Song Of The Day 10/1/2013: Madness - "Tomorrow's Just Another Day"

Maybe you're feeling like it's all over. Maybe you're thinking optimism is for wussies and the preponderance of the evidence clearly points out that you have no options. Maybe you think you're in some sort of ad-hoc exile from the whole planet, that whatever fire you ever had that might lead a cheery band of happy faces through parts unknown was extinguished long ago. Every day you navigate a nasty internal war, spewing out half-hearted homilies about hope, then resigning yourself to reality. Compliments, praise, gratitude, hosannahs can't help you, because even though you want to contribute to society, society doesn't want you. You're outdated, you're outmoded, everyone has responded "Thank you for your interest but you're not who we're looking for." It becomes part of your self-definition: You're great but you're not enough. You've done and said great things in a great way, but they're of no useful purpose to anything except your personal narrative. "Just another memory when you're middle-aged," Daryl Hall once sang. Whatever elevated, noble purpose you had in your youth, that you've kept on life support even as the EKG monitor started speaking in Morse code, is irrelevant. You are stuck with the reality of your own obsolescence. You don't know where to go, because nobody's inviting you over. They say "let's get together sometime," but you now realize they were only saying that to find an escape route from having a conversation with you, because they realized long ago what you're just now wrapping your head around: "You're nothing. You have no hope. I'm losing cred just by your sitting next to me. I have to apologize about your being here to anyone who sees us, but at least I do the decent thing and not say anything until you've left or passed out." So then you go home and go to bed, clinging on to the idea that something will change in the morning, but then you wake up and discover that, no, nothing's really changed at all. You're not worthy. And other people telling you you're worthy and talented and generous and a team player and a genius and a great guy doesn't amount to a hill of beans, because with all your alleged acclaim and worth, you are not getting paid and you're about to go bankrupt, because even though you do all of those great things, nobody wants you to do it in front of them, let alone for them. And this cycle repeats every day, week upon week, month upon month, year upon year. Yet you're supposed to feel hopeful, to pull yerself up by yer bootstraps, and keep on smiling even as you're losing everything.

Maybe that's you. Hi, you. Guess what? Tomorrow's just another day.