Long ago in an agency far, far away?

I’m having the dream again.  I’m in a maze.  Not the scary type, like the one in the Jim Henson movie, Labyrinth, well, not mortally scary anyways.  It’s just empty, plain, cold.  There’s a long corridor of gray stones, infinitely long it seems, and I’m standing in it.  The ground is crushed gravel of the same stone.  When I walk my footsteps follow me, grating, mocking me.  One listening to my footsteps would assume I was going somewhere, that I was a person in action.  But really, I’m in inaction, or useless action, like struggling in quicksand, or a hamster on a wheel.  As far as the eye can see, in either direction, there are paths off the corridor.  I’ve tried going down a few, yet have had the same outcome each time.  Dead end.  Sometimes I can see the ending, and I don’t go down the path.  Sometimes I haven’t been able to see the end, so charge blindly on, till I hit the wall.  I want so badly to get out of the maze.  Not for survival.  On the contrary, I seem quite comfortable overall.  I hunger for nothing.  The temperature is unnoticeable, like when you dip your foot into a still pool of tepid water, and barely notice it’s submersed, the temperature is such a match to your own.  The air is still, no breeze to chill me, or tickle my skin.  I have the sense I could exist in the maze forever without physically wanting.  In fact, it’s as if my physical being no longer exists.  I know it’s there, I can see it, and touch it, but it matters none; I’m completely numb.  Only my fear of passing my years away uselessly, in this isolated gray world, feeds the urgency of my escape.  My footsteps on the sharp stones leave no trace in this world.

A long time ago, I would wake up every morning, greeting the day with enthusiasm, thinking about the things I looked forward to that day.  This was not some exercise a therapist made me conduct.  This was genuine happiness with my life.  These things were not necessary big things.  Sometimes they were very small things, like the knowing a graded test would be returned in class that day and feeling confident that I’d aced it, or a promise that Mom made that she’d buy me a new outfit for school, or that they were serving chicken nuggets in the school cafeteria for lunch.  Sometimes they were bigger things, at least in my mind, like in elementary school, when I’d jump out of bed for a fieldtrip downtown to the National Mall, where I could visit the American History Museum and see my favorite exhibits.  Like the huge dollhouse, taller than myself, where every little detail was recreated in miniature so lifelike, even down to the tiny, motionless fish in the aquarium, as if you could jump in and live in that perfect little world.  The father sitting in the armchair reading some newsprint, the mother cooking miniature cherry pies and cookies in the kitchen, while the children play with alphabet blocks on the floor.  I longed to make myself tiny, like Alice In Wonderland shrinking down at the bite of a pill, to explore and live in that great bourgeois house, from cellar to attic, with all its elaborate treasures.  Or the movie memorabilia exhibit, which consisted of such relics as Fonzi’s cool leather jacket from Happy Days, Harrison Ford’s jaunty hat and whip from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Dorothy’s magic ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz.  For some reason I adored the latter, despite my shock at their ragged appearance, discovering that there was nothing really special about them.  They were old and rusty looking, not rubies at all but faded sequins hanging by worn threads to plain ladies pumps; rust-touched plastic turning transparent.  They seemed to hold the promise of good things, that the right pair of shoes could make your life’s voyage safe, even take you over the rainbow.  What I should have learned then though, was that things weren’t as beautiful as they were made to seem, that most things were shabby under their polished façade.  That there were very few truly special things in the world.

Then there was a period of sudden change in my psyche, brought on by deep currents of uncertainty and fear in my world and the world at large, amplified by personal failure and loneliness.  A feeling of despair, and the revelation that I would flounder in this life, that I was ordinary, and nothing I did would ever amount to anything notable, so there was certainly no need to put forth any effort.  In this dark time, I hated mornings, wishing as I climbed out of bed that the day were ending rather than beginning, that I was once again returning to my blanket cocoon, so I could hide face-down in my tear-stained pillow until sleep relieved my mind of its cheerless wanderings.  Mercifully, this period was not too long in duration, continuing for less than a year, after which I returned to a state of mental equilibrium.  Gone was the bright enthusiasm, optimism, and contentment of my younger years, but gone also were the depths of despair.  Most mornings I greet the day with indifference, peppered with days of happiness, mainly those days when I’m free from the chains of my futile job.

I cope with my job in much the same way I imagine people remove themselves from mortal pain.  My mind wanders free from my body, drifting aimlessly over ways for me to escape my current life path, while my fingers do what’s required of them, the smallest portion of my mental capacity committed to work.  And yet, I still perform at a higher level than most of my coworkers.  I wonder if this is because of my relative youth, whether they are just so much more removed from their work after years and years of boredom, or whether it is a matter of aptitude.  I have no definite answer for this question.  Upon overhearing most of their hallway discussions I am inclined to believe the latter, but then, who am I to know?  My guess, and an admittedly conceited one at that, is that it’s a combination of both.

No pain, no gain.  That’s what my track coach used to say.  So I worked and labored, really felt the burn.  And I gained, yes, the work paid off!  But it was clear in my head what the goal was.  To be the winner of the race, to run the fastest, was the goal.  And I trained for every scenario I might encounter in a race.  Ran uphill, downhill, around the track, over logs, on the street, on the path, in a pack, alone.  Based on the success of my running training regiment, I took care to apply the same principles to life.  Labored at everything I put my mind too.  Whatever I did, I tried to do it the best, thinking that must be the secret to life, to do everything the best.  But inexplicably, it wasn’t!  Not at all!  Much to my surprise and discouragement, unlike in running, effort did not seem to have the same effect on outcome of job, life happiness, health, wealth, etc.. Even more annoying, was the realization that not everybody started from the same point.  In a race, there was a set start line, and every runner had their toes on it, not one inch farther ahead or behind anyone else.  Fair.  In life, some people were just ahead to begin with.  Their Daddy owned the family company, their sister could hook them up with a great job, their grandparents left them tons of money.  Rarely, they were just born with extraordinary talent, but usually even this gift was ineffective when not coupled with effort, so I never begrudged people with great talent.  I knew that without some lucky turn of stars, or the correct mind-set and will-power, they could be in the same boat as me, as the talentless.  The only thing I envied about people with great talent is that their path in life, their proper labyrinth corridor if you will, seemed pre-chosen for them.  At least to start, maybe their path grew gray and the air dull after awhile too.

And yet I could walk in a day like this, among the sunlight and the trees, and not care what I did for a living, whether I’d failed or succeeded.  In fact, maybe I should thank my stars I had time to enjoy it.