Death by a Thousand Spreadsheets

Death by a thousand spreadsheets. It’s how I feel.

Every artistic cell in my body is suffocating. I’ve deteriorated into a myopic lunatic, an animatronic milquetoast obsessed with work.

My only escape is Bukowski, Dylan, Kipling, Bach…the usual suspects. And we don’t spend enough time together. I’m unmoored.

To say I abhor business would be duplicitous, but it’s how I feel.

Existing in a world where the goal posts are never static is exhausting. Waking up every day to calamity and shame and general consternation is horrid.

And yet, I do, day after day.

I’m convinced I’m the least qualified business builder my side of the Mississippi. Ample evidence exists to support that belief.

I spend every day of my life pushing a boulder uphill, shoulders spasticity shaking, spine feeling as though it’ll collapse, calves begging for mercy. It’s a hill whose top is a mirage. But I push, and push, until I curse God.

I don’t feel like anything of worth is ever accomplished. I’m just not cut out for this way of life.

And then Bach plays something beautiful and transports me to the Elysian Fields

where harpsichords weep

where I can nap on a bed of bluegrass

where cold tears cascade over my cheekbones and through my whiskers

reminding me that I can still feel

where angels love me

where loneliness doesn’t exist

where I can be me

where I can write

and cry

and laugh.

But it’s temporary. The song ends, no matter how many times you listen to it. And it’s back to work. Back to trying to make a living. Back to convincing yourself you have worth. But that boulder gets heavier with each dreadful day. Yet you push it, with the belief that something will come of it.

And days turn into months…months into years…and years turn into a man you never wanted to meet. He’s tired, often times bitter. His skin doesn’t look the way it used to. His scalp itches and his feet ache. But he keeps pushing, for no other reason than not to bring shame upon his children. Failure is constant, as is the presence of the black dog. But he pushes, and he pushes.

And just when he’s about to quit, when he hates the world and everything in it most, he hears Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and his heart bursts with joy and beauty and hope and love. He manages to forgive himself. He even stops hating himself, momentarily, but that’s all he asked God for – a temporary reprieve from the pain and betrayal and loneliness…from the awful reality of watching his dreams slip through his fingers.

The violins saved him, again.