Born to be Mild

"We formed the Dull Men's Club a while back. We got tired of reading and hearing so much about people always trying to get a fancier car, a bigger house, travel to more exotic places and come home and tell everybody. They'd go to Las Vegas and come back and say "Hey, I heard Neil Diamond!" Big deal. The Dull Men's Club is a place in cyberspace where dull men can hang out... It's a sanctuary for them, a place they can hide out, get away from the glitz and glam, the hurly burly, all the noise of modern life, the pressure to keep up with the Jones's. I don't know who the Jones's are anyway, do you? 
We regard ourselves as dull but not boring."

Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset

And I claim I'm not excited with my life anymore

So I blame this town, this job, these friends, the truth is it's myself

And I'm trying to understand myself and pinpoint who I am

When I finally get it figured out, I've changed the whole damn plan

Changed my mind so much I can't even trust it
My mind changed me so much I can't even trust myself

"Life, friends, is boring."

I have done my living.

The development of my physicality - that continual dream state that ends in birth - and the subsequent rapid splitting of cells and in vitro growth on the culture dish that is the world. It tapers; it slows.
And I come to the beginning of the end. I know my body is settling; all the cells and neurons I will ever have shuffle about my outline like quicksand finding temporary equilibrium. I know my mind and memory dull, and things aren't quite as vibrant as they used to be.

Dying is not some sudden end
later in life;
it begins at this time, what people consider youth.
The body blossoms
again and again
with a refresh of cells that are new, yet less effective
and more error prone than their predecessors.

Many live in reverse. The prenatal dark dreams bear striking resemblance to the delirious fantasies of the deathbed, a coincidence of similarity and chemistry. "Living" is then the awakening from the dream, the day-in-day-out ache that says 'you are alive!' beginning with the ache of your first breath - the drowned breaking the water's surface.
...
I should point out that death, without interference, is painful. It happens to be, in order of occurrence, the second most jarring transition; the other being birth. The aches produced by what many consider to be living turn out to be us tip-toeing around that transition. We experience dying in many small ways before it ends.

Part of me, if I were to get fired.

Visually Compelling

Cogs

Old idea, previously from Facebook:

"Eventually, society advances primarily because of improved efficiency; efficiency improves by becoming great at a specific task through repetition; insanity is performing the same action over and over and expecting a different result."