Having aged twenty-nine years, I now face the sobering prospect that a measly thirty-one years of life are left to me before I shuffle off this mortal coil. The passing years have shown me that time is a form of inertia; time alone will affect no reform. A man shan't strive to better himself, shan't undertake to change his stars, unless acted upon by some additional force, be it the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or the realization, upon the occasion of his personal Saturn's return, that half his life is gone and he is not the man he'd lazily assumed he'd somehow just become in the fullness of time. He, of course, being me, your humble narrator. Persisting as I am? Henceforth, not a viable option. I must recast myself. Reformation? Revolution!

Yet revolution is a dangerous business; why the prosperity and success of the American Revolution and the anarchy and failure of the French Revolution? The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. We had a plan, it kept us on the straight and narrow, and when it proved insufficient for the long haul we came up with a new plan, the nigh-sacred and eternal United States Constitution. What of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, you say? More akin to the Declaration of Independence than the Articles of Confederation, and just as unsuitable as a basis for just and orderly governance. No, the reinvention I propose requires a plan, a series of guiding principles and discrete goals. Rightly or wrongly, I choose a poem, "If-" by Rudyard Kipling:

Step One*:
"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;"

Check.

Step Two:
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;"

The conundrum here is to avoid the repugnant emotionlessness of Stoicism. The work is incomplete, but progress has been made by leaps and bounds.

*Precedence determined by whim.

To be continued...

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Eyeliners, "Think of Me" from No Apologies (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "I hope you think of me when you're burning in Hell."

Bare-bones punk band: guitar, bass guitar, drums. Three sisters. From Albuquerque. All hotties. What's not to like about The Eyeliners? Without question, No Apologies is a weaker album than the previous two, Here Comes Trouble and Sealed With a Kiss, but "Think of Me" is a great song.