Okay, the original lyric was “I don’t feel tardy!”

but it’s a homonym homophone, right?

The thing is, our feelings will totally mess us up, direct us down the wrong path and spin us around until we right round, baby right round.

gah… perhaps the lyrics of my past have come back to haunt me.

Meh, whatevs.

Here is the thing, feelings are not facts. But, feelings are important. They are a guidepost to let us know if we are alive, or dead. The worse kind of hell is to feel nothing. The special kind of hell is reserved for those that feel everything (and those that don’t listen to Shepherd Book’s wisdom.)

Jon Stueve knows nothing. So don’t listen to closely, but hold on loosely. I won’t let go. Though I may cling to tightly, I’ll try not to lose control.

To put the needle on the record, I want to get back to my point instead of skipping around through musical distractions. So I’ll attempt to get back on course.

A few days ago, I settled into watch a movie with Angie, we picked Flight, a Denzel Washington flick about a hot shot ex-Naval aviator with a penchant for booze and cocaine whose mad flying skills saves a plane load full of passengers from a horrible fiery death. The only problem with his act of heroism was he was at least three sheets to the wind when he pulled the doomed flight out of it’s dive of destruction.

A better film of the perils of addiction I have not witnessed. It’s gritty good, the film tore at my insides and tumbled through my memories. We addicts, we live in a state of denial when we’re off the path, and that is why I have to question my feelings. Continuously.

I have to critically examine… everything. I need outsiders to keep  me honest, I need to stay out of my own head.

Because inside my head is Harling Mays (played wonderfully by John Goodman, who makes a mighty fine and cuddly monster too)

“Please allow me to introduce myself, I am man of wealth and taste” we hear on the sound track as the nattily attired Harling strolls down the hospital passageway on his way to meet his customer, Denzel’s Whip Whitaker. When he finds his target the next minute and a half of dialog is largely Harling telling Whip what a wonderful person he is, how he is a stud pilot, how he was a hero.

All lies.

And, all true.

Just like our feelings.

My lyrical brain recognized the song, Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil, whose lyrics go on to say “Hope you guess my name.”

The answer is the personification of evil, but not the name in the title, it’s Denial. It was Denial that sidled up to Eve in the garden and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. Denial that snuck beside David while he watched Bathsheba take her morning shower, and Denial that tempted Jesus in the desert and watched him cry bloody tears in the garden.

Devil, Beelzebub… meh, potaytoh, potahtoh as far as I’m concerned.

Denial will tell us lies so good we’ll think they are truth. While hiding the darkness our behaviors and hangups wreck in the lives of those around us.

I won’t give up the plot of Flight, it is a journey worth the time spent on Netflix.

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game

Lies… that is the nature of Denial’s game. We need an assembly of people around us, to watch us, to listen to us, to hug us, to scold us, to uplift us and berate us.

Living life will tend towards believing our feelings, it’s the nature of the game. Feel them, please! Don’t think feelings are bad, but evaluate them, test them, put them in the context of True North, Truth, with trusted loved ones. Then adjust course and drive on down the highway.

Because I can’t drive … fifty-five.