Not Spectacularly Original
The beard, it turned out, when I took it for a test drive around town,
Having fed and watered it for weeks in private,
Was Not Spectacularly Original.
It took a friend to point it out to me,
How all the other blokes had one,
How the Hipster thing was “in”,
How it might look like I was following their trend,
Rather than setting my own.
It had been the same when I’d bought the record player,
When I’d got into LPs
(Hark at me with my correct nomenclature)
And I really had, on my own, got into those grooves,
That really had been my idea.
It was just so hard to prove when every third person was talking about their “vinyls”
And their cheap sub-Dansette suitcase players
On which they’d most likely never play them.
And then there’s this year, 2021, after all that happened in 2020.
I decide it’s time for a move. That I need change.
And I take the risk, knowing it’s a risk,
But knowing, too, that if I don’t, I never will.
And I’m feeling proud of myself
Even though I’m already doubting the jump
When I see it trending:
The Great Resignation.
Once again, we’ve all had the same idea at once.
Or so it seems.
Except –
What if it’s not?
What if I didn’t see the beards and the LPs and the trends
Before I made the decision
Because I made the decision?
What if I really led the way?
What if I can bend the world to the will?
But, no.
You know I don’t believe that.
Because, if I truly thought everyone followed my lead,
I’d be doing a hell of a lot more than primping my goatee.
