a perfect day

I'd seen it coming near the end of the holidays season, the looming black hole, the mood swing, the old familiar downwards spiral. But when it actually hit me that realisation earlier didn't numb the effects anyway.

As i was driving home today in a near-catatonic state, i came across a man who looked like a tramp or a model, which is it i don't know. the reason i say so is because he had on torn jeans and a scruffy dirty t-shirt, a goatee beard but had a surprisingly handsome, chiselled face much like a model's and he carried three bags full of plastic materials and other cast-away waste materials they pay cash for recycling. He was dirty and dishevelled but he looked sharp, nonetheless. Had i a camera on me then i'd have taken a shot of him (should i ask for his permission first? i don't know). At that moment i thought how lucky i was, how unlucky he was (but is this really true?). Yet there i was, sitting in my nice clean comfy air-conditioned car, feeling sorry for myself.

But anyway, here's something from Hunter S Thompson's letters in his autobiographical "The Proud Highway". Hunter received a letter from a 14-year old boy who expressed great admiration for the Hell's Angels, a motorcycle gang in California, America. Hunter promptly responded with this letter (excerpt taken from his letter dated July 6th, 1967 from Woody Creek, Colorado):

"When I was 14 I was a wild, half-wit punk who caused a lot of trouble and wanted to tear the world in half for no other reason than it didn't seem to fit me too well. Now, looking back on it, I didn't think I'd change much of what I did in those days...but I've also learned at least one crucially important thing since then. And that's the idea of making your own pattern, not falling into grooves that other people make. Remember that if you can do one thing better than anybody it'll make life a hell of a lot easier for you in this world - which is a pretty mean world, when you get to know it, and a lot of people in it can ride big Harleys...especially in California. The best of the Angels - the guys you might want to sit down and talk to - have almost all played that game for a while and then quit for something better. The ones who are left are almost all the kind who can't do anything else, and they're not much fun to talk to. They're not smart, or funny, or brave, or even original. They're just Old Punks, and that's a lot worse than being a Young Punk. They're not even happy; most of them hate the lives they lead, but they can't afford to admit it because they don't know where else to go, or what else to do. That's what makes them mean...and it also makes them useless, because there's already a big oversupply of mean bastards in this world."