In the Face of the Typhoon

I was just informed that Washington Mutual imposed a hiring freeze on all open positions, including the one that I was gunning for. Again. This is the second time that I’ve come within striking distance, only to have my hopes thwarted by an enterprise-wide mandate. Awesome.

I feel… detached. There is a part of me that wants to rage, to assert himself in the most carnal of fashions; to destroy, if only so that someone might know that he existed. That man wants to scream, but knows that it will do no good; aches to go toe-to-toe, but knows there is no adversary. He wants to gun his engines and tear off into the night, but realizes that he is already spinning his wheels and more gas will do no good. He is a man chained by invisible shackles that allow him to roam freely, so long as he remains a nobody. He wants destruction, vengeance, power; repression and the heat of anger have combined to transform his dark distain into something almost palpable, and he wants to unleash it. He wants to rage in the eye of a typhoon so that the world might see what it feels like to be him.

And yet. … There is another part that is rational, that knows it would do no good. There are no enemies, there is no one to fight. Destruction would accomplish nothing. Self-actualization is a selfish pursuit that ignores all others and denies the community. The road to salvation is taken one step at a time, sometimes on hands and knees. And so I must content myself in the pursuit of what seems to be right.

But I am tired. Tired of doors closing. Tired of hopes being dashed. Tired of eating Rice-a-Roni. Maybe these are the demons that I am being exorcised of. Even now I catch myself falling into the thought that I must hold out and rest myself upon God’s favor until that day that I no longer have to. That somehow Jericho meant an end to the humble faith of the desert.
And so vigilance remains the key. Vigilance against my own opportunistic ways, against me trying to find the angles with God. There is naught but to remain faithful, every day, and to do the good that comes that day. What else can I do? What else can any of us do?