the heart as engine
I recently walked out of a movie.
I do not do this often; in fact, I have not done this in over ten years. I was viewing Kingdom of Heaven, that continuation in the Orlando Bloom: Blacksmith-As-Hero series. It was not entirely that the film was boring me to acrid tears that caused me to leave the theater. I was also physically uncomfortable, experiencing what I thought was an erratic heartbeat and a queasy, hot-balloon-headed feeling that I associate only with going to ground. I believe I may have taken in too much salt and sugar, gotten anxious, and then nervously monitored my pulse just long enough to scare myself to a new level of anxiety that prompts 41-year-old out-of-shape men to leave mediocre crusade epics at the halfway mile marker.
I have always been concerned about the heart, or more specifically, my heart. Not that I have any reason to be other than being 41 and gutty. But the anxiety that I know takes hold in that same region of the torso always makes me pause. Being a poet first and a smart man second, when I consider the heart, I am confounded that it is represented as the window to emotional grandeur, when it should be more rightly viewed as the steam engine that drives each of us forward. Love? No, mechanics.
Ultimately, and again because I am a poet first and a hard man second, I don't buy that for a minute. I have too much stock in love and all it's dumb, breathy convictions. Because of love and the hope that it will persist, I want to live for a hundred years.
So I walk, try eating less, drink more water and hightail it when all the signals tell me that the crusades weren't that dull. This is balance. It is the hardest challenge I have ever known.
When Orlando Bloom finds himself 100 pounds heavier and realizes that his chainmail will no longer sustain a career, perhaps he'll come to this same realization.
I do not do this often; in fact, I have not done this in over ten years. I was viewing Kingdom of Heaven, that continuation in the Orlando Bloom: Blacksmith-As-Hero series. It was not entirely that the film was boring me to acrid tears that caused me to leave the theater. I was also physically uncomfortable, experiencing what I thought was an erratic heartbeat and a queasy, hot-balloon-headed feeling that I associate only with going to ground. I believe I may have taken in too much salt and sugar, gotten anxious, and then nervously monitored my pulse just long enough to scare myself to a new level of anxiety that prompts 41-year-old out-of-shape men to leave mediocre crusade epics at the halfway mile marker.
I have always been concerned about the heart, or more specifically, my heart. Not that I have any reason to be other than being 41 and gutty. But the anxiety that I know takes hold in that same region of the torso always makes me pause. Being a poet first and a smart man second, when I consider the heart, I am confounded that it is represented as the window to emotional grandeur, when it should be more rightly viewed as the steam engine that drives each of us forward. Love? No, mechanics.
Ultimately, and again because I am a poet first and a hard man second, I don't buy that for a minute. I have too much stock in love and all it's dumb, breathy convictions. Because of love and the hope that it will persist, I want to live for a hundred years.
So I walk, try eating less, drink more water and hightail it when all the signals tell me that the crusades weren't that dull. This is balance. It is the hardest challenge I have ever known.
When Orlando Bloom finds himself 100 pounds heavier and realizes that his chainmail will no longer sustain a career, perhaps he'll come to this same realization.
posted by scn at 8:42 PM
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