random thoughts and thoroughbred selections

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Visualizing the Realism of Life in Actuality

I had a single moment last week, late last week in the office, where I felt as on top of my game as I could have possibly imagined.

It was nothing. A nothing meeting with one of my clients that wasn't important in the small or the wide scope of things. It wasn't going to bring me more business, it wasn't going to make my boss or my company stand up and take notice. It was just a feeling as I walked out of the client's office that everything had gone dead right. For ten minutes my counsel was spot on perfect.

Ten minutes where I did my job and then some beyond all expectations including my own.

Although I'm absolutely positive I was a forgotten consiglierie to this client by the time lunch rolled around, I haven't forgotten.

I've held on to that feeling.

If you recognize the phrase that I used to title this post, you get bonus points. If you see where I'm going with this based on that phrase alone, well, you've obviously had this on your mind before.

What if most of us only get that one great moment?

The line "Visualizing the realism of life in actuality" is the beginning of AZ's contribution to Nas' "Life's a Bitch" off his classic Illmatic. From The All Music Guide's artist bio:

Born in Brooklyn as Anthony Cruz, AZ first came to the greater rap community's attention in a big way after his stellar performance on Nas' "Life's a Bitch" in 1994. Given AZ's similarity to Nas and the overwhelming response to Nas' Illmatic album, it was just a matter of time before AZ would score a record deal, a feat he accomplished in 1995. The resulting debut album, Doe or Die, shook the New York hip-hop scene as Nas' Illmatic and Mobb Deep's Infamous had done shortly before it. Like those albums, Doe or Die reveled in the street life -- hustling for cash, peddling drugs, violent encounters, mandatory boasting, struggling daily just to maintain -- but took a literate and thoughtful approach to the often exploitative gangsta motifs. Furthermore, like Nas, AZ had Pete Rock crafting the beats, which won the young rapper instant credibility among the hip-hop community.

When word hit the street that AZ was an official member of the supergroup known as the Firm, his status only rose higher. Anchored by Nas, Foxy Brown, Nature, and AZ on the mics, with Dr. Dre and the Trackmasters on the beats, it would seem as if the group could do no wrong. The group's 1997 album ended up being a surprise failure, though, buried under ridiculous expectations and too much hype. But AZ's bad fortune didn't stop there. He returned a year later with his sophomore album, Pieces of a Man, an album that came and went relatively unnoticed and uncelebrated. For the next few years, AZ became a forgotten name. No longer with a major-label contract, he managed to release the little-heard S.O.S.A. record in 2000. It didn't sell many copies or resurrect his career but rather re-affirmed the fact that he was indeed a talented rapper whether the public and the industry wanted to acknowledge it or not.

One moment of lyrical brilliance, on someone else's debut album no less, and it was all downhill from there. Not only that, but he clung to that rhyme like a life preserver as his career slipped away. I know of at least two songs where he trots out the opening line to that rhyme as if to say, "See!?! Remember me? I'm the 'Life's a Bitch' guy!"

Don't forget about me.

Life's a bitch to be sure, but it is also full of the potential of a little tiny moment swinging the pendulum, breaking the inertia and jarring a soul in an unexpected direction. Otis was the beneficiary of what was ostensibly a missed or passed opportunity from Wil Wheaton. Turned him from a TV Reporter busting chumps for cutting mattress tags into a globetrotting, e-published, and self-editing paid poker writer.

Most of us don't just get a glowing referral from a stranger and see an opportunity to try something new, dangerous, interesting, or exciting. Even if we have continually proven ourselves capable and worthy of said referral, as is the case with Otis.

Most of us are responsible for recognizing the moment, and finding that opportunity that might lie inside.

What if most of our moments of perfection don't sum up to anything greater?

I'll be the first one to acknowledge in no uncertain terms that they don't. I can put my truly perfect moments on a rather short list:

Ten Minutes Last Thursday

Job Interview 1995

3-4 (2B, 3B, HR) With Five RBI In My Last Little League Game

Throwing Runner Trying For Double Out From Left Field Warning Track On My Knees

Final Round Regional Quiz Bowl Finals 1992

I'm sure there's a half dozen or so I'm missing.

It's not that I have a lack of pride, or don't feel as if I've accomplished anything in my thirty years. Far from it. There are a ton of things I'm proud of, and you're reading one of them right now. I kick ass at a number of things (including, on most days, my job), but I'm talking about those moments of perfection where maybe that one moment has the potential to change your life.

For ten minutes on Thursday, I was perfect. And I'm concerned it won't ever get more perfect than that again. I can be good, maybe even borderline great, but without perfection, maybe I miss my Wil Wheaton moment and that's not acceptable.

If nothing else, I'm hungry to taste that feeling again. And I hope to god that I don't walk away from that moment with nothing more than that sigh of satisfaction over a job well done.

Sometimes, in the afterglow of perfection, that can be enough. It's beginning to not be anymore.

[>>]posted at 7:15 PM by BG - click to email
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