Musings... on cats, bad chili, and sacred acts

[DaemonOfLowell]

If I were writing in some lonely cafe, with battered, faux leather booths and splinters of cracked white paint in the corners, then I could at least imitate faux romanticism. But I’m here, in a clean but commercialized sinkhole of obesity, where $1.59 chili and crackers have kept me alive on too many occasions. It reminds me of my old boy Wylie, living off five buck a day Del Taco runs, eating soft tacos smothered in “del scorcho” sauce during leaner times at La Sierra University. Things are not as dire as my second run with Wy, in Colton (I’m living in small town luxury by comparison), but nevertheless, I am trapped in a state of inertial stagnation. And I am bored.

But I just read a deep and warily inspiring tale from internet entrepreneur Ben Huh, founder of, “I Can Has Cheezburger,” a ridiculous site featuring CATS (yes cats), of all things, in various anthropomorphic looks of shock, boredom, and any conceivable nod to pop culture: Cats doing Lady Gaga, cats doing Gangnam Style, Cats beating the crap out of feline rhiana. Anyway, although it is very difficult to relate to a multi-millionaire’s failures and subsequent triumphs -- particularly when moping almost suicidally in a dark room for one week is considered failure* -- his advice to “step out of your room” each day struck me in spite of its triteness.

* To be fair, his failed startup cost investors several hundred thousand dollars; but the scale of both entrepreneurial debacle and years of chronic depression do not necessarily equate

To paraphrase, Huh found that needing to deal with harsh reality (by facing the world) actually was a good thing because it offered problems he could solve. Depression, on the other hand, creates an insanity within the mind completely removed from any real sense of proportionality to life’s challenges. He accomplished this, after a week in agony and serious thought of ending it all, by mustering the courage to leave his room. It almost sounds like a sacred act. It is paradoxically trite and profound. But can you put such a sacramental ritual to any lasting use? You use ritual and routine to disguise procrastination and the buying of time until you can escape into the latest distraction. Stop collecting stories of overcoming shadows and defeat unless you put them to work immediately. Otherwise it’s all so much bullshit for another dreary blog; the internet is littered with enough of them.