woke up with this in my brain

the concept of maturity has always seemed suspect--if not completely absurd--to me; a term like love that means so many different things to so many different people.

at some point it's expected that you outgrow and abandon like shit-filled diapers stinking up dumpsters the notion that you are important and unique and beautiful and worthy of everyone's attention--though you still demand these things in the form of loving affection from a spouse or partner or family member or friend.

you learn to settle. you learn to settle for a life that only tastes vaguely like the one you wanted--the one you imagined and ultimately aimed to realize--a life that resembles your ideal like a home movie resembles a major hollywood production.

what's the significance--where's the glory in being recognized for who you are? is there truly validation in being noticed; in not simply toiling away on earth, establishing a network of close friends and family and then vanishing as if you'd never really happened at all?

i think what it comes down to is wanting to establish a legacy--a monument to yourself; to your own bullshit existence which would otherwise be forgotten. this is why people have children. this is why people write and create things. it's an act of desperation--a frenzied attempt to establish themselves forever in the form of artifacts and surnames which can--if anyone in the future cares enough and is willing--be traced back to their original self-important creators.

the truth is: people often get recognized because they're lucky. they're in the right place at the right time. they know the right people. therefore: they're given an opportunity--the necessary tools and the proper format--to reach a wide audience and thereby establish their legacy. it's not that they're brilliant or exceptional--because they're not. they're just as brilliant and exceptional as you or me. the only difference is: they're famous and we're not. they've passed through all the requisite loops and as a result they have the necessary resources at their disposal to reach so many people.

the spectrum of celebrated people is populated by both remarkable and less-than exceptional personalities and everyone in between. there are fantastic, incredibly idiosyncratic and brilliant people who never get recognized--for anything. and there are some who somehow squeak by--slip through into the elite pantheon of worshipped human beings. i know people funnier than the funny people i see on tv. i know people who write better than the writers i find in major bookstores--the writers often topping bestseller lists. i know musicians with more imagination and talent than the ones i hear on the radio--than the ones with multi-million dollar contracts and access to state-of-the-art studios. imagine: if we gave the average musically-inclined person free reign in a professional studio--the work of "brilliance" he or she might create. the only difference between this person and the "legends" we idolize and write so much fluff about now is that the latter have access to these studios. as i said: they have the necessary resources to express themselves fully. whereas the struggling musician or artist gets by with what he can. certainly: in a lot of cases this forces the struggling musician or artist to be more creative--to, in turn, work with what they've got. but that doesn't mean they're anymore creative or full of potential than the artist working with anything he demands at his fingertips.

what i'm saying is this: it doesn't matter that you'll likely never be remembered or celebrated--in this lifetime or centuries down the line. it doesn't mean you're a failure. it really does not mean that at all. what it means is that:

tbcontinued