic thrown at the side of criminal headquarters.  The infiltration was so much so that I felt compelled to choose its instigation as the topic of my blog entry for the day.

Oh Weezer, how you affect my life so.  What does the line mean?  Where does it come from?  Actually, the line is from a love song called "Perfect Situation" outlining the torment of a less than forthcoming boy that is in love with a girl who he cannot seem to hold onto.  His shortcomings lead to her eventual disinterest. The saddest part is that he asks "can you blame her?" as if he has already beat himself up over his failures enough to decide that she has every right to wander.  Poor guy.  The line refers to a particular instance where he had the perfect opportunity to be the hero if he only acts- but he doesn't, and his tendency for inaction is what makes him a "zero."

Now what does this have to do with me?  Well my incredibly rude mental faculty has seen fit to remind me of MY shortcomings in life.  Could I have done more? Absolutely.  When? Always.  Where? Everywhere. And that's why regardless of what I have actually accomplished, that marginal "more" that could have been done, but can now never be done due to my past inaction, is what makes me a zero.  Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets and my self-esteem hasn't dropped all of a sudden (that would be oh-so-very-uncharacteristic of me) but I have gotten to thinking.  At how many points could I have been a hero and opted to be a zero?  Because that's what it is- it is a choice to be a zero, not a forced will.  There are poignant moments where I definitely opted to be a hero but how many of those moments does it take to offset that one time I chose to be a zero instead?  In my book, one moment of deliberate "zero-ness" cannot be made up by even ten instances of "hero-ness."  Why so harsh?  Because everyone should always opt to be a hero in every situation when given the option.  What kind of person wouldn't?  Whatever the answer is, I don't want to be that person.

Everyone was born with a bat, and from now on, I will make every effort to swing at every opportunity, even if it means being struck out.  Because being struck out is so much more of a real feeling than any false sense of accomplishment that can be derived from walking.  Hell no, I'd rather swing the bat until it splinters with how many times I've tried to be a hero, than lay it off in a corner in the pristine condition of un-use.  Forget it.

Thanks brain, for being the caring asshole that I know you always are.