Left to right: Christopher and Nico on Disney monorail to Epcot
July 30, 2014
The daily grind of life can be so monotonous. Get up for work. Go to work. Come home from work. Do any type of activity that gets you off. Go to bed as late as possible to drain out every minute of personal time you can squeeze from the dwindling minutes of your life. Fall asleep. Toss and turn, fall asleep again, wake up, get up, and do it all over again.
And so, day in and day out, we humans do what we were born to do. Eat, sleep, work, pay taxes, die.
But it doesn't always have to be like that if we can learn to live a little.
Every day, we see people on social media, whether family, friends, or just the plain crazy, who seem to be living a less ordinary life. We sometimes think, "How would I love to be doing that?" We are all Walter Mitty.
Walter Mitty was a short story by James Thurber about a man living a family life that was the epitome of ordinary. While driving with his wife to go shopping, he daydreams about being in five different adventurous situations. It became classic storytelling that Hollywood loved. And so, of course, the producers in Hollywood made the short story into a movie. Most recently by Ben Stiller in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I highly suggest seeing it. It's very inspirational. The film depicts what life can be like if we live out our fantasies or, at the very least, begin to visit them in our heads.
But this isn't a book report or a movie review. It's my point of view about how to sustain life when life seems ordinary, even, unstable, And quite possibly somewhat unbearable. If you need to check out what should happen to you, and there isn't an easy escape at the moment, turn to your inner self and disappear in the labyrinth of stories in your head. We all have a story. Which story is best for you in this moment of your life?
I'm rocking in my chair in front of my computer. My eyes are closed, and I do my best to ignore the bright lights that the fluorescent bulbs cast to lighten the darkness in my mind. There is a little noise around me from the slight chatter of people, but it isn't enough to distract me from my thoughts of adventure. The creaks of my chair, grinding against itself, begin to clank and pop louder while I distribute the weight from my hips to the insides of the armrests attached to my desk chair. The noise reverberates inside my head, hollowing like the wind on a stormy night.
"Get on that wheel!" the captain yells.
The muscles of the waves punched the ship with all the force the sea could muster. We weren't invited into her heart tonight, and the ocean was letting us know.
"I can't stabilize the boat captain! The rudders are being held by the fast-moving current flowing underneath these swells! There's no way I can hold the wheel on my own!"
The storm causes the sea to rise sixty feet above her average sea level and tosses the one hundred and ten-foot boat around without mercy to the ship or her crew, who resides within her bowels. The bending tide almost rolls the vessel on her keel. There was no ocean spray. Just buckets of the briny deep being poured on the crew, suffocating their fear as the shock stifles any hope that the hands would be led to salvation. There was just the realization that they were close to their final resting place on the bottom of the sea floor.
The boat unwillingly climbs to the peak of each wave, only to be thrown down like a wayward elevator that has lost its control. The crew screams as the stern tips downward, like a missile finding its target, and shoots down to the seemingly depthless surface.
"Captain, let's ride her like a wild horse! We'll get through this mountainous influx of salty sea from this bitch, of a raging ocean that is ravaging water upon us! This deluge of seawater won't sink us!"
The rattled ship doesn't give in to the relentless sway of the pounding sea.
"Men, the captain shouts, "We can do this. Every time the ship rolls to port, you run to starboard. When she rolls to starboard, you better run to port side, do you hear me!"
"Aye, captain," they yell.
"Run to the port side, you bastards!" the captain shouts.
The men grunt and move as fast as they can. The push passed one another, tangling their feet into unsecured knots. They roll their heavy bodies over large objects and land back on their feet until their out-reached arms slam against the portside ship.
"Here comes the ocean wave about to slap us to the side! Run starboard side, mates!"
The captain stares out the window. The only things that stand out in plain sight on this dark night are the snow-white caps at the top peaks of the waves. It gives the captain a moment's notice to yell at his men.
"Run, you goddamn rodents, run!"
The men run to the starboard side. Crushing whatever is in their way. The men grunt and scream as they pound their weight into the ship's side. Doing their best to keep her from turning over.
"Chris! Chris!"
A soft voice rattles inside my head, causing vibrations that shake me back to reality.
"I thought I lost you for a moment, Chris," the person said, "You, okay?"
"I'm great. I fought the seas of life and am prepared to move in a slightly more calming direction."
Your life can be turned upside down at a moment's notice. No one is immune to heartache. But you gotta fight like hell to stay afloat, or you will sink in the hell of your misery. Every day, we learn to live. There is no time for dying.
© Copyright 2012- 2024 Captain Imperfecto, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Please contact if you would like to re-publish in film, television or print.
1003 words
