Tries

Attempts, endeavors, essays, sets his eyes on, test drives, takes a whack at, a crack at, undertakes, makes a go at, flies it up the flag pole, walks it around the block, runs it up the clock, throws it on the floor to see if the cat will play with it;

Tries things beyond himself: opera music, poetry, a woman’s brassiere, side salad with a salad fork, New York Times Sunday Crossword, public radio, public speaking, two girls at once, chess with his eyes closed, phenomenology with his hands tied behind his back, hummus, hubris, heroics, honesty, I Love You sincerely;

On the television: he sees a man bend a spoon using only the power of his mind and thinks how much easier everything would be if he could just do that;

For the first time, just once, he’d like to impress a girl, first date, by ordering dinner for the both of them in a foreign language: Italian, Spanish, French, perhaps;

“If, at first, you don’t succeed …”

It’s supposed to be hard, he knows: the way of the world, the nature of the beast (and nature is, unarguably, an indifferent beast); it’s what makes a man a man, what shapes the present generation: problems to solve, obstacles to overcome: he owes his effort to subsequent generations, strengthens the gene pool, passes on his experiential knowledge so that what he gains through empiricism, proceeding rug rats inherit as instinct, all thanks to him, it’s supposed to be hard, he tells himself, but maybe, just maybe, couldn’t it be a little easier, just a little, and not hurt so badly;

He knows it’s hard to: find a job, the right job, get a promotion, a bigger office, a retirement plan, find the right girl, love the right girl right, raise the right kids in the right house in the right part of the suburbs, make the right decisions by foreseeing the right applicable consequences, do the right thing all the time, time and time again, tell himself that tomorrow’s another day, tries telling himself that;

Tries: He tries.