Above Us Only Sky

“Imagine” is a catchy tune about the pitfalls of religion and materialism, written by a guy who got filthy rich selling jangly three-minute pop songs about love and walruses and shit.

That sentence is a good summation of my bitterness as of late. I’m having a hard time enjoying much of anything, even ubiquitous peace anthems by former Beatles.

I turn on the TV. How’d some lousy sitcom actor get to be famous while I am sitting here in obscurity? I drive to the store. Why does this asshole driving next to me get to roll a Jag instead of this banged-up Prius?

This whole setup is horseshit. I’d like to speak to the manager of…the world? Sure. The whole damned WORLD.

Every so often, I snap out of it. I stop examining the world so closely. I just drive and bob my head along with the tune on the radio-assuming it’s not “Imagine.” But without fail, the skewed realization that I suck and others are beating me creeps into my line of sight.

Beating me at what? At life? Success? Being productive, happy members of society?

Yeah, something like that. Bunch of well-adjusted pricks.

I know, I know. Life isn’t a competition. Comparison is the thief of joy. Blah blah blah.

I mean, I get it. Intellectually, I understand there is no contest, and in the end, we all end up as worm food.

Chester A. Arthur was once the president of the United States — a singular achievement that only forty-five men…