Man On Wire Response.

Earlier today, before watching this movie, I caught a bit of the movie "Into the Wild" on the way out the door to see my ladyfriend. The combination of the two movies has managed to make me feel as if I had wasted my entire life. This is a common feeling for me.

The man had a Dream. The sort of Dream that deserves the capital letter. I am a man without a Dream, and I've always felt as though my life was lacking something because of it.

Last class the professor mentioned a man who claimed it was his responsibility as a writer to do interesting things so that he could write about them. This is a sentiment I sympathize with but do not share anymore, because it stopped me from doing anything really interesting.

I've been struggling with this because I used up all my good stories in my last nonfiction class, and since Anna just had to show up in this class too I can't recycle them. So I am lost. A writer with nothing to say, half tempted to punch a bouncer just so I can write about the beating I get for Monday. Pathetic.

I remember a time when I almost couldn't help but get into crazy situations. When I was convinced I would never make it to my 30th birthday. When I did things, not because I wanted to write about them, but simply for the beauty of the performance. I was like the man in the movie, content to do for no other reason than that I thought it should be done.

But then I started telling people about what I had done, and writing about what I had done. And eventually the things I did became less and less about the things themselves and more and more about the prospect of writing them. My art had lost it's flavor, and I had lost my muse.

Because I was never a writer, not really. I was a performer who happened to be good at writing. Though I was not a performer in the traditional sense. I did not juggle, or sing, or dance, or tell jokes I had prepared. My performance was my life. My actions, my art. I lived to remind the faceless multitudes that their rules were not absolute. I lived to do the unexpected, the unnatural, the unwise. I lived to live without plans, to walk the tightrope without a net. I once lived in the moment, whereas now I live only in the future and the past. I somehow managed to grow drunk on fame I never had, and I regret it.

So I guess I do have a dream. I dream of one day once again being able to live in the moment like I used to. Like that man did when he was up on that wire looking down.