Do you think Michael Jordan should have come back to play with Washington after retiring?
Do you think 1980's (and earlier) hair band, lying dormant for 15 plus years, should be on a comeback tour (playing the same old songs even)?
I used to have mixed feelings, thinking sometimes it's okay, sometimes not. Now that I am the aging rock-star; now that I am Michael Jordan, it think it always sucks.
I sat through a meeting today with folks for whom I used to be a star. They will still tell you they love me and all I did, but.......
I also listened to 'generic' statements of how bad it used to be and how I never stood up for them and never moved them to the next level (I was the manager), and I can't help but hurt.
I listen to Rudyard Kipling:
If you can stand to hear the words you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and fix them up with worn out tools
........you will be a man my son
I believe it. I understand it. Thankfully I have had a good 6 months of internal gut wrenching and separation anxiety, that has passed, and I feel good about not being all that anymore.
Neverthelessl.......I should have left by now
Regardless of how self assured I may be, or how many folks still allude to some past greatness, I have come to realize that memories are short lived. People can't stay still and rest on their laurels. If you want to continue with greatness, you have to continue to engage. If you want to leave a position of greatness, you have to leave a great distance.
Don't linger, don't wait, there is no rehabilitation for you here. Burn out, leave your mark and move on to do it all again!
Later-E
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Nice - it figures the deprogramming would begin. I wonder who made the comments in the meeting. I'd like a few minutes in a room with them - and not to inflict any pain. I'd like to point out to them exactly what and who has become of the past efforts and exactly how their comments are simply teeth on the zipper of the coporate crotch as they prepare to peform deeds that will rob them of their soul. Tell them to put on their orange kneepads - Daddy's home. Fuck them. And I mean that with a capital F. I've seen you take neurotic computer junkies and turn them into professionals. I've had the privelege of being given opportunites that would never have been afforded to me otherwise. I've also watched you take joy in others' good fortune, while nurturing those in pain or need. A concept that the current regime will never understand - and I don't mean just Donkey Kong. I mean th whole God damned collection of them. I hear you on the lingering - and I feel the separation anxiety. But again - I reiterate - Fuck them. With a big slivery broomstick.
And one last thing - I found a quote from a news article about Apple, Google, and Facebook. Kind of a light comment - but still relates to that American Gods book you were talking about. It almost made me gag . . .
"My town is pretty close to Silicon Valley, and most of my neighbors make their living in technology, while I make mine writing about it. All of us, though, worship at the altar of bright and shiny things. "
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