The fatal joust

From a conversation in a car, today:

"What did you think of the quote I put on the board?"
"I joked about it with Mom and Rachel -- that you were trying to get me to quit my job."
"Hah. Well, no, that's not exactly how I meant it. I read it in a book. One of the books I'm reading. And then I was watching a show about Sergei, and I'd heard of him. He worked at the UN as vice president of the UN or something. He'd go to countries that were having troubles and make them whole and heal them. He was in Sierra Leone before he went to Iraq. He brought democracy to them. I read that he'd died in the paper a couple days ago, but it was a blurb so it didn't mean much to me. But watching the show, how he was killed in Iraq doing what he really wanted to do. I don't think enough people do what they want to do."
"They do what they think they have to do."
"Yes. They don't follow their passions. I don't think many people do what they really want, because they are afraid to do it. They get stuck on their obligations and what they think they should do, because they're afraid to step out."

The highway is busy at rush hour, and the sidewalk is covered with molding leaves. A storm is calling from a few days away, and one can hear it on the breeze. The skies clear in anticipation.

"Steinbeck wrote that every man battles with greatness, but most lose and become mediocre."
"What?"
"It's not exactly how he says it. I'm paraphrasing it. But he basically says that every person battles with greatness, but that few become great because most people don't want the responsibility. Greatness brings a heck of a lot of responsibility."

The cars ahead stop. And so do the cars behind. A river pauses for a moment. Eyes wandering out the windshield, and the window lowered an inch to sample the air. Eyes unfocused, and clear again, like when a movie is flashing back to the past. A long green field, stretching away, far, probably around the world. The grass probably grows like this, a giant watchband around the world, even under the sea. Sea sponges make their vacation homes in the grass, far from the coral reefs. But the grass stops at the highway. The grass is full of clover; and probably bees, but the road is too large, the window is too far away, too blurry to tell. A viking hefts his wooden shield, levels his lance. His skin must be goosey, exposed like that. And his opponent is a skinny kid, curved like a shrimp. There is no question who will win. The shrimp steadies his lance. This isn't about killing the viking. He won't feel anything, now that he's writing his victory speech in his head. "The great pontificate, lord of the sword!" The shrimp in a pot turning red. Past the butterflies and past his mother's admonishments, he'll charge into grandeur, and crash. The shields will meet and the lances will fall, and perhaps one or the other will bleed. Each will hear their eulogies, as all boys do -- on the walk home -- when they die and become men.

"I've forgotten what my passions are. I've talked to God about it, and I'm asking him to show me again. There are things I enjoy doing, but they're not the sort of thing you make a living doing."
"Like waxing cars."
"Hah. Yea, like waxing cars."

"Did you see that?"
"I wasn't sure I did."
"Those boys were jousting."

"The light is green."