“You’re an Egoist!”

If I ever get around to making an album, I’ll be naming it “Egoist”. Partly because most musicians are egotistic. Partly because albums need to have contemplative, pseudo-thought-provoking titles. And partly because women like guys who use self-deprecating humour (or so I’ve heard).

But mostly because I’m an egoist.

In most aspects, you could call me “conservative” (save for politics). In some aspects (politics), I’m a bit more liberal. In social interactions, I tend to keep a protective radius about myself both figuratively and in practice, both theologically and viscerally, and both metaphysically and corporeally. In matters regarding myself, though, I’m an absolute selfish brat.

So say that theoretically, possibly, maybe, probably you wish to bring down my protective perimeter – to expose me for the brat I am. There’s no need for volleys of accusations or physical interaction. In fact, all you need are a few words in the fashion of…

“You think you’re so damned deep, don’t you?”

“You just can’t get over yourself, can you?”

“You must think you’re so damned DEEP that you can’t figure yourself out.”

When caught in personal turmoil, you’re going to unavoidably act a bit egotistic. Worrying over yourself, asking compadres for advice at inopportune moments, sulking around home and getting scolded by your mother, reading the one Robert Frost poem you know, and watching “The Graduate” five times on pay-per-view (your selfish self being too selfish to rent the DVD). The world makes no concessions to you when you’re fucked up, though. The clockwork infrastructure of America still grinds its gears. The people you know still go about their daily lives. Time still keeps a Tour-de-France champion’s pace, and it looks like you’re that misaligned gear, that outcast from society, that biker with a broken chain.

Thanks to Einstein, we now know there are ways to alter the flow of time. Easy. You either move to Jupiter or travel at 300000000 meters per second.

These aforementioned solutions being not of feasible nature… maybe it’s time to reassess your enemies. “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Touted by lilly-livered-land-lubbers, this is possibly the worst advice I have ever heard, second only to “Follow your dreams.” Time isn’t an enemy one can easily defeat – but that’s not to say that you should give up the fight. Middling-aged trophy wives fight time on a day-to-day basis with cremes, powders, and Botox.

If you’re not a middling-aged trophy wife, then you’re fighting the wrong battle. Time is an enemy you can’t defeat… but there are other foes more easily felled.

This summer… Go somewhere. Take a bicycle/motorcycle/car/train/plane/bus/moped/unicycle/horse/airship/mountain banshee/flying doghouse. See where you find yourself. See IF you find yourself.

And hope you don’t get killed by axe murderers.