Aimee Mann, you're still my friend, but...

Aimee Mann, the artist who did the soundtrack for Magnolia, used to embody my feelings and actions in the themes of her music.

It's strange that I realized that my way of life paralleled the quasi-cynical nature of her music, yet I embraced it rather than being motivated to change as a result of it. I found solace in it, knowing that this woman understood my often counter-productive actions and misguided emotions and was able to express it through music.

Her song, Momentum, was my anthem for a very long time. If I wondered why I did something ridiculous I could look to the song for clarification.



Oh, for the sake of momentum
I've allowed my fears to get larger than life
And it's brought me to my current agendum
Whereupon I deny fulfillment has yet to arrive

[Chorus:]
And I know life is getting shorter
I can't bring myself to set the scene
Even when it's approaching torture
I've got my routine

[Verse 2:]
Oh, for the sake of momentum
Even though I agree with that stuff about seizing the day
But I hate to think of effort expended
All those minutes and days and hours
I have frittered away.

[Chorus]

[Bridge 1:]
But I can't confront the doubts I have
I can't admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I'm condemning the future to death
So it can match the past.

[Bridge 2:]
When I can't confront the doubts I have
I can't admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I'm condemning the future to death
So it can match the past.



Essentially, I finally took the initiative to admit the past was bad by confronting it. The inertia that fed the momentum suddenly became a controllable force that I've recently taken hold of. My way of life was a rubber ball flowing through space at a constant speed without any forces in sight to change its course. Those forces could only come from within the rubber sphere.

Being that it was traveling at speeds approaching light, it took extended effort to grok (see Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land) and alter the ball's (nearly) unyielding intertia. Slowly, I came to grok the goodness of the ball and there was no longer a ball. In its new state, I could easily deflect this mass of energy into a new direction. It was no longer confined to the boundaries of the sphere.

I was recently struck with some insight from the oddest of sources. Aaron Ruell (a.k.a. Kip Dynamite) proposed that there are two types of people; essentially, those who let their creations and aspirations stagnate, and those who have the drive to do what is neccesary to see that the fruits of the ideas flourish.

Being an individual in the second category means biting the momentum bullet. It means confronting "the effort expended" and having the confidence that "all those minutes and days and hours" aren't being "frittered away." Acting on an idea or an ambition, regardless of its external success, and sustaining the project to finalization is a true achievement.


I've recently embarked on a very small, but significant project that I've meant to undertake for a while. Thank you, water brother, for helping me grok the goodness in it. May you never thirst.