coffee within my reach

So I made myself a cup of coffee at midnight. Yes, midnight on a Saturday night. I'm still going to church tomorrow morning, so stop wondering.

My fingers type frenziedly, clicking away with sharp staccato jabs. Eventually as the buzz from the caffeine wears off, I'll move into a more legato typing style, but I'll still be jumpy. Sleep deprivation, caffeine OD, and psychological jitteriness tend to deprive one's writing of coherence.

I'm a late-nighter. I woke at 8 this morning to go running, so in theory I should be tired by now. But I can't sleep. So I'm going to drink coffee and maybe watch a movie or go running again.

I once had a fellow late-nighter friend who had a notecard on the wall above his bed, on which he had scribbled "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." He said he didn't like to go to bed because he finished each day without getting enough done. Whatever it was he was looking for in life, it was still out of reach. Another day had passed, and the carrot was still dangling.

I took a classical literature course in college. Unfortunately, I wasn't really "into" the whole homework thing that semester. One of the few things I do remember from the course was the Greeks' idea of eternal punishment. They seemed to imagine it to be, among other things, unrealized desire and endless repetition. Sisyphus ticked the other gods off and was doomed for eternity to push a boulder to the top of a hill, and as soon as he thinks he's got it up there, it rolls back down. And he does the same thing again and again, for all eternity. You'd think the guy would catch on and just leave the rock alone, but a lot of these mytholgical figures didn't seem to be too bright. Perhaps all the inbreeding amongst the gods screwed up the intelligence genes.

Another of the unlucky was Tantalus, who stood waist-deep in a river, with fruit dangling within his reach. The catch was, every time he reached for the fruit or tried to bend down and get a drink of water, the fruit shrunk back and the water drained away. I explained this to my friend and suggested that this was more descriptive of life than the afterlife. He agreed with me. Then the conversation entered a long lull as we couldn't think of anything else to say.

To break the silence I suggested that he lower his goals and find his fulfillment in the attainment of those drastically lowered goals. Instead of pining away for some unattainable girl or killing himself over his career, he should glory in the small accomplishments, like microwaving a Hot Pocket correctly or brewing a good cup of coffee. One could think of these actions as "successes," and could even take pride in them.

He gave me a look that bespoke a mixture of disappointment and disdain, the kind of look you give someone who just told you he plans to drop out of law school and be a trash collector.

Whatever. I'm a man who can make a mean Hot Pocket. The long-term goals are still dangling, but the cup of coffee on my desk was made very, very well.