My Tent on The Beach

I was not emotionally prepared for this.  There was a post I wrote years ago.  And I’ve thought about it periodically since then.  It was one of those moments that, forgive me for my lack of humility, I had an insight much greater than myself and I dared to commit it to virtual space.  Anyway, from time to time I’ve gone back to that particular post and read it.  Until today…when I found that the blog site I once used is completely gone.  And all of my blog archives are gone with it. This is clearly a universe thing.

This is one of those cases of, “you don’t think about it until it’s gone.”  And now I can’t think of anything but that.  So many years of insights.  Not all good ones.  Not by far.  But some moments of truth there.  Moments captured of the hardest years of my life thus far.  And the history is gone.  And maybe that’s exactly the way it should be.  Those years are important and ones to remember…but they can be remembered without a word for word re-enactment. I guess.

In the end, it would’ve been nice to be informed that every thought I committed to digital reality up until the start of this brilliant space would be completely wiped from existence.  But then, it’s good to be able to let them go.  That was then.

And today is now.

And this is the post I was looking for:

http://mybeachtent.com/page/7/

Where has our public space gone? For the past month at least, I’ve been riding the train when some ass with an old school phone shows up with the thing blaring and the rest of the car has to sit and listen to whatever horrible dreck is streaming forth from said phone.

It’s so annoying.

Today I’d almost had it. But, in an effort to contain myself, I started wondering what exactly causes the breakdown of public behavior. Tom seems to think it’s narcissistic personality. I’m prone to argue, along sociological lines, that it has to do with power–it’s a reclaiming of space they want or need but don’t have. I’m sure theories abound. But it all seems to do with the loss of the idea that anyone exists but yourself. It’s not even a choice to be rude; it’s a total lack of awareness of others around you.

I used to really like riding the train. At least I didn’t hate it. And now I find myself actually forced to plug into some headset or earphones to avoid other people’s need to not realize anyone else exists but them. I’m forced to be disconnected.

Or else kill them in a blatant fit of rage.

You know what drives me crazy? Friends who get pushy. What the heck has been going on recently? I feel like over the past week or so I’ve had to have somewhat uncomfortable conversations with people who I’ve always considered friends about laying off me. Mostly it’s because of really unreasonable requests, demands, that they make of me because of something they need. Well, friends, I *need* you to get off of me and stop asking for crazy things. Enough’s enough.

I’m beginning to wonder how it is that people get so self-absorbed that all they can see is them. More interestingly, I’m fascinated by the fact that this is a choice; there’s literally no will to compromise. I’ve gotten used to opting for the highway, but I always do with a little sadness. The highway always seems like it should be a last resort and it comes up a lot more frequently recently.

Granted, there was a time not so very long ago at which I’d really work to make things work out. It’s interesting how much rigidity shows up when you start not bending over backwards to please people. Not exactly what I was hoping to find. But much less stressful to maintain.

On Saturday my car was stolen for 10 hours. I don’t know how or why but it was gone for the better part of the day. In that time, I went through all the periods of grieving; I panicked, I got over it, I cried, I felt sad. And then, magically, I found that car. I still can’t believe it.

When I told this story to a friend, he immediately mentioned that it was one of the best metaphors for my life that he’d ever heard. He said, “you lost something that was yours…it was actually taken from you…and you made your peace about it. But because you looked for it, you got it back. And you asked someone to help you find it…and they did.” I tend to live on a metaphorical level anyway…but I think this might be an area in which I’m totally blind. I don’t think it’s unimportant that I never would have seen this side of the story had he not led me to it. Similar to me finding that car; I would’ve looked for a long time and continued to pass over it without a little help from the outside.

What I’m most amazed by is that I’ve come up against a type of problem in my life that I just don’t know how to solve. I feel like I can look and look and literally not be able to see what I’m looking for unless someone else can see it for me…or encourage me to look in a different direction. It’s scary, I absolutely feel there’s no reason to go down that road…but maybe what I’m looking for will be there. Is it possible?

I guess I did find the car.

I have mixed feelings about this day. On one hand, many good things crossed my path. Maybe not necessarily the high, best of things but it was a solidly great day. Given that, though, it amazes me how a solidly great day can be nearly derailed by people with fairly small world views. Why is it that it takes only one instance of stupid to almost negate a