Author: Fred Blahnik

Without exception, do what you say you’re gonna do.  If you talk the talk you’ve gotta walk the walk.  Understand now, you don’t havta do more than that, but NEVER EVER do less!  When you personally stand in front of the high jump pit, eye the apparatus, approximate your leg strength versus the tug of gravity, and climactically set the bar on its standards, THAT is the height you are subsequently expected to clear; you can’t and shouldn’t blame someone else at a later date for creating unrealistic prospects.  Doing that is just so fuckin’ lame!  Quite simply, be true to your word—ALWAYS!!!  That’s what makes a good person; that’s what separates paladins from assholes; that defines character; that’s what, over time, makes reputations platinum as opposed to stinky and transforms casual acquaintances into genuine lifelong friendships.  That is the lubrication that keeps the life locomotive moving fluidly along its tracks.

…..his welfare didn’t matter anymore…..her welfare didn’t matter anymore…..it was only THEIR welfare that mattered anymore, and nothing else in this small world of ours really amounted to a smattering of shit compared to their well-being and the divergent paths they would forge into the future long after his body had been incinerated and pursuantly donated to the four winds for ultimate dispersal, only to blow away and eventually settle into the third planet from the Sun’s topsoil, henceforth to serve as a trifling amount of fertilizer which future generations of earthlings might find helpful in growing the crops they will desperately need to survive, if not thrive.  And that, then, that Lilliputian inconsequential contribution, shall remain behind as his eternal, culminating gift to mankind and the only evidence that he ever existed as a living creature in a Universe practically bereft of same.  Life in the universe we human beings inhabit is not just rare. It is so unfathomably scant and meaningless that to call us a dinky sidebar when compared to all of the inorganic matter and antimatter and dark matter and dark energy and God only knows what else theoretical physicists can dream up in their fertile minds would stretch the truth outlandishly and be the epitome of hubris…..

I started a tiny rumor.  The thing grew bigger and bigger until it morphed into a veritable colossus and next spread like wildfire, engulfing everything in its destructive path.  The rumor is not tiny anymore.  The wildfire it spawned has run amok and is now arrantly out of control; a pristine reputation has been destroyed in the process.  The only residua left behind in this conflagration’s wake are scorched earth, a desiccated relationship, and massive regrets.  That’s right, massive, MASSIVE regrets.  And all the result of just one tiny rumor I was responsible for starting with no forethought as to what its exponential consequences might turn out to be.  Words do indeed have consequences—sometimes dire consequences—even if they do not literally break bones.

Whatever looks too good to be true, or seems too good to be true, or feels too good to be true…..IS too good to be true, you guileless numskull!  Always!!!  Every fuckin’ time!!!!!  There are no exceptions to this cardinal rule and there never will be either, despite the googol of meager attempts at rationalization we inevitably struggle to make to justify our naturally avaricious impulses and to partially sate our raging earthly desires.  Nothing is given free in life; you have to go out and earn everything; your birthright comes with a price tag.  To think otherwise—to think shortcuts and faux miracles will unfailingly be available to lessen our work burden and assist us in securing benefits and largesse that we have offered no personal sacrifices to deserve—is a fool’s errand and a fool’s mentality.  Intelligent persons learn this transcendent lesson at an early stage in life, while some cretins never do even if they live to be ninety years of age.  In fact, it might rightfully be said that understanding the basic equation of life outlined above IS the very definition of intelligence.

…..and the moment came and then disappeared almost instantly…..followed by the next…..and the next…..and all those moments disappeared in her wake with little fanfare and no more permanence than the misty contrail a jet airplane leaves behind high in the stratosphere to mark its ephemeral presence.  And she wondered right then about how purists always chide everyone to “Live in the moment!” and “Live life to the fullest!”  She questioned how you could live your life in “the moment” if you never even knew when that moment started and when it ended, and even though she knew for a fact that it MUST theoretically exist…..the almighty “moment” disappeared with such fleeting swiftness and elusiveness that one never had any time to actually enjoy it and make plans over what to do with this super slippery little particle of time before it disappeared and the next one magically appeared in its stead.  She knew “the moment” and “the present” were the same thing—interchangeable entities, inarguably—but in her mind the million dollar question centered on what to do with the infernal things??  Both of them—“the moment” and “the present”—were here and gone before you knew it, so “living within the moment” made no more sense to her than struggling to understand the birth of our universe or living one’s entire life with a wool blanket pulled over your head…..

