Kid Icarus

I'm sitting here less than 24 hours away from one of the biggest moments of my adult life. I've tried to keep it down, tell myself it wasn't a big deal, play it low but i started thinking about thinking about the last time i achieved something that i actually gave a shit about...i had to go back to high school and building a house for Habitat for Humanity. Really, seriously, i haven't done anything that i was personally proud of in 6 years. You might say i'm being hard on myself...in those 6 years i've graduated high school and college, i've been the editor of a nationally published magazine, i've done some things that a lot of people would be proud of. But i hold myself to a higher standard. High School was a piece of cake. College was easier. The magazine was awesome but not a big deal by any stretch and the events that lead to me leaving that magazine pretty much marred any acheivement i felt about it.

Well, this thing tomorrow. This clothing line, this fashion show, this company. This is big. This is the first thing i've done in 6 years that i'm actually proud of. This is the first thing that has any potential. This is the first time i'm not being a lazy slacker asshole, breezing through life under the motor of minimum of effort, expecting things to be handed to me and being angry and cynical and playing the victim when it wasn't. This is the first time in 6 years that i'm even thinking about reaching my potential. I'm laying it on the line. My eggs aren't all in one basket, but they're not far from it. If this doesn't work, well then, i'm just not sure i can have any regrets about it...not in the sense that i won't, but in the sense that if i do, i won't be able to handle it. I just can't imagine a Friday in which Thursday night was not a success. I guess we'll see.

Anyway, in all of the planning and turmoil and stress i've been escaping to my sanctuary of Bose headphones and listening to some music and today two songs have occured to me that have struck major chords.

The first one is A Comet Appears by The Shins, off of Wincing the Night Away and it's pretty self explanatory why this one caught my ear. It's pessimistic, but so am i:


One hand on this wily comet, Take a drink just to give me some weight, Some uber-man I'd make, I'm barely a vapor They shone a chlorine light on, A host of individual sins, Let's carve my aging face off, Fetch us a knife, Start with my eyes, Down so the lines, Form a grimacing smile, Close your eyes to corral a virtue, Is this fooling anyone else? Never worked so long and hard, To cement a failure, We can blow on our thumbs and posture, But the lonely is such delicate things, The wind from a wasp could blow them, Into the sea, With stones on their feet, Lost to the light and the loving we need, Still to come, The worst part and you know it, There is a numbness, In your heart and it's growing, With burnt sage and a forest of bygones, I click my heels, Get the devils in line, A list of things I could lay the blame on, Might give me a way out, But with each turn, It's this front and center, Like a dart stuck square in your eye, Every post you can hitch your faith on, Is a pie in the sky, Chock full of lies, A tool we devise, To make sinking stones fly, And still to come, The worst part and you know it, There is a numbness, In your heart and it's growing.

The second song that struck me is a tad more optimistic but not much. This has been a favorite for a long time and i've always loved the meaning but tonight it struck me.

Thrice - Melting Point of Wax, off of Artist in the Ambulance:
I've waited for this moment All my life and more And now I see so clearly What I could not see before. The time is now or never This chance won't come again Throw caution and myself into the wind. There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings But I'm willing to find out what impossible means. A leap of faith. Parody of an angel Miles above the sea I hear the voice of reason Screaming after me"You've flown far too high boy now you're too close to the sun, Soon your makeshift wings will come undone" But how will I know limits from lies if I never try?There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings But I'm willing to find out what impossible means. I'll climb through the heavens on feathers and dreams' Cause the melting point of wax means nothing to me. Nothing to me Nothing to me I will touch the sun or I will die trying. Die Trying. Fly on these secondhand wings Willing to find out what impossible means I'll climb through the heavens on feathers and dreams' Cause the melting point of wax means nothing to me Nothing to me Means nothing to me Miles above the sea.

And the thing that caught me about this story isn't the main point i don't think. Sure the obvious story is that Icarus wanted to fly so he made wings out of wax and took off...he flew too close to the sun, the wax melted and he fell back down to earth. It's an interesting moral about ego and arrogance and learning your lesson the hard way, but there's another angle that i don't think i've ever seen until tonight:

If Icarus hadn't made his wings out of wax then they wouldn't have melted and he wouldn't have fallen. In other words, if he had made a decent product, he wouldn't have had a problem. So here's the crux of the biscuit: If my clothing is worth a shit, i'm flying to the sun. If nobody likes it, i'm falling on my ass from a long way up.