Howard Hughes the Aviator- One Song, Glory- Rent

I seem to be writing a lot of puff pieces and that’s not like me. So I'm gonna let it go...

I have two things in my mind right now. I just watched the movie The Aviator and I am now listening to one song on repeat: One Song Glory from the musical Rent.
For some reason these two things go together for me in my mind.
Its nearly 2 am and I cant sleep...oh yes, my body can sleep and my eyelids could close quite easily but my brain is working overtime. I wish it werent so late because I am anal about feeling tired during the day.
Its hard for me to watch movies that depict people on the edge. People that teeter between sanity and that void that sucks them into themselves and over a cliff. (We tend to think that being insane is on the outside but its whats on the inside that makes us crazy) It's like having one foot on the platform and the other is caught on a moving train. I'm not trying to create the image of being torn apart but in a way it is that forceful tension between sanity and insanity. Okay, now that your getting worried, let me water my thoughts down and make them relatable. You may never feel like your about to visit the cukoo's nest but we all get driven to places we don't really want to go, both by circumstances and that push from our soul that searches and yearns for expression beyond the finite.
Am I making sense at all? Have you seen the Aviator with Leonardo Decaprio? (Go see it, he does a better job than he did in Titanic) He is capricious, he is eccentric, he is driven, he is stubborn and he loses it mentally. He teeters in that grey realm between normal and abnormal. How often do we feel that tension and yet step back off that moving train and onto the platform? What would it take to step in the other direction? What pushes us to the other side? And when were pushed there, is that moment of insanity checked or is it embraced?
This might sound crazy, but there have been times when I have wanted to let go and get swept away.
I know I am speaking in abstract thoughts but how do you pinpoint abstract feelings?
I have often questioned what makes me different from those who do get swept away. To go over and then step back, kinda like a cleansing of sorts. I don't know but maybe to appreciate the stability of the normal you have to have one step on that moving train. Or maybe we need to evaluate the definition of normal. Is it more normal to have seemingly everything together or express where we really are in our hearts and souls? I would suggest its the latter.
For some reason I just had the vision of myself as a child holding a GI Joe...with my huge hands powerfully gripping the GI Joe's waist securing it and anchoring it down even though its legs are spread out and unsteady. I think that's why I liked playing with GI Joes, I could control everything from their storyline to their movements.
Sometimes I forget that there is someone holding me like that. And when I forget about those secure hands I feel like I am on that train watching the world flicker before my eyes wanting to escape into myself and over the cliff.
In the movie, Howard Hughes nearly dies, his plane crashes, he is literally burning and he says desperately to some guy rescuing him "Howard Hughes the Aviator" - I had to rewind the DVD a couple times to understand it....
That really struck me hard. That is his soul speaking...his being, his identity...that’s who he is searching to be, to be known for, that’s what he wants to be written on his tombstone.
If I were dying right now, what would I say?
Jordan Ross the ______?
What would you say? You you the ______?
I am still on that seesaw teetering between the moving train and the platform somewhere between sanity and insanity...
somewhere between laziness and ambition.......somewhere between luke-warmness and passion.....
somewhere between the mundane and the adventure......somewhere between single and married....somewhere between satisfied and incomplete, somewhere between wanting to sacrifice and wanting comfort
somewhere between the real me and my ideal.


This brings me to the song....One Song Glory...oh to capture my soul within the beauty of one song....when I first heard this song it enraptured me because it was someone trying to capture their soul within the lyrics and rhythm of one song. I wish you could hear it. I will figure out a way to play it. Lyrics will have to suffice for now.

This song is sung by a young man hanging in the balance teetering between this world and the next....all found within his own heart. The name of the musical is Rent. Its appropriate, he is only renting his time on earth. Renting his body. Renting the love that he has...that he expends and searches for. He too knows what it means to yearn for the eternal even though he may not be able to surmise it to that conclusion.

One song
Glory
One song
Before I go
Glory
One song to leave behind
Find one song
One last refrain
Glory
From the pretty boy front man
Who wasted opportunity
One song
He had the world at his feet
Glory
In the eyes of a young girl
A young girl
Find glory
Beyond the cheap colored lights
One song
Before the sun sets
Glory -- on another empty life
Time flies -- time dies
Glory -- One blaze of glory
One blaze of glory -- glory
Find
Glory
In a song that rings true
Truth like a blazing fire
An eternal flame
Find
One song
A song about love
Glory
From the soul of a young man
A young man
Find
The one song
Before the virus takes hold
Glory
Like a sunset
One song
To redeem this empty life
Time flies
And then - no need to endure anymore
Time dies