…..he was visited one night in his dreams by a stern math teacher from nearly a lifetime earlier.  How eerie is that, might I ask??  And why did this incident occur at all?  He had never really liked the guy personally—he was too pompous and arrogant and full of himself to be a creditable exemplar— although Fred had to grudgingly admit the teacher in question was an astute pedagogue and a worthy practitioner of his chosen profession.  But still…..this episode made no sense, no sense whatsoever!  What of value could possibly be taken from it?  And if the answer to that question is no, what constructive purpose do dreams actually serve?  After all, that chapter in his life happened over two score ago, and to have it dredged up and involuntarily thrust upon him now in asymmetrical, nonsensical fashion when his conscious defenses were temporarily relaxing and on furlough……   The whole thing seemed utterly bizarre, and I imagine that is one of the foremost reasons why those rogue, extraneous thoughts from the night preceding last passed Board Exams with flying colors before being officially certified as gloriously cryptic nighttime dreams…..

Self-confidence is an inherently fragile thing, with no more stability than quicksand and no more permanence than those cottony cumulus clouds that pass overhead in the summer sky.  A fussy thing indeed, one which constantly requires recharging lest its batteries go dead at the most inopportune time.  The army of forces aligned against self-confidence perpetually attempt to erode it around its edges, yet these are devious scalawags that go about their handiwork silently and insidiously, nipping incessantly at the margins and seldom attacking the main body itself.  When you finally get to the bottom of this algebra problem, to the place where a solution is demanded, suffice it to say the answer would read something like this:  Self-confidence is one of the most beleaguered, “picked-on” entities in our entire Universe, and as such it barely stands a chance against the legions of enemies that assail it each and every day of the year.  But you still must fight back gallantly against those Faustian forces in each and every instance, inasmuch as a non-effort equals an admission of defeat.  In almost every scenario imaginable, trying is tantamount to victory.

There is one—and only one—life that should hold any interest to you, and that is the one you are living at the moment.  Everyone else’s is a complete bore.  Celebrities?  There is no such thing as a celebrity.  A celebrity is nothing more than a person with an inflated opinion of himself/herself who aggressively seeks attention and adulation wherever they can find it.  There are plenty of glory hogs out there, true, and lots of people who treat their paltry “accomplishments” as something authentically special, but in the big scheme of things, on a celestial scale—which is the only one that truly matters—those so-called accomplishments don’t amount to a proverbial hill of beans.  A million years from now, which in reality constitutes but a trifling heartbeat in the lifespan of our parochial universe, no one will give a royal shit insofar as what you may think distinguished you from all other earthlings and therefore made you so disproportionately important in the year 2014.  This is assuming there are still humans alive that far out in the future, too, which is certainly not a foregone conclusion by any stretch of the imagination.  No, the only life that should hold any interest to you is the one you are currently living.  Forget about the multiplicity of others out there, all those insipid impostors and bores with their non-stop bragging and boasting and bloviating over things a mosquito might very well have been capable of “accomplishing”.  Their meaningless lives don’t matter one whit to you.  You harbor control over only one life—Your own!!— but as such you, and only you, can infuse it with as much or as little interest and pizzazz as you want.  Those other people will die sooner or later, mark my words on that…..and then how interesting will their lives seem to future bystanders, especially as time goes by and wave upon wave of new persons eventually replace them and busily go about looking for ways to maximize their pleasure during their eighty-odd year encounter with consciousness?

Sometimes—setting all logic aside—you just havta do what ya havta do……   It may not make a bit of sense at the time, but a persistent voice inside you will demand no less.  Call it conscience, call it intuition, call it instinct, call it a ghost in the machine, it really doesn’t matter one iota what you want to call it.….ya just havta follow your heart and see where it leads you!  It may not always lead you to the right place or to an overflowing pot of gold or to a blooming bed of roses or to a once-in-a-lifetime fuck, but that same inner voice will remind you that if you hadn’t followed its prompting…..you never would have been happy with an alternative decision.  Never in your lifetime!!!  Resultingly, an all-encompassing peace of mind will reside within your breast regardless of any adverse consequences you may have suffered during your futile pursuit.  Tried and failed invariably trumps never trying in the first place.

DO NOT stand back and wait idly by for someone else to do the right thing.  YOU should step forward immediately and do the right thing irrespective of others’ inaction.  There is no other honorable course of action.  Time does not wait for anybody or any thing, nor does a moment to be of service to someone badly in need.  If you do not instantly recognize a dire situation intertwined with the travails of someone desperately requiring assistance, the moment will swiftly pass, the dynamics of the situation WILL change—however slightly—and the next second may not present the same relative safety for that individual facing duress.  Timidity does not buy additional time; it merely escalates the potential risk for someone whose life may be in danger.  Use your built-in conscience as your true-north guide, not the consciences of others.  You have no idea whether their consciences are as evolved or finely tuned as yours, consequently they are not reliable and shouldn’t be trusted.  Move quickly whenever you see another person’s life or good health in peril.  To do otherwise—to hesitate or to hope that someone else will respond to the predicament first—is not acceptable behavior for an ethical human being; it far better equates with cowardice.