70. London O’Connor - “Oatmeal”

Staring into the gaping maw of insignificance is never a pleasant feeling, and yet it’s a sensation as inevitable as aging itself. In fact, it’s directly tied to aging – the shadow of aging, moving alongside it, sometimes outstretched before it and other times trailing far behind it. It’s different for everyone, dependent upon the various light sources cast by their personality, outlook, and lifestyle. However, regardless of when it strikes the characteristics are always the same. It’s the collision of idealism and realism, the slow-motion car wreck of all your hopes, dreams, and aspirations collapsing under the weight of reality. It’s realizing that how the world should be, is not how the world is, and that history is not some boring and distant discipline of vague significance, but rather a heavy anchor affecting the course of the future and dragging the present down into inevitable ruts of familiarity.

O’Connor is in the midst of this sensation. He can see the foreboding outline of a shadow emanating before him, and he’s desperately rowing against it, trying his best to avoid the inevitable jaws of time and defeat the anxiety with an affected calm. Will it work? Probably not, but it might at least stave the feeling off for awhile longer.