Episodes in the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop: The Old Man's Bullshit

"You know what's funny. When I was young I never asked that, I didn't care. I got up and went out to that damn sea every day. I woke up energized, ready to conquer, to swim, to catch. I woke up ready to give it my best. Janice was at home and I went to work everyday. We had kids and that meant putting food on the table. There isn't much time for bullshit when you have mouths to feed and a wife to keep happy. You know?
After the little ones grew into adults, things changed. I began to wonder. I began to see a horizon that never moved. I began to understand myself as trapped under that horizon--held there--and no matter where or how or what I did, there was no escaping. The horizon was my prison. In that prison everything melted into the same--all of it could fit into the same frame. Good food, good boos, good company--it all felt, tasted and looked the same. Because, I knew the next day that horizon would remain and no matter how far I went or how deep I plundered, there was no way out.”

"So how did you keep going all those years? Sheer determination? Duty? What?"

He said, "The secret is not duty, not its not guilt, or even any lofty goals of grandeur. Pretty soon son, I'll be dead and so will you. The universe will go on without a hitch--it didn't care before and it won't care then. You and I will dissolve back into the dust we came from and that will be that. All the dreams, all the trying, the accumulating, the success--every fish I caught--will melt into the sea's indifference. You know how you keep going? You don't move the horizon, no, you find something in this same which gives you a hint or an idea or a glimmer--a portal--into the somewhere else. You see, once you find something within the horizon that can't be held by the horizon--well, nothing else matters. Its funny, you could meet a girl in the bar tonight--see in her face, in her eyes, in her smile--something that can't be reduced to patterns, or molecules, or informational codes. You'll see right through the horizon into another world and it will make those days not unquestioned, but more than bearable and even exciting. You'll remain under the horizon's gaze for sure, but there will be something in the world that can't be contained by it, something that goes on forever."

I really liked that Old Man, but he sure talked alot of bullshit. We talked a bit more. He told me about getting sores on his hands from fishing all day. He told me what it was like to wrestle with a fish that weighs more than you do. He told me what it was like to live alone now that his wife was gone.
We walked back to the Shop and nestled back into our respective seats. If nothing else, our little excursion had helped to stop the race going on in my veins—the semi-hippy woman had left for the day and I sat in the corner as the sun went down, reading about love and laughter.