I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper and your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am at your command.
Half of the tasks that you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done; after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of all great people and, alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great I have made great, those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, but I work with all the precision of a machine, plus the intelligence of a person.
Now you may run me for profit or you may run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will lay the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I? I am called Habit.
I've never been able to get hooked on smoking, much as I've tried. My dad used to smoke; and though he suffered emergency double bypass surgery and had to be revived on the table, the smell of cigarette smoke still gives me a wickedly wistful & burning nostalgia for my childhood. Even so, I've no compulsion to smoke.
The requisite coming-of-age drinking binges never stuck either. I have a near reverence for alcohol and its properties; a kitchen is neither cozy nor complete without it, and my kitchen is replete with it. Even so, I rarely use it.
Most self-consciously artsy-fartsy people try to get at least one affair under their belt; my brief fling was propped up by copious amounts of ganja. Under its influence not only were all my insecurities alleviated, but I devoutly and sincerely believed myself to possess the sublime beauty of a young Deneuve and the raw animal magnetism of a young Bardot. :) Even so, I haven't partaken in years.
I've never suffered any physical cravings for these things. I've had plenty of opportunity to manifest a chemically addictive personality, and there's been nada.
But I do suffer from the bone-crushing inertia of habit; doing anything at all outside of my comfort zone makes me feel as if I'm moving against several g's of emotional, psycological and metaphysical force.
Once upon a time, an old friend who had recently returned from India explained to me why she kept rats as pets. Amongst all their other virtues, they were always depicted with her favourite god, Ganesh - a very Buddha-like elephant-headed god who is the god of Knowledge. The rat, she said, is an aspect of Ganesh, and it represents his ability to reach and bring enlightenment into the darkest and most inaccessible crevices.
Lately there has been a gnawing knowing scurrying through all my long forgotten crevices; and amongst other things, it is telling me: irrespective of whether I can actually *be* better, it is nevertheless crucial to work to *do* better.
But it means going up against bone-crushing, emotional, psycological and metaphysical Inertia.
Mind you, I'm open to inspiration and would willingly roll with any life-changing enlightenment that whups me upside the head; let that be a prayer to the Buddha/Ganesh. (Now I have an image in my head of being bodychecked by Babar carrying the hockey stick of Satori. Should I be careful what I wish for?)
So. This will be my last post from work. I'm beginning to suspect that if it weren't for procrastination on the job, I wouldn't bloody blog at all.
Posted by edgar at November 19, 2002 04:12 PM