Working Past Worrying

January 24, 2019 Jhaye-Q Baptiste 0 Comments

"What, Me Worry?"

We worry, yet we walk in the world sometimes so unaware. Is that a weakness?  Or is that a strange sort of strength?

AS A TEEN of the eighties, and a HUGE fan of MAD magazine, I got quite familiar with the above-quoted catchphrase of then American president, Ronald Reagan, which is the mindset I'm reaching for as I write this post on this blog after such a long, long time of nada much.
       This isn't even a post I prepared; simply a toe in the water to try to remind myself that before I can "Just keep swimming," as Finding Nemo's Dory rallies us all to do, I need to get in the blessed water and move.
       I feel full of rocks. In my head. In my belly. In my soul. Anything full of rocks should steer clear of water, no? Anything full of rocks is hard to move.
       But, hey, "What, me worry?"
      See, as we say in Trinispeak, "Ah trying a ting." Which is to say you're making an effort, though unsure of the end, though intrepid about the doing. It's being brave, really.
       Give me a second to bite my lip and shake my head, look out the window and blink, blink, blink moisture away and struggle to  remind myself in the words of the bard,"I am indomitable summer." As are we all.
       Though we're lazy, too. Or effed up. And. 
       How could we not be messed up when we try to make things happen? There's so much to climb OVER!!!
       It's like the first line at the beginning of SoUL's novel, Deep Love: "Everything in life leads up to your orgasm. Or prevents it." The same sum total of experiences that pushes you up also, paradoxically, pushes you down.

       Kanye intones, "Everything I am makes me everything I'm not." Obviously the reverse is also true. So we are the whole of ALL we are ... and too much life may kill.

       Forgive me for seeming to wax over-esoteric, but this is the work we do when we try to sort ourselves out TO DO THE WORK!
       What work? Why, the business of life, my friend. Life that is nothing without purpose and productivity.
       

Trinis always insist Carnival rids us of all our worries. This front page story came on the heels of Trinbago Carnival 2017.  Makes you wonder if all that fear was really absent  during the festival

Thanks for indulging me this little ramble today. I promise you it is preamble to bigger, deeper, stronger, more hopeful things.
       I've got that toe in the water because one does not test the depth of the river with both feet. I'm testing the water because I truly intend to get in. 
       I'm working to adopt a new watchword for the rest of my life: PROPERLY. The only way anything worth doing should be done.
       Remember, kiddos, why worry when we can pray and work.
       Shine on.