Caught Myself a Carrot

Heya:

It's been a while, I know. A while full a' whiles full a' whiling the whiles away, whilst I chased and chased a carrot on a stick. A stick that I'd made damned well sure I'd well carrot-ed, and then well stick-ed, and then very, very well stuck-ed out before me.

But I caught said carrot. I caught said carrot, on said stick, that I said I'd stuck out before me. I caught the carrot that I'd stuck on a stick and then chased and chased 'til my chasin' skillls damned well near wore out. Near, that is. 'Til they near wore out.

But wore out, they didn't -- said skills. Said skills might'a near worn out, but they didn't. They didn't wear out. Instead, they got me said carrot, which hung on said stick, which -- as I've already said -- I stuck out before me.

I caught it, motherfuckers. I caught the carrot on the end o'the stick that I so well hung before me.

See, heretofore, I've had problems. Previously, I had problems the likes of which precede pre-production. Because production, I've recently come to see, requires pre-production. It requires pre-production, production, and post-production. There's more -- I've recently come to see -- to bein' productive than merely pursuing the pursuit of production.

No, if y'er gonna be truly productive in this world, then y'have t' learn the complete cycle of production. And said cycle always involves somethin' much like my heretofore mentioned carrot, and it also involves my previously -- alongside with it -- mentioned stick.

It's as simple as this: If you want something (an' I mean truly want it), then it's worth planning for. Therein lies y'er pre-production. If y'really want it, then y'er gonna figure out how t'get it. Make sense? There's very little in this world worth having that's available for the immediate grab. Grabs only work when y'er a toddler, a teenager, or a dirty old man. An' even then, whatever y'er grabbin' for is fleeting. Indeed, it's often accompanied by a slap in the face! So then let's just agree right there an' right now: Everything that's worth having takes planning.

Now... The thing about planning is, it requires you to accept y'er present position. It mandates a complete recognition of where you presently stand (or sit, or lay... however pathetic y'er present circumstances have led you to become). This is without a question the most difficult part of the production process. Most folks can't face it. Most folks can't face their lots in life. They'll run circles and jump through hoops and even dig holes -- holes that'll soon serve as their graves -- before they ever admit their lots in life. 'Cuz to admit one's lot in life means to admit one's station. And t'admit one's station means t'admit one's true social standing. An' t'admit one's true social standing means that one needs to most likely accept that s/he's not standing at all... Because let's face it: 99% of us are downright without means, plain and simple.

Only the upper classes have anything resembling a leg t'stand on, loves. The rest of us are either keepin' up with the Joneses, as the Americans say, or tryin' t'get t'that point. Subtract two paychecks from "the lucky ones," as the lower classes say, an' you've got more members of the lower class.

What's that y'say? OUCH? There y'go. NOW y'er learnin'!

So. If y'er still with me, then I'm hopin' you'll see the reason why the stick's so important. Because y'see, the stick's y'er pre-production. The stick's what you go out and find y'erself (out in the back yard, or while y'er on a 3-day weekend away from home, or perhaps after a strong rainstorm -- it doesn't matter) once you've realized there's no way past y'er present status without it. The stick is the rock of Sisyphus. And as any Post-Freudian/Jungian therapist worth his or her salt will tell ya, Sisyphus was no victim. He chose his fate pure an' simple. (What, y'think a plain lad like m'self isn't familiar with 20th century analysis?)

Like I said, the pre-production's the hardest part. The hardest part's realizing y'er not one of the privileged few. The hard part's recognizing your familiarity with the familiar classes, regardless of how you were raised to perceive y'erself. Once you've done that -- once you've walked out into the yard after a strong rainstorm an' picked up y'er stick -- the rest is quite easy.

Easy, that is, if you've got gumption. 'Cuz it's gumption, y'see, that translates to orange. Orange, the color of alert. The color of the hunt, of the chase, of pursuit. There's nothin' subtle about orange. Orange results from the combination of the two loudest primaries -- yellow and red. When yellow and red get together, they can't do much less than shout.

And so you shout, when you find y'er orange. When you pick up y'er carrot, and you attach it t'y'er stick, you shout. Of course you shout. You can't do anything but shout. There's nothing any human being, in the history of humanity, has ever done when she or he touches the color orange but shout. 'Cuz when you get to th' point where y'er touching orange, y'er touching y'er very goal itself. Y'er touching it, an' y'er hangin' it on y'er newfound stick, an' y'er shouting at the top o' y'er lungs, 'cuz y'er handling the very thing that y'er vowing t'chase. It's a fleeting moment, this moment I'm describing right now, but you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about like every other human being who's ever lived knows what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that we already have what we choose to chase, but we damned well choose to let it go so that we can chase it anyway. That's why it's orange. That's why it's loud. It has t'be loud to drown out the sound of our shouts. The shouts that we shout when we pick it up. When we hang it on the end of our sticks. When we gaze at it from not quite so far, just after we've hung it, far at the end of our sticks.

THIS is production. Everything else, my friends, is Post-. It's Post-Production.

The chase, the chasing, and th' rest of the chase. The running, the mis-steps, the tripping o'er our own feet, the unexpected twists, the turns, the plot changes, the stopping to catch our breath, the whining, the complaining -- they're all mere technicalities. Technicalities along the road. Along the road of the chase.

But in order t'have all these blessed curses, my friends, we must've already chosen what to chase. And it's in the choosing, not the chasing, when the magic occurs. It's when we choose what to chase that we're the most like God. That, my friends, is when we create. Everything else? Polishing. Everything else? Varnish and gloss.

Nevertheless, my friends, I'm writing to tell you that I've just had myself a chase. I've had myself a pre-production, a production, and I've polished off the post-. I won't get into the details, 'cuz the details in this case are too broad. But I've had myself a job, that I'll tell ya. I'll tell ya that I've had a job, and that I've done a job, and that now that the job's done, I'm gearin' up t'do another one.

But fer the meantime, I'm floatin'. I'm floatin' in between jobs, lookin' down at myself. I'm lookin' down at myself, thinkin', "Dear God, lad, I'm so glad you've still got it in ya."