Hyper-Sensitive Trigger Finger

Father says to son, "You've got to take your time. You've got to learn patience. You kids nowdays...especially you boys...you think everything is going to happen for you all the time, and when it doesn't you get derailed. That's the problem with your generation. You always try to be Superman, but you forget that even he was Clark Kent the majority of the time."

Son says to father, "But Clark Kent didn't have to prove anything to himself. He knew he was Superman. He didn't harbour doubt."

Father says to son, "Welcome to manhood son."

Eddie Rickenbacker flew for years over Europe engaging the Red Baron's "Flying Circus," ripping bullets through the air. Both knew of each other, both respected each other, and both wanted to bring to the other their final breath. Although Rickenbacker never found the crimson wings in his sights enough to deal a fatal blow, it was the thought of bringing down a foe of equal or greater power that kept Rickenbacker in the air and caused him to be the most decorated Allied pilot in the first World War, and one of the most famous fighter-pilots in aviation history. He was intensely devoted to ridding the skies of this seemingly unconquerable foe, but his purposeful (and respectful) indignation for von Richtofen, even in the absence of his ability to track him down and end his reign, led him to be the face of the US Army Air Force for the coming generations. It's what some might call a fateful reward for "patience and devotion to the ride."

But where were the seeds of doubt? They were surely riding high in the skies as a co-pilot. The Air Force almost sent Rickenbacker to the bloody trenches of Europe to serve as a bullet-sponge amongst the infantrymen because of his perceived lack of "aviation expertise," but he continued to familiarize himself with the mechanics of not only the aerial weapons of war employed by the Allies, but of flight itself. He learned the physics and nature of flight, with an almost preternatural willingness to become flight himself.

Nobody sweeps your room for you. Nobody draws water from the well for you. Nobody breaks the stallion in your absence. If you want to ride, you have to bleed your own blood through the dirt.

The same dynamic can be found in Pat Garret's incessant stalk of William H. Bonney through Lincoln County. Or George Patton's unquenchable desire to not only destroy Erwin Rommel, but do so in a fashion that wrote eminence in the history books. He wanted to crush Rommel like a dried-out clay jar and let the sand sift through his fingers. For it was in Rommel that Patton found his scripted destiny. Rommel was the greatest, and to become the greatest, you have to surpass greatness.

Of all these circumstances, there is a common denominator...respect. Even a year after Bonney's death, Pat Garret released a pointed, if not overtly exaggerated biography called The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. Respect and patience. Patton would've fought Rommel in ten different lifetimes if given the chance.

Far removed from the destruction of an individual, lies the point to whatever the fuck this is that I'm writing. The point lies in the accumulation of the victory over something impossible and the attainment of what was once thought unattainable. The target in sight beckons your move. It stands in the distance for a fleeting second giving you an opportunity at fulfillment.

I don't think it takes an unhinged, maniacal schizophrenic sense of tunnel vision that so many historical figures possessed to attain such goals, but I think it takes a certain amount of commitment..or a fire, if you will.

I've asked myself why do such thoughts cross my mind so frequently in recent days, and I have no answer for it. I can suppose that maybe it's a part of feeling my footing in this world through the aging process, or maybe it's the search for something greater and more fulfilling than the prescribed living that I fight tooth and nail to avoid. I don't know what it is, and even the fact that I write out my sentiments (mostly privately), and the desire that prompts me to do so, are unknown to me at this point. What is important, or to me at least, is that these thoughts are crossing the mind. That they are finding their way to the surface and being arranged in a somewhat coherent manner...even if it only makes some sort of sense to myself.

Sometimes I think I'm going crazy.

So what was it?

I swear my intentions are good. So why do I have to wait?