Editorial: The Straight and Narrow

Like I said, I’ve started to exercise, and I’ve realized the oddest thing. You’d think it would be that I feel a little better, and I do. You might think that it’s knowing I might live a little longer, and it is.

But the thing that is really shocking me about exercise is the same shock I’ve been having my entire life. Every time I succeed at anything, I have the same shock, and it is this:

“You mean, all I had to do was create a checklist, use a proven method and stick to it, and I could’ve had this a long time ago?”

I’m not sure if this is the first time I’ve made the connection. I know that’s how I’ve always found any success, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever realized the larger picture before.

Perhaps it has a way of eluding us once it’s done its job. Maybe it is too heavy a truth for any single person to carry for any specific amount of time. Am I like Naomi Watts’s character in The Ring right now, placing the VHS tape on some random shelf? Am I the character who, having now carried the inspiration for too long, is sharing my secret with someone else only to forget it tomorrow?

God, I hope not.

I hope not because the answer is as simple as this.

Which is ultimately the problem, isn’t it? While writing this, I was reminded of one time that I got super-high while lying on the couch. For those of you who don’t know, super-high is like that one time you got high, only it’s more high.

There I was, lying on the couch, high as all hell, and it came to me. It was like a puzzle piece just fitting into place. I figured out the secret to everything.

The purpose, how things worked, the answer.

I know it sounds like bullshit, but it really happened. It came to me, and I got, like, high within high. My body started to vibrate. At first, it was like shaking, like when you are cold. But then it was eventually vibrating. Vibrating so fast that I started to get warm. Then warmer.

Finally, I was hot. I was lying there; I couldn’t move, my body vibrating so fast that I felt like I was going to burn up. I was scared. I was more than scared. I was fucking terrified!

So terrified that I totally forgot what I was thinking and forgot the answer to everything.

So, you should probably not take my advice as fact. But, I have realized as of late that if you stick to the straight and narrow and follow a checklist, you can really achieve some amazing things.