Earnings Statement

Sometimes I can find no words worth starting a sentence with because I am completely overwhelmed by the number of words I don't know in this language, let alone the languages in which I have a smattering of vocabulatory memorization, and languages I don't know but would be able to better express myself with.

On the wall to my right hang two photographs. The first one was taken using an infrared camera to show fully-leaved trees in summer in the mountains of Colorado, giving an icy wintry feeling to the tree limbs and grassy ground underneath. The second one was remotely taken by the Alabama-based photographer who developed the photo using sepia tones, showing the photographer as a model whose face is turned away from the camera and whose body is partially draped in reams of cloth, like a frozen ballet dancer or sculptor's study. Their lives are preserved in metals pressed onto wood pulp, which brings me joy when I look at them. I am more than these words! Fantastic!

I have stated the reasons for my being here, the primary one to show to myself that I existed outside this moment. I also serve the purpose of proving to my species that I have value outside of mere reproduction.

I constantly question my existence because I know my existence exists outside and inside many levels. I am a social animal engaged in the pursuit of the means for my survival. I am a human being, one step away from being godlike. I am an eddy of minerals in the constant swirl of minerals that make up the visible universe. I am the entertainment of the few people who've run into this blog and find these words interesting enough to read every once in a while, whatever "entertainment" means to them. I am none of these things. I am all of these things.

So what? You, me, us -- we're all of these, too. I can spend my whole life questioning where I fit into what I see as my place in whatever universe I feel like wearing, but in reality I don't exist. Or rather, I exist because I am none of and all of these things.

Hmm... I need a moment to figure out if this blog entry is going anywhere.

One fact remains. To the majority of the nearly seven billion humans on this planet, and pretty much all other living things around us, I am a living thing, either of their same general genetic makeup or something else, but living and breathing on this planet with them, no matter what I may think.

I don't get the luxury of escaping that one, simple existence. None of us do. We perceive ourselves as separate from others and work to preserve ourselves while maybe reproducing ourselves, too. If we could all talk and think the same language, we'd agree that we exist together.

I am making no revelatory statements. I never have. I state the obvious. I am living a boring life and have nothing better to do than write about my thoughts. From what I gather, a dwindling set of other humans visit this blog in hopes of something humorous, perhaps insightful. I apologize if I misled you. I tried to myself clear from the start but gave in to the demands of an audience. Now, I'm tired of being the organ grinder monkey, jumping up and down for virtual coins that feed my vanity. Writing about a life I used to have has lost its newness and in fact has made me all too aware of my mortality, that I am losing time to create new thoughts worth writing about. I don't stop carrying the thoughts of other past moments in my body so perhaps I will share them with you in another moment. Right now, I want something new.

No, I don't want something new. I'm lying to you. I want something old as life itself. I'll be the 47-year old human male that I am and stop denying it. My biological clock has not stopped ticking. I truly want to leave part of myself behind before I die. I want to have sex with a virile woman and have a child or children.

My current situation does not allow this to happen.

Perhaps I have discovered who I am and despite denials I cannot overcome the fact that I'm this guy who still has a chance to be fully human. But my intellectual side says there has to be more than food, shelter and reproduction. The realism side of me sees all the dangers inherent in trying to gather food, provide shelter and protect my offspring. My basic self echoes the phrases of all sentient living things: "Have kids. Take care of your family."

There is no such thing as the perfect human who is thus the only one allowed to reproduce and have the perfect offspring. I can forget about that thought. I have seen great humans produced by very imperfect and not-so-great parents. Of course, at age 47 there is a high likelihood that I'll have a not-so-great offspring but has genetic research progressed to the point where I could have my sperm tested for viability of my progeny?

Which leads to the next question. Who would, could or wants to have my baby?

Throughout my life I have heard other humans talk about organizations they knew that required you to show a copy of your earnings statement to prove your income so you could become one of "them." Churches, fraternities/sororities, social clubs, country clubs, restricted neighborhoods, etc. [I'll disregard the places that by law require your earnings statement, such as mortgage companies, banks and automobile dealerships.] Books, movies and other entertainment play up or down to that concept. In other words, do you belong?

Same goes for the thought of having a baby. Who do I want to have my baby? If it's not a matter of love, then what is it a matter of? Genetic material? Can you see intellect, good looks, common sense, and athleticism in a genome? Without diving into the Internet to look at the gene pool, I know we can determine gender and propensity for certain diseases from DNA.

What about the desire for success that overrides one's nurturing environment? In other words, past the fact of siring a child, how much do I want to be involved in rearing a child to ensure the child has the means to succeed in living to reproduce my genetic material?

Is it too late? I hope not. I honestly hope I lived on this planet as a living thing and did something more than twiddle my neurochemical thumbs the whole time I was alive, even if I enjoyed doing so most of the time. We humans can enjoy the concept of having fun our whole lives but that's not why we're here.

Some of you who are still here reading this blog are glad I've come to this conclusion, I'm sure, because you knew the answer all along. Thanks for sticking around. Words are easy to write, though. I've got to figure out if this pit I dug myself into is worth climbing out of. Do I have the wherewithal to become more than a vagabond childless writer? If so, is there anyone who with me believes we are worth having offspring together?

For the record, I have thought about having kids and written about these thoughts a long time ago. I told my spouse that I wanted to have kids but told her to ignore me because I was drunk at the time so I would not look appealing as a father (self defense mechanism). I married a woman who did not want to have kids with me so I could develop a childless life I could write about, knowing that if I had kids I would devote myself to them and forget about me. I have written all I wanted to write, at least for now. And now I'm ready to forget about me. However, if I never have kids, then it was never meant to be. But all is not lost.

I look at the students/customers in my class and wonder if they have or will go through thoughts like this. Some of them already had children. Some of them have grandchildren. Some of them may or may not have children. I've thought what it would be like to have children with some of them - what color would the children be, what would they pursue in life and where would they want to live?

We can't know what our children will be like. When we plan to have kids, we hope for the best but parents tell me it's a crap shoot. Despite their best efforts, some parents end up with rotten or unruly kids, in their point of view. At least they have children. I don't. At this point, I'd take a rotten or unruly kid if I had a good chance that he/she would just pass on my genetic material. After all, I'm only human. At this stage in my life, am I asking for too much?