I don't intend to impose my madness on your saturday night plans, but sparklehorse is telling me to.

Raja says I'm manic and maybe I am. It's easy once you just accept it, she says. I have for the longest time. I'd also like to believe that I am and have always been objective. But when you don't invite Tyra Banks to an America's Next Top Model Party, then I guess a bit of bitterness is due.

I'd like to think that I'm the kind of altruistic bundle of goodness that doesn't expect returns from people, but it still hurts, damn it! The problem with doing good for the sake of others' is that it gets old - that YOU get old. It's quite simple. It's a hypothesis that's been proven time and time again by the likes of nice guys like a friend of mine. That friend of mine who always seems to finish last, whose morals and sense of ethos much outweighs his need for personal gratification, most importantly, his primal gratification.

And I'm beginning to feel old. Where the closest of my friends are at their prime, seeking their personal, primal gratification, I am once again alone, wondering why with such strength, youth and exuberance at their disposal need I even try to facilitate this acquisition. It's that 'survivor' mentality to behave and perform to the fullest of your capabilities to be indispensable - hunt, cook, make fires, procreate. And so I try to ensure the mental/physical/emotional upkeep of my peers (however ridiculous or frivolous) and in doing so have proven that not only am I dedicated to this pursuit (in the pursuit of others' pursuits), but am also rather susceptible to the simple manipulation of my seeming indispensability. In other words, I think I'm being used and abused at the underlying pretext that I am providing and living up to my self-imposed requisites and obligations as a friend.

The world is an oyster waiting to be shucked for the possessors of brute, brains and brawn. I throw in a bit of heart in that equation but feelings are weaknesses that are irrelevant to the great primal theory.

I have failed to prove my worth to this tribe. By no merit of mine have I adapted or even tried to, because I'm just too old to justify myself, my good to anyone, much more to the ones I feel I've always been responsible for.

The votes have been cast.

I now absolve this responsibility graciously. I am relinquishing control, entirely.

And I am accepting my mania whole-heartedly.