Disenchanted Lullaby

Not exactly the song I had in mind, but close enough. Here we go.

Every now and then come these sort of songs, they bring me to places I have forgotten exist in my self. I came to moments of contemplation today. I've been in this current job for about four months plus now. Pretty soon I no longer will qualify as the new kid anymore. Sometime later along Friday night, a few hours into the weekend, I came to this place of contemplation. The path began with people's words, and continued to lead me on as I realized they echoed some of my own thoughts that I haven't been listening to for quite a while.

It's high time for me to put my world in the mirror, I think. It's time for an honest stocktake, a good hard look at where everything are at, a brutal no-holds-barred Q&A session, a serious review of life, world, relationships, roles, vision and purposes of everything. Fittingly enough, I got the church's CPU here needing to have checks ran through it tomorrow to determine what stuffs are in there and what they're worth.

My drumming has purpose, but how does it prioritize in the bigger picture? Admittedly, as far as I can see at the moment, it's nothing big. It's just something I really really enjoy, that's all. I'm not particularly good at it, and will not be anytime soon, these things take time. I understand that, I realize that, and I accept that. But why does it still royally pisses me off regularly when I'm not good enough to deliver the goods? Have I taken too much pride in my performance? I don't think so, I know full well nobody's gonna come up and tell me I play good, was never looking for that. I've always been looking to play, that's all. Being in a good team is addictive, and I can't get enough of that. That may well be a testament to how I've lived my life, I don't know. What I do know is that this drumming thing is bigger in my life than it might seem in the bigger picture of things.

My work I'm not even gonna touch for now, as it's on a good track at the moment. I'm doing it for the money and the doors it will open as I go along. That's good stuff right there, so that's done.

You're a veteran fighter, but you party like a rookie. Veterans in your class have earned their medals and moved on to desk jobs. But you have yet to win your wars and earn your medals. What do you do? Your thirst for blood keeps you away from the idyllic life behind the desk. Your age and mindset set you apart too much from the rookies. Your bloodlust sets you apart too much from your peers. What do you do?

Your platoon is on a lifelong campaign to attempt the one thing almost nobody has ever done before, and for it an expensive price has to be paid by everybody involved. Nobody really have any proof they know what's gonna work and what doesn't. You believe in the ideals, you love what they're trying to do, and your fighter's blood burn with the flames of passion at the sight of this impossible fight. Yet, reality shows you a different story. The fights have been rare in between. The fighters have been even more rare. As your comrades grow up, there are hardly any rookies left. As there are next to no rookies around, next to no rookies are interested in joining your platoon, and thus goes the devil's circle. Morale is low, and more and more you're seeing more fat cats behind desks than hardened fighters ready for the front line. You thirst for blood, and you dream of the battles your company had envisioned back in the early days. Yet, hardly anybody is fighting anymore. What do you do?

You call this platoon home. You've been tempted to leave a thousand times before, and you have no doubt you'll be tempted a thousand times still. Rookies that take easy battles week in week out, or veterans who hit the furious battlefields every warrior worthy of his scars can only dream of but only once in a blue moon. You have a hard decision knocking in your head day in day out, sometimes softly, sometimes forcefully. What do you do?

Will you sell your dreams short for small easier satisfactions? Will you abandon your comrades in a half-sinking ship instead of furiously keeping the ship afloat? It may sink, or it may not. You might sink with it, or you might help it sink. Will you risk your life for this off-the-scales purpose, a make-it-or-sink-with-it situation? Or do you sit back and play soldiers, happily spending your life eating small chips off the real feast's table?

Will you sell your dreams short?

By the end of this contemplation, my questions have brought me to my answer.

Getting lost in you again is better than being numb
Better than being numb
Better than playing dumb