lessons of copper pocket lint.

i would like to think that in one hundred years the world will be a better place than it was when i walked here. i would like to think that tomorrow the sun will shine a little brighter to make up for the clouds that distorted it today. i would like to think that ten lives ago... i was someone great. who evidently still hasn't learned their lesson.

i would like to think alot of things.

i was greeted this morning in my oblivious post-slumber fog by an angry sounding alarm clock. of all the things in the world to wake up to; sandy beaches, lush gardens, australians... this is how i readapt to conscious life every 24 hours or so. shaking off this momentary miss-bliss, i pursue my morning ablutions with ferocity, as they peeve me something disdainful, and i come upon a penny-- aglitter and aglimmer in the light of the 60watt energy hog that is the vanity-- and, thinking it nothing more than one of my hundreds of weekly self-disoveries, i pick it up, stick it in a pocket, and meander on to the glorified watering hole with a tube attached that we modern civilians know as showers.

singing 'provincial life' attributed to a certain beautiful/beastly adaptation of moral standards to myself, quite happily i might add, i walk to the bus stop some hours later. the trip home from the belittling satisfaction that is my job always proves interesting. what i was unaware of, at this point in time, was that soon-- life as i knew it was one proverbial flush away from total obliteration.

i don't know who was late first- myself or the bus- but the vacant space before the bench proved all too much for my being to endure. cursing to myself i walked on, wishing some fat kid with a bike i could borrow would happen by. i put my hands in my pockets to complete this encompassing feeling of dread, and i felt something. the penny. cursing it and everyone associated, (at least i was honest, abe), i immediately called it's bluff by summoning the age-old addage of 'find a penny pick it up' to memory. i could have easily, and reasonably, blamed this penny for a lifetime of troubles, i could have easily cast it to the walk for the next poor sap in need of a little hope to find, i could have easily lost my mind.

in a moment i realized the one common practice in all of human woes.

all we really want out of life is something real to count on.

perceptions of a god and the unknown tarnish with age. ideas and beliefs fall away like we from our pasts, but, much like our pasts- they follow us forever. over time faith can die, truth becomes faded, and hope goes down with the ship; white flag in-air. but in the midst of a scramble for a meaning we don't have to lose that sparkle that makes us what nothing else can be. human. screwing up is mandatory. missing out is necessary. and happiness... happiness is contingent.

the bones of it is this: to give a hearty 'fuck you' to safety and security- go out and believe. in absolutely anything. from santa claus to a good luck penny. the only thing that matters, is that you can make like fingerpaint- and not be afraid of life getting a little messy.