Apprehension

Apprehension

     Those first steps, unremembered as a first word, encouraged by those who have forgotten what it means to enjoy not remembering. It is for those who no longer recall the inconsistencies born of hope, and the failure that provides impetus to try again or quit, that I commend.

     It is that time when judgement means nothing as it has been corrupted by time; dimmed memories of what might have been, had it not been for the reluctance prompted by insecurity in one’s own abilities to outrun the embarrassment of having not tried.

 We have been born into a world of win or lose. Striving, a concept not accepted, as it provides an opening, a chance to return to the inevitable and make a decision that does not coincide with what we know to be true, as we are only as honest as we perceive ourselves to be.  

    When analyzed, the doubt that prevents the first step is necessary, if it is conditioned by the fact it is just that, a beginning. Beginning is always difficult, and the end is never assured, and yet it is a necessity of the risk. That chance of failure that keeps many from becoming who they could have been, should have been, but remained the person in the stands selling four-dollar hotdogs made of discarded scraps; and yet, someone found a need in their existence. I believe we are guilty of unwarranted contemplation and obligatory results, when a walk on a tight rope would be just the thing.   It was, because of that doubt, that Amos Deacon decided to remain invisible. Not in a visual sense of course.                                                                                                              

    Amos, like all children, was protected from the realities of life by parents who had suffered the insolvency of predictability, and found themselves on more than one occasion, looking down the wrong end of destiny; not the destiny we chose through ignorance or lack of initiative, but the destiny heaped on us by an unremembered history of failed or ineffective attempts at success. 

It is the ability to see failure as a moment ln time, when compared to a universe of attempts, that gave Amos the ability to look at a proposed action, and verify its success or failure, before actually having to attempt to compliment the question with activity, if that activity would result in failure. It was not that he could not fail, he failed constantly but was not defined by it. He was able to decipher the cause of the failure and compensate before anyone noticed; therefore, it became of no consequence to him. 

    There was a downside to Amos’s ability, as there always is when considering there are no absolutes. There is no way to test every possibility and find all defects in a prescribed course. Accepting the premise, you are then left with the options provided by trial and error, which leaves the chance of failure only an option.

 Amos, in his determination to avoid mistakes or decisions based on his ability to appear infallible, found the idealism attached to perfection more than he had anticipated. Never having to accept consequences, allows one to deceive a question, and therefore the truth, but in the process, you are incapable of learning from your experience. Amos found, having the cheat sheet of answers to any question, made life slightly less exciting, than “Watching paint dry.”

    Amos was left with the conundrum of being the truth or pretending to be, and an ability that allows for manipulation, no matter the cause, but deprives one of forgiveness because the word has no meaning, as it can never be applied. Amos knew, to develop a kinship with an unpredictable opportunity, he would have to expose himself to the repercussions of failure.

He pondered the idealism of failure in an attempt to justify a drastic departure from a routine that, although leaving him dispassionate, allowed him no sleepless nights.

Having to accept the fallibilities of idealists, seemed drastic, but necessary, if he was to feel a sense of empathy that he had determined one needed, if one were to judge people and events with the causality it required. But was empathy, or the thought of it, not highly overrated.  If he was to wean himself from the apathy that deemed his perception of a world he lived in, but agnostically did not belong, he would have to experience it.

But how? He would have to find a test that even he, in his misconstrued indifference, could not manipulate with his ability. Realizing the dangers of doing damaged to his temperament by performing an uncharacteristic act of an irrational nature, he was reluctant to come to a hasty, or worse, a binding resolution. And yet, the thought of experiencing what other optimists must feel, despite the chance of failure, was compelling; there being no optimism in a forgone conclusion.                                                                                          

Amos decided to abdicate his doubt, by joining a writing consortium. He had sporadically regarded his thoughts as worthy of paper. He realized that writing, or at least the penning he’d attempted, was similar to looking in a mirror; you saw only what you wanted to see, nothing gained. His ability allowed him to circumvent the introspection of others, by knowing what would be said, allowing him to correct any deficiencies beforehand, eliminating any awkward critique elements. He knew to gain insight, he would have to abandon his ability, rendezvous outside his normalcy and experience vulnerability, something he had not experienced in his past, and therefore, had no history of empathy for.                                                                                                

  Amos joined the Upside-Down chapter, of Inside-Out, an obscure, but illusionary writers group, that functioned within the confines of empathy for abnormality. The description struck Amos as having the correct amount of flexibility, tempered with realism and an overt sense, that no one really believed failure was anything more than a denial of an illusion, with the added appendixes of adjunct misinterpretation.

    Attempting to meet the implied demands of creativity, cloaked in an empirical dream, he decided to write the story he knew he was conceived to write. The story of his first caregiver, his first remembrance, who claimed to be from a land before the End of Time, where eight-foot midgets, on ice covered nights, jumped into love, rather than fall out of it.  And so he did.

And that is why I left. Who would blame me.  It wasn’t because of his insistence that there was nothing new under the heavens, but his complete disregard for the realities of life. The last straw, whose turn it was to take out the garbage. Enough sometimes, is simply too much.