A Muddy Tire

A tire gets stuck in the mud, the tread gets filled with soggy earth. It may form a perfect circle, yes, spinning in place for some time and smoothing over into slick surface, and for where it’s at, it’s what’s expected and becomes the norm, but then there’s no traction, no leverage, and no progress. PUSH HARDER! GIVE IT SOME GAS! It’s the only solution that makes sense, therefore it is the only solution that is employed, but it’s not what’s needed. More aggression makes the tire spin faster, but it can’t go anywhere because it’s so full of the very thing that it tried to overcome; it’s so caught up in trying to do the same thing over and over and over and over, seeking salvation in successive compulsion. Some people spend their whole life in the same routine: work…paycheck…pay bills… and repeat because it’s what helps them get by and offers a glimpse of hope for a better outcome; but the tire is still spinning in place and a sinister transformation occurs: the tire begins to change shape, lose form, lose the tough outer covering, tread and all body, hollows out, and turns into a hamster wheel, and we the hamsters, in order to form a more perfect life, just keep spinning, without ever standing up for ourselves. Thoreau called it “quiet desperation;” I call it insanity.