Raising The Black

There's a quote by HL Mencken that I return to every couple of years: "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.' Mencken is an excellent source of quotes for those days when you wake up to find your give-a-fuck has broken, and that's where I find myself right now. I have become such a normal man, only I didn't wake up to find my give-a-fuck was broken. I detonated it myself, so I could get on with the business of spitting and slitting. IN some circles, you might call that efficiency. Alternatively, you might call it a psychotic break. Only, in that case, there's usually a rest involved eventually, and I'm just not that lucky.

Deep in my soul, I'm a pirate. I'm not the sadistic kind like Edward Low or Charles Vane. I'm not nostalgic like Jimmy Buffett or his cadre of SUV driving fans with parrot license plates and HOA fees. I am simply a man who would prefer to live life by his own code and not any that is placed upon him. Every so often, this man strains at the chains placed upon him by that mystical entity known as They, and he looks in the mirror and remembers who he is. Then, he spits in his hands, raises the black flag, and begins the bloody work.

I don't slit throats, and there's a good reason for that. I feel my brain would treat that as a bag of potato chips with my upbringing and natural temperament, and I can't eat just one potato chip. I kill people's ideas of what I should or should not do, who I should or should not be, or whether or not I should or should not listen. The simple fact of the matter is that I have been someone other than myself. I've let others dictate what my actions are, and I've listened to something other than that small waving black flag inside me for far too long now. I joined the Navy when I should have stayed a pirate.

So let this be the beginning of a new set of Articles of Agreement. The drawing up of a unique code on how this ship--my ship--is to be run.