Act 4, Scene 10: “Desperately Clichéd”
TRL is feeling like he is living Icarus and Daedalus. Only he is the one that is falling. For C and E have clear open skies ahead. TRL, however, has tried to touch the sun, and at 40, feels like a failure. And utlimately, in doing so, he has also failed his sons.
TRL is stunned about what is happening to him, that his life is subject to the same clichés as everyone else’s. Stunned like the first bad break up with a girlfriend that left him an emotional cripple; this was supposed to happen to other people, but not him. Stunned that after working so hard, he still hasn’t achieved his goals, like his parents promised him he would. He was the Sun Prince in their eyes, and he is now suffering from a bad burn. For TRL has flown towards his dreams but forgot to put on life’s sunblock: a steady job, a growing 401K, a grip on finances and concern for the future, and some semblance of measuring career success and happiness that he can emotionally invest in.
In a word, TRL is suffering a mid-life crisis. And sadly, a red Miata, an affair, or a hair transplant hold no attraction for him, no balm for his life burn. What is frustrating, perhaps even more than the crisis itself, is that there is no clear path out. Which probably defines a mid-life crisis, and thus makes him even more clichéd than he realizes. He needs something radical. A neuticle implant to give him balls the size of beach balls to hypermasculinize his torn and wounded self. Or an investment in a condo high atop Miami Beach, a hot tub perched on the balcony, bimbos and beer littered about, a flunky to yell at. Or maybe he needs a trek to the Himalayas to seek enlightenment, to do good deeds. A rest cure with Richard Gere.
TRL toys with pressing the reset button, to start working in a pizzeria, be a park ranger, or doing something where he gets to shoot alligators. He needs a change.
TRL is stunned about what is happening to him, that his life is subject to the same clichés as everyone else’s. Stunned like the first bad break up with a girlfriend that left him an emotional cripple; this was supposed to happen to other people, but not him. Stunned that after working so hard, he still hasn’t achieved his goals, like his parents promised him he would. He was the Sun Prince in their eyes, and he is now suffering from a bad burn. For TRL has flown towards his dreams but forgot to put on life’s sunblock: a steady job, a growing 401K, a grip on finances and concern for the future, and some semblance of measuring career success and happiness that he can emotionally invest in.
In a word, TRL is suffering a mid-life crisis. And sadly, a red Miata, an affair, or a hair transplant hold no attraction for him, no balm for his life burn. What is frustrating, perhaps even more than the crisis itself, is that there is no clear path out. Which probably defines a mid-life crisis, and thus makes him even more clichéd than he realizes. He needs something radical. A neuticle implant to give him balls the size of beach balls to hypermasculinize his torn and wounded self. Or an investment in a condo high atop Miami Beach, a hot tub perched on the balcony, bimbos and beer littered about, a flunky to yell at. Or maybe he needs a trek to the Himalayas to seek enlightenment, to do good deeds. A rest cure with Richard Gere.
TRL toys with pressing the reset button, to start working in a pizzeria, be a park ranger, or doing something where he gets to shoot alligators. He needs a change.
posted by trl at 12:31 PM
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