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Gates
Kent M. Nebergall@TIMEWEB
02/10/99 10:37 AM
Interesting to see "Gates Of Delirium" lyrics written out. I have a dub
from college I have yet to pick up on CD, so neat to find out what a lot of
the blurred pages of sound say.
The friend who introduced me to the song described it as "a New Agers view
of Apocalypse". Probably true - if Vietnam, remember every war seems like
the last one when you are in it. There were a lot of pieces like that then
- ELP: KarnEvil Nine, Genesis: Suppers Ready, and a lot of shorter ones
(One Tin Soldier, Eve Of Distruction, 2525, etc., etc.).
Entropy - I'm not sure I can relate fully. I always, when in such modes
for no reason, hit some critical mass that says I can't keep tripping over
my own clothes or dishes or self pity and I rally almost out of sheer
distain. The accomplishments of doing so get me high on self image for a
week or so, then things settle down to a normal pattern - normal usually
meaning a little planning, a little doing, and waiting for shoes to drop.
I mean when I was in college and alone, and emotions were terrors and
demons and angels of undisguisable strength, it took a lot to keep keel,
but I had a lot. The winding down of a thirty year old, right in the
middle of that trough of life, when you should be parenting and you are
instead taping Dilbert, is a wierd time. You have youth but you realize
for the first time that you won't have it forever. You realize that gut
won't stay in place by itself anymore. But it creeps up on you slowly,
stealing joy without much notice, like a kid taking a buck from your wallet
now and then, and you wondering why you don't have enough for a Coke all
the time like you used to.
It's the insidiousness, the creeping up, that makes it bad, not the thing
itself. A sudden challenge you can face, but a slow one is alien to you.
I don't have a total solution. I suspect parenting will help sometime. I
know I'll want to hit myself with a rock for saying that when the time
comes, but I saw it do wonders for my brother, in terms of turning him from
a basket case of entropy at 20 into an admirable, substantial adult at 33.
You see it in his steel blue eyes - eyes you didn't even notice at 20
because he wouldn't look you in yours then. In the meantime, for me, I
have nephews and neices, and I can say proudly that there isn't a person in
our extended family who wouldn't die for my brother's kids. My brother
grew up, but a lot more of us did by proxy. We took him on as a project,
and ended up growing a lot ourselves.
I suggest you find someone who needs your love more than you do. In this
culture, you can't throw a brick without hitting ten of them.
Mmm. I guess I just needed to think that through. Thanks. You see, my
nephew by my oldest sister has a new project for us.
- Kent