By Those Who Could Not Hear The Music

They say that the best thing to happen to you in life hasn't happened yet. I don't have a retirement plan. Did you know that oysters are still alive when you eat them? I cut the woman in line, smiled grimly at her, and told her to keep my change, because nothing I have adds up anyway.

I write and words come out. I don't have a rhyme, or reason to any of this. Nietzsche said, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane..."

"...by those who could not hear the music." No one hears it but me - a lone, sad melody. I'm like one of those dogs that responds to a whistle no human can hear. I wonder if in a parallel universe, I'm famous, and this life I'm living on earth is a kind of reprieve from that mayhem.

Be grateful, they say.

Be humble, they say.

I try to be a better person, every day. I recently started taking Prozac. I'm like that Simpsons episode, you know how they're always predicting the future. The grandfather takes the orange pills and is sedated. He knows this. It's the joke, the entire point of the moment. But let me tell you something - those orange pills? They keep me from rocketing into the atmosphere, or digging a hole underground that fits my body perfectly.

I drove too fast on the highway, passed a car that had been going 40 in the fast lane. It's a woman, she's my age. Applying mascara, some kind of bottle in between her legs. A balancing act, deserving of praise. I only had respect, and drove away.

I knew a girl with anorexia so bad that she gave herself Osteoporosis. When I looked that up to spell check it, "Ozempic" came up instead. How ironic. I'm grateful people are getting the help they need with that medicine. But I'm also pretty certain that they are hearing the music of the masses, screaming to be skinny, everyone hearing it. Everyone slowly dying from the message.

I'll tell you something: read a book. Go the park and watch the geese. Throw bread crumbs at them and cast a spell, make up a song and sing at the top of your lungs.

And just maybe, that will trigger something, the best day of your life happening right before your eyes, a song that only you can hear and appreciate because you sat down and wrote the damn thing, a writer that sings and expects nothing.