When I was twenty-one, I split my palm open with a box-cutter.
Not on purpose, of course. I was cutting the straps off a bundle of flyers during my night job at a newspaper plant, and the knife slipped. As soon as it happened, though mostly painless, I knew I was in trouble. I walked over to the boss to tell her before heading to the bathroom to bandage myself up.
A short drive to the hospital and an hour later, I was lying in a bed waiting to get stitched up. A drunken, grubby man was in the bed across from me fighting off the doctors and nurses. I knew he was drunk because I could smell the alcohol. That, and the incoherent slurring. He had a large gash on his forehead, and did not like the medical staff poking and prodding him to see where else he hurt. Four cops were eventually called in, one to pin down each limb. They laughed when he said he had been beaten up for no reason while trying to sleep.
“If you were acting as nice as you are now,” one officer joked, “I’m shocked that somebody would want to beat you up.” The sarcasm only infuriated the man further who kept swearing and insisting that he did nothing to provoke the attack.
Two days later, when I was back on the night shift with an excruciating four stitches running up the palm of my left hand, I looked at the newspaper. The man from the hospital bed was on the cover page. Three teenagers had videotaped themselves punching, kicking, throwing beer bottles at, and finally urinating on the man to submit to the Bum Fights website. Somewhere along the way, the tape ended up in the police’s hands. The kids were arrested, charged and eventually found guilty of beating him, unprovoked, as he laid passed out on the street.
I think about that homeless man from time to time. How our paths were crossed that night in the hospital. My left palm still bears the small scar from where I slashed it.
I don’t believe in fate. Not in the proper sense of some omnipresent unstoppable force that guides our lives. I often wonder what would happen if I went to a palm-reader. Apparently there is an art to determining a person’s future from the wrinkles on his hand. Each line tells a tale about love, money, longevity or such things. The healed scar on my hand looks, to me, indistinguishable among the other creases that run up my palm. Would a palm-reader be able to identify the new line as artificial? Would she include it in her interpretation of my future? If she did, had I not then altered fate?
For me fate has much more to do with the institutions around us. Fate is not an inevitable existence, but rather the product of relying on others to determine our existence. Schools, religions, corporations, government – these are the real controllers of fate. Day by day they influence and herd the masses along, leading us very much toward the status quo predictability we recognize as civilization. This, at face value, is not a bad thing. We accomplish more as a species with stability, direction and guidance.
The problem arises when we stop questioning “fate” and switch to auto-pilot. Always doing what you’re told, and doing it well, yields marriage, a couple of kids, suburbia, an unfulfilling job and enough pension to put food on the table until your health runs out. Certainly not a terrible existence, but a wholly unoriginal one.
On the flip side, you don’t want to end up like that homeless man, literally getting pissed on by the system. It’s a complex world. You’re better off putting your head down to work until death than to screw it all and end up with nothing other than a raging drinking problem and a concrete bed. Arguably.
The key is to recognize that to a certain extent, you do directly influence what happens to you – especially if you’re thinking long term. In the day-to-day grind it’s hard to see the bigger picture. You’ve got immediate needs, and the thought of not fulfilling those needs breeds fear and worry. The path of least resistance, while not all that interesting, usually guides us to simple solutions for keeping ourselves alive and healthy. And better yet, if something goes wrong we’re not at fault. We can blame the system, the government, our boss, our parents, whomever.
Taking control of your destiny means taking responsibility for yourself and accepting the consequence. It means taking risks and aiming for a greater happiness than what others have in store for you. After all, these great governing bodies and wise leaders may offer generic possibilities, but deep down inside only you know what you actually want out of your short time on this planet. Succumbing to fears, doubts, laziness or delays is a far crueler reality than pursuing a dream. That doesn’t mean you have to go cliff-diving tomorrow. Dreams do not always entail extreme realities, requiring huge gambles. A dream is as simple as taking that little kernel of aspiration and nurturing it. You can rest assured the Powers That Be are too busy shuffling you along to bother offering the individual attention you deserve.
Whenever I begin to doubt my direction in life, I step back from the immediacy of the situation to analyze the bigger picture. I see how far I’ve come, and envision where I need to go, far removed from the emotions of here and now. It gives me perspective to push through what’s holding me back.
I trace the scar on my palm with a finger. I see where it intersects with the other lines, some larger, some smaller, all subtlety influencing but not ultimately altering its path. I recognize that I created the line. It wasn’t at all pleasant at first, but it’s a part of me now.
I wonder where it will take me. I wonder where I will take me.
9:19 am on February 1st, 2010
Spectacular fucking post!! I think a picture of the scar on your palm would be a more poignant lead-in than the cartoon homeless gashed drunk though… not that I don’t love your artwork.
I hope you end up posting more stuff like this, like the e-publishing comment you left on Phila’s piece. Really really good read, great shit Griffin.
10:05 am on February 1st, 2010
@Tremble
Thanks, man. Yeah, I debated on including the image as it is now. First, I attempted drawing my hand in MSPaint, which didn’t even look like a hand. Then I took a real picture of my hand, but didn’t like that either. Finally I decided to draw the screaming homeless man. It might entice people stopping by looking for the regular 3rd grade humor to click through. I agree it doesn’t exactly set the tone.
10:42 am on February 1st, 2010
Very interesting post. I think about fate like a river, and you are in a little boat. The river is going to flow the direction it wants, and if you try to go directly against the current, you will get very frustrated. If you just lay back and let it take you where it wants, you will get somewhere, but maybe not where you really want to be. The solution is to let the current move you, but keep your eyes wide open. Eventually you will see something you like along the river, and that’s when you drop your paddle in the water and move your ass over it.
11:06 am on February 1st, 2010
This is by far your best post yet. Great work.
I think fate is wanting to be exactly where you are. If you really enjoy what you are doing and where you are headed life is a thousand times easier and less stressful then if you are trying to follow some prescribed route to happiness or if you are fighting the system all together.
11:06 am on February 1st, 2010
@Jason
That’s a great metaphor, very Coelho-esque. A lot more eloquent than slicing one’s palm open, and exactly the point I was trying to make. In a world where trillions of dollars are spent and earned by exploiting how people tick, it seems insurmountable to fight against it. Everyday we make tiny sacrifices against or “true” dreams to achieve some more immediate happiness. A lot of times these sacrifices are unnecessary, functioning more as a hollow distraction from life’s mundanity. I think people would be a lot better off, if the sacrifices worked in the other direction. Rather than giving up a piece of your soul for a new HD TV, people should, instead, invest that time or money to a more fruitful endeavor. Bit by bit it adds up, and, to stick with your metaphor, when the river does eventually fork, you may have paddled just enough to swing your boat over to the more desirable path, instead of coasting along with everyone else.
@Destiny
Agreed. The key difference is making sure you truly are happy with where you are, as opposed to trying to convince yourself you’re happy when deep down you’re unsatisfied, which is exactly where prescribed happiness leaves a person. I’m a proponent of fighting the system, but it’s really a matter of picking and choosing one’s battles. It’s so easy to waste countless energy fighting the machine, and ending up worse off than where you started. A far better solution is to manipulate the machine to your advantage.
We need to remember to give attention to those things that matter to us. Mid-to-late twenties have a tendency to pick away at our dreams, as we’re forced to get a career and do “adult” things. I imagine, as with hangovers, it only gets worse with age.
2:50 pm on February 1st, 2010
The disconnect isn’t people convincing themselves they are happy as much as it is buying into the whole deferred gratification thing. People will admit to being miserable with school, their job, their relationships but justify staying in the situation because once they get that job, that promotion, or that wedding band everything will work itself out.
I find that people expect happiness to be some final reward for all the struggles they’ve gone through instead of treating happiness as something they are entitled to, and a process they are actively involved in.
3:47 pm on February 1st, 2010
@Destiny
Couldn’t agree with you more. The trick is to flip that deferred gratification mentality on its head. Instead of putting things off, make them a priority even if it’s just for a few minutes a day. There’s no greater truth than knowing the journey itself is the end game. It’s why I hope to have no distinction between “job” and “passion” as I get older, or between “life” and “drunk.”
11:44 pm on February 2nd, 2010
In the future, perhaps you can give me a little heads-up before you post something that might make me think. Ow. You hurt my head.
Regarding the accompanying picture, Tremble has a point with the palm idea, however, my ideal would have been a photo of you shirtless. You know you’re dying to. It’s fate honey.
Oh, I should mention that once I got someone to read and explain the post to me, I’m satisfied by the sound of awe in her voice that it was quality. Keep up the good work.
P.S. I got a 232 (and it was with one eye)!
2:18 am on February 3rd, 2010
@Qeen-bee
I always expect my inbox to be flooded with shirtless pic requests. Sadly, that has not been the case. Although, if you look around there are a few shirtless MSPaint pics available of me on this site
A 232 Wii bowling score, huh? I don’t know. I’ll have to see it to believe it.
2:37 am on February 3rd, 2010
This is my favorite post of yours yet. Very well put. I think it would be better spending your life trying to accomplish something you love and have a passion for, than to be wildly successful at something else, but always having to wonder what could have been.
Thanks for the reminder buddy.
3:12 am on February 3rd, 2010
@van Buuren
Thanks. I know for myself there’s just no way I can plod through life not being content with what I do. My thoughts are too predominant, and I can’t always drown them out with booze, so I’d have to sit there all day listening to the guy inside my head scream “THIS SUCKS! Why are you wasting your life?!? God, I haaaaate this shit.”
The only exceptions I see right now are a) working shit jobs to support or have children. I don’t have kids but from what I hear they change a person’s life. or b) making a shitload of cash. At a certain point, money can buy happiness and freedom. It’s just a matter of cramming in all the happiness you can into free time. Still, I think that’s a myopic strategy, unless it leads to retiring wealthy at a reasonably young age.
8:02 am on February 4th, 2010
This one wasn’t too bad, Griff. You’re still a tool, but I have to say, this is a pretty good paragraph.
“Whenever I begin to doubt my direction in life, I step back from the immediacy of the situation to analyze the bigger picture. I see how far I’ve come, and envision where I need to go, far removed from the emotions of here and now. It gives me perspective to push through what’s holding me back.”
2:55 pm on February 4th, 2010
@Ballsack
Thanks dude. And thanks for complimenting my tool too.
12:41 pm on February 9th, 2010
Griff, despite how much I love to read about the tour, this was my favorite post so far!!!! It was awesome actually. Well-stated, deep, meaningful. This particular piece offered us a deeper dimension to you that was impressive. And I can’t help but smile at the fact that there were kind words from Ballsack. So going forward if there are juicy stories of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, I will go back to this post and remember this side to you!!!
12:43 pm on February 19th, 2010
@ #1Jennifer
Why thank you. This piece kind of flowed off the fingertips. It’s been well received. Hopefully I can translate this ease of writing to make the tour entries more entertaining. Regardless, there will be more entries like this one in the future.
8:35 am on February 27th, 2010
This is the first post i read of yours. I’ve seen you part of Subtledig for awhile but wasn’t into the “following a guy who works for Tucker.”
This however is a great post and think you have enough knowledge and experience to make posts similar in the future.
11:50 am on February 28th, 2010
@David
Yeah, the Tour stories aren’t for everyone. It’s nice to branch out and try some new stuff, and even better when people enjoy it. I’ve spent countless hours talking with bums so I do have a lot of stories to tell.