How Much Realness Can You Bear?

Existential despair. Yes that's so old world. Too French. It might have once been cool. But now it seems sort of silly, lumbering, slobbery. Not so much intellectual, as self-indulgent.

And movies with tragic endings? Used to love them, sort of wallowed in the angst and sadness, and marveled at how real world and "true to life" they seemed. Now watching those kind of movies seem like hitting yourself with a tasseled rope. Aimless, pointless. Not necessary. 

The real gets a little too real. And how much real-ness can you bear? You have to celebrate the little victories. If you are waiting to only celebrate the major wins, well, the waiting and the waiting, and the waiting is the hardest part.

And there are the simple pleasures. Those are the treasures of our lives. A good meal, a great cup of coffee, a new record that you really love. Playing music in a band. The sunlight reflecting off the lake. A bright day. A day of no major pain. Victories.

And self-deception. A little healthy self-deception. Might not actually be an evasion of the truth, just a necessary survival technique.