built for tragedy

Some people can never get ahead. Or so it seems. Some people, every time they turn around, a cartoon piano falls on them from a great height. Calamity, of all stripes seems to be attracted to them.

Worse still, the unexpected negative becomes their only conversation starter.

“man, you’ll never guess what happened to me”. etc.. Let me guess, something lame. My worst fear is probably that I am this person myself haha.

I, like you, am lucky and cursed. I have natural advantages. My brain chemistry, the era of the earth I am born into, being white, whatever.

At the same time, I have arrived at 35 full of holes. I’ve lost much, I’ve missed much, and I know about suffering. I feel most comfortable around people who have had at least one major catastrophe. Until you have had at least one major structural failure in your life, its hard to relate to hurting people.

Theres a dark lottery running through life. Everyone gets a ticket, and everyone gets called up.

In Jiu JItsu, every color belt I know has had at least one terrible injury. Maybe its your ACL, maybe its your back, maybe its your rotator cuff. But no one gets through this hard of the sport without a toll.

Life is the same. You will lose something. I hope for you it won’t be what you hold dearest but it damn well could be. Sometimes the worst thing you can imagine comes upon you. Doom.

I say all that to say that there are some losses that are out of your control. They will alight on your roof like a flock of birds and disappear the same way.

Other than that, there’s people who are constantly on the ropes. They are built for tragedy. And I don't mean deep loss, I mean that they choose to self identify as someone falling down the stairs forever.

I have said it before as a joke, but my city is filled with PBR sad boys. Dudes who are 30+ for whom life has happened to. They are victims of circumstance, they are passengers on a bus. I used to live a life where I felt I had no agency, so I know what its like to be a man like that, but I also can’t stand men like that. Mostly because I’m afraid their influence will overpower my own.

The only way to break the identity that you are built for tragedy is through excruciating painful effort. Its easier to do literally anything else than it is to be who you are. Shadow identities and fake you’s are everywhere, but there is only one path for you, and chances are its through mountains.

Don’t be a tragedy when you could live an odyssey.

Or as Lauren Hill said, “don’t be a hard rock when you really are a gem”