The Creeping Death..........
No, with the title The Creeping Death, I'm not referring to some weird flu I've picked up or something. I'm not referring to a state I'm wishing on anyone. I'm referring to the slow, painful process of getting back to a place where I don't completely hate every single person on the planet I don't already know and like. I'm not so wound up. It's leaving or dying, but slowly. I'm taking the "Go on, git!" attitude toward it.
Some of this can be attributed to a few conversations with some people I love and respect (Misters K.P., A.L., J.A. and S.M., I sincerely thank you). Some of this can be attributed to actually getting a job interview and a call back interview from one of the thousand or so resume's I've sent out in the last few months. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get the job, but it was nice to get an interview from SOMEONE, as that's the first in a while, and it was cool to get a call with some more questions. It at least makes me feel like I haven't been wasting my time in that effort.
I haven't changed my mind about the fact that I've more or less given up on trying to help make life better for my fellow human beings. I am still convinced that most of them are too lazy or too dumb to even contribute to the effort, but now I just don't care.
That may come across as extremely selfish, and maybe it is, I can't really say. But, one of the reasons for this is that in the frenzy to try and understand how to make a difference, how to make a change, something kind of got lost. What got lost is the idea that although it's not at all perfect, my life these days is pretty good. Even though I do hate it, I have a job. I have a nice place to live, and a used car I thoroughly enjoy driving, a scooter that is just an incredible joy to ride (it induces a large grin every, single time), and even more than that, good people in my life who I've managed to establish a history with. I'm dating a really wonderful women (who has put up with me for the last few months with a grace I can probably learn something from), and some really awesomely intelligent, caring friends. Things aren't at all what I would have planned, this is certain. But they're still pretty good. I haven't been focusing on making the most of the time I have with the people I care about and enjoying the things I do have. I've been driving myself crazy over questions I'm obviously either ill equipped or incapable of developing answers to. At the end of the day, the answer really is, some people are just assholes, and that's it. There's nothing more to it. I don't have to know why or even care. I just have to let them be assholes and go about trying to enjoy the people who aren't and the things I enjoy.
I realized over the past week or so that the difference between myself and most of the people I share this particular swath of land we're calling a country is values. I've come across some people who share the same values I do. It's one of the things which is most important in establishing those friendships which are so crucial to me, keeping me connected emotionally, mentally and for lack of a better term, spiritually, to the rest of the world. My bend toward isolating myself in those particular ways is probably my least useful or effective trait.
This would leave me with only one thing, in myself, which needs a solution. This unyielding impetus to help other people. I sometimes really just wish I could do away with that, because it would make my life much easier. But the fact of the matter is that whether I like it or not (and it is one of those things I often do like about myself), it's there and I have yet to find a way to excise it completely. It just is. I don't know how it got there or why, so I can't really take credit for it in any way, but it's there. The solution to this, is simple. One at a time. Just one person at a time, given the experience and qualifications I have, trying to help one person who feels alone and lost and without any anchor or idea how to do things any differently than they are but actually wants to. Just one. This might seem like a cop out. To some degree it is, I'm aware of that. It's either that or drive myself mad, and I'm not really willing to go there these days. Sanity and some semblance of piece of mind are worth too much to me to make that trade. Myself and the people I care about deserve better.
There's something else I don't expect is going to change any time soon either. I'm going to continuously be confronted with different varieties of insane absurdity. Both my own, and those we've more or less agreed to as a people. The solution to that is humor. I'm going to point and laugh at it. I'm hereby refusing to take it seriously. I think that is a good deal of the problem I've been experiencing. When you take the absurdly insane seriously, you're going to start going insane yourself. The speed with which you realize this is key. At least this is true in my case.
It's a crazy world, it's going to be a crazy world, nothing I'm going to do is going to change any of that, and if I don't want to be completely insane as well, all I can do is laugh at it.
So, in short, humanity is safe, from me at least. Unless that is, being laughed at is going to kill you or drive you permanently insane. If that is the case, well, too bad for you.
Some of this can be attributed to a few conversations with some people I love and respect (Misters K.P., A.L., J.A. and S.M., I sincerely thank you). Some of this can be attributed to actually getting a job interview and a call back interview from one of the thousand or so resume's I've sent out in the last few months. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get the job, but it was nice to get an interview from SOMEONE, as that's the first in a while, and it was cool to get a call with some more questions. It at least makes me feel like I haven't been wasting my time in that effort.
I haven't changed my mind about the fact that I've more or less given up on trying to help make life better for my fellow human beings. I am still convinced that most of them are too lazy or too dumb to even contribute to the effort, but now I just don't care.
That may come across as extremely selfish, and maybe it is, I can't really say. But, one of the reasons for this is that in the frenzy to try and understand how to make a difference, how to make a change, something kind of got lost. What got lost is the idea that although it's not at all perfect, my life these days is pretty good. Even though I do hate it, I have a job. I have a nice place to live, and a used car I thoroughly enjoy driving, a scooter that is just an incredible joy to ride (it induces a large grin every, single time), and even more than that, good people in my life who I've managed to establish a history with. I'm dating a really wonderful women (who has put up with me for the last few months with a grace I can probably learn something from), and some really awesomely intelligent, caring friends. Things aren't at all what I would have planned, this is certain. But they're still pretty good. I haven't been focusing on making the most of the time I have with the people I care about and enjoying the things I do have. I've been driving myself crazy over questions I'm obviously either ill equipped or incapable of developing answers to. At the end of the day, the answer really is, some people are just assholes, and that's it. There's nothing more to it. I don't have to know why or even care. I just have to let them be assholes and go about trying to enjoy the people who aren't and the things I enjoy.
I realized over the past week or so that the difference between myself and most of the people I share this particular swath of land we're calling a country is values. I've come across some people who share the same values I do. It's one of the things which is most important in establishing those friendships which are so crucial to me, keeping me connected emotionally, mentally and for lack of a better term, spiritually, to the rest of the world. My bend toward isolating myself in those particular ways is probably my least useful or effective trait.
This would leave me with only one thing, in myself, which needs a solution. This unyielding impetus to help other people. I sometimes really just wish I could do away with that, because it would make my life much easier. But the fact of the matter is that whether I like it or not (and it is one of those things I often do like about myself), it's there and I have yet to find a way to excise it completely. It just is. I don't know how it got there or why, so I can't really take credit for it in any way, but it's there. The solution to this, is simple. One at a time. Just one person at a time, given the experience and qualifications I have, trying to help one person who feels alone and lost and without any anchor or idea how to do things any differently than they are but actually wants to. Just one. This might seem like a cop out. To some degree it is, I'm aware of that. It's either that or drive myself mad, and I'm not really willing to go there these days. Sanity and some semblance of piece of mind are worth too much to me to make that trade. Myself and the people I care about deserve better.
There's something else I don't expect is going to change any time soon either. I'm going to continuously be confronted with different varieties of insane absurdity. Both my own, and those we've more or less agreed to as a people. The solution to that is humor. I'm going to point and laugh at it. I'm hereby refusing to take it seriously. I think that is a good deal of the problem I've been experiencing. When you take the absurdly insane seriously, you're going to start going insane yourself. The speed with which you realize this is key. At least this is true in my case.
It's a crazy world, it's going to be a crazy world, nothing I'm going to do is going to change any of that, and if I don't want to be completely insane as well, all I can do is laugh at it.
So, in short, humanity is safe, from me at least. Unless that is, being laughed at is going to kill you or drive you permanently insane. If that is the case, well, too bad for you.
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