To want to be alive

You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
if you want to want to be alive
– Wilco, “War on War“

I had this song going through my head all weekend, the last weekend of my vacation (and sorry for the lack of updates recently). It’s probably one of the best songs I’ve heard in such a very long time. Like Guided By Voices’ “Game of Pricks” and Roxy Music’s “Mother of Pearl“, it’s one of those tracks that I have to listen to again and again and again because somewhere in it is a phenomenal beauty that is as elusive as it is sublime.

It’s uplifting but with a hurt core – the capitulation that “you have to learn how to die if you […] want to be alive”. I’ve been coming to terms with this theme over the last while, admittedly transposing it onto something it probably was never intended to be ¹.

After four-and-a-half years, I gave notice today that I was leaving my full-time job. Steady pay, benefits, desk – gone, so that I can work as a freelancer.

Without going into sordid detail, I felt the need/want/desire to leave, but for the longest time I was paralyzed with fear about going freelance. This in spite of the fact I often came home despondant…that it was harder to write/revise my fiction when the best chunk of the day was spent in a chaotic environment…that with every passing week I felt I was missing out on a different yet possible life.

I don’t believe there is any more effective way to conquer a fear than doing so knowing that failure is also a possibility. You have to float on a raft to get over your fear of water. The chance of failure must be present, otherwise all you can achieve is a virtual success – in which case you might as well play a video game simulation of it rather than tackle the real thing. Playing blackjack against a computer will allow you to learn about the rules of blackjack (and probability mathematics) – it will not prepare you at all for a table full of experienced players in Vegas staring at you like a idiot because you’ve never had to deal with intimidation.

In other words, you must be prepared for the chance that, no, things may not go well. That is, after all, the way life works: at the dawn of time mankind signed no such contract which promised we would die unbruised. So, if an amount failure is inevitable (whether it be due to chance or fault) the best you can do is inform yourself as much as possible before taking any big leaps. The rest is going to happen whether you intended it to happen or not.

I needed more flexibility in my life. More freedom to do what I want without collaborating with a single entity that could never realistically put my needs before its own. Now the responsibility is mine: I can’t blame anyone anymore if things don’t pan out. However, I can tell you, in facing the unknown there is something very, very liberating.

1. I think it’s wrong for there to be a finite explanation of what any song “means”, however I also feel protective of songs whose themes are misconstrued/manipulated by others.