On Red October and Giving Up

At the time of starting this typing, approximately ten minutes have passed since the Phils choked on their fourth playoff appearance in a row. After gorging yourself on the regular season, it's no wonder that whatever they managed to force down their throats is eager to force its way back up. A throwing error at the bottom of the eleventh brought some of the strongest athletes to tears in front of a nation. It's easy to point and blame as an outsider--play prioritization, poor fielding, freeze-dried bats--as someone sitting on their atrophied rear. Why would they be getting paid as much as I do in a year in a single day to not know what they're doing? You want to be mad, but the steam dissipates and you settle into a profound melancholy that marks the end of the chase, and the end of the summer.

A. Bartlett Giamatti's writings on the withering of the year along with the baseball season feels more poignant as each opportunity slips through laced fingers. Excitement sweeps us up with the leaves until retaliation--or a simple mistake--rains down on us, leaving us dampened, moldy. Hope is deliberately not rooted in reality, primarily on display among homes lined with red lawn ornaments and rally towels in the window. It's deeply contagious. It's the great unifier. Red shirts are green flags. Every neighbor becomes a friend. Every greeting is a wish of encouragement. 

Watching a distraught Schwarber struggle to speak makes me wonder how these men in their twenties and thirties feel about where they are in life and how much control they truly have of their future. Do they still picture themselves continuing with their current team, or even the game, for as long as their bodies will allow them? Do they think about calling it early? Do they wish they were doing something else? Harper may want to get into baking full-time. Bader may want to further pursue painting. Strahm could do well streaming Pokémon card pulls. If baseball isn't their true passion, against what they may claim, could they do better with the things they enjoy? "Monetizing hobbies"?

It may be impossible to try and put yourself in the head of a man who is further along in the process of mastering the swing or yield instinct at a rock wrapped in leather coming at you at unfathomable speeds. But if I had to guess, these gentlemen might have come as close as one could get to freedom: to enjoy the time spent on personally fulfilling projects without the mind-serpent weaving barbed tales of financial or social success into it. They are living examples of hours of labor being poured into things that enrich the mind and spirit without the internal nagging, the deep pressure, of trying to make money. They may not be the *best* example of this phenomenon, as they make millions of dollars a year at their day job, as well as potentially receive sponsorships for said passions, but they are right in front of our faces. They are getting away with murder; they are free. 

Many people tried to talk me out of art school. My guidance counselor was the first line of defense, asking if I was "absolutely sure about this", that nothing else called to me. I had self published a novel in the tenth grade...why not pursue English? She may have failed to remember that the novel was written, in bulk, within a week in a psychiatric facility, where a composition book and pencil brought in from the outside had to be approved by the same supervising hospital staff that would not let me pee alone. I did not want to waste away, I wanted to write. The following weekend upon my release, I continued to attend the animation pre-college class at the school I would later be accepted to. I wanted to draw. I could not fathom doing anything else with my life. My family, granted by God an insurmountable mass of patience, entertained my petitions to attend a fine arts college, examples of individuals in which one *can* make a living off of art. It was not impossible, but it was a dream we were sold, and managed to buy. 

I had, and to different degrees continue to have, a deeply difficult time envisioning my future. It took me nearly six years after my graduation to fully come to the conclusion that I would not be one of those lucky individuals. I have turned out to be one of the many to undergo the relentless training, the personal critiques of my psyche, the raw exposures to unfeeling entities, only to come out on the other side to find very few opportunities meet me halfway. I am not special in this. The mass-produced dream is defective by design. 

The diploma was obtained. The earth continued to move under my feet. Otherwise gainful employment was obtained. It turned out that I was able to use a great attention to detail on a daily basis in another way. But the universe (read: methodical website algorithms) had a funny way of reminding me of my eternal shortcoming: I was unable to obtain the art life. I could no longer live in a bustling center of culture. I could no longer draw for eight hours a day. I could no longer draw for twelve hours a day. I could no longer draw for fourteen hours a day. I resented those that could be more selfish with their time, and their work seemed to only ever get better. I was outpaced in the race to ten thousand hours. Then came the tumbling down, the tumbling down.

I had a stable stream of income at a fully remote job and had bought a house with the love of my life--I was a complete failure.

When the major life changes begin, they are exciting and you are fully committed to seeing them through. And then days pass. You are suddenly closer to the day of settlement than you last checked. You're hemorrhaging funds with an overlap in utilities, a lease and mortgage. Your art is being seen and purchased less than the year prior. You stop holding people accountable for commission opportunities they entertained you with, but you can't blame them; they're bleeding out right next to you. You rip up the carpets and it's covered with animal waste. Your roof fails. Your hot water heater fails. Your washing machine fails. You split your finger installing new flooring to cover the animal waste. Your trees, potentially as old as the modern baseball era itself, diametrically oppose your new dwelling and are retaliating from below. You didn't draw yesterday, or the day before that. You haven't posted in eleven days. The office job work is still water for the first summer in recent memory and your thoughts are gnats and mosquitoes. You haven't responded to your friends. You aren't an observer of your own mind. You drive as far as you can without telling anyone. You're hemorrhaging funds. You're hemorrhaging friends. You beat your head with your fists. You beat your head with your fists. You have never, ever felt this alone. 

When October rolls around, hope is alive. Joy is palpable. Many of us feel invincible. There is a heady buzz that comes with planning and looking forward to the freshly visible future. It allows you to see a goal with a densely obscured path littered with potholes and stalling engines. In spite of this, in the near twelve thousand hours spent sitting in front of a spreadsheet, alone, lonely in my pursuit of the art life, it had taken another mental fracture to realize it was time to throw in the same towel I had embraced in the sterile bedroom with chickenwire on the windows. The evolution of technology forced the goalposts into the river. The playing field spilled out into the highway. There were millions of me around the world fighting over the same handful of opportunities, crammed down the same narrow paths. The crabs were conditioned to accept nothing more than chum for the possible opportunity to escape the bucket. The dream existed to eventually be taken out behind the rusting shed that is still missing its door handles. 

I shot it, and I am free. 

For now, I have been primarily creating for an audience of one: the brain. The same brain that believes in unlucky shirts, not watching games in fear of jinxing, and not moving a muscle when we finally get a man on base while still down by 3 at the bottom of the 9th, is fully capable of relearning art for art's sake, practicing delayed gratification, and not falling into scrolling fits of jealousy and hopelessness. The brain, overwhelmed by an imperfect dwelling and personal budgeting, can focus on whatever is immediately in front of it. The worries won't go anywhere, but relegating them to the nosebleeds is hard work in progress. Scheduling assistants and hashtag analytics have been replaced with self-discipline and forgiveness; a lot of rubber was burnt on the way to nowhere. Grace is overdue for Kerkering and myself. The same joy that radiated from coordinated pyrotechnical light show entrances for Duran can be felt from making anything from nothing; it can be the hearth to warm mellowing bones and nerves still on the comedown.

Despite the destination feeling less clear, the road ahead is crystal: I am no longer afraid of releasing long-held dreams into the firmament if it means I can feel alive again in my green fields of the mind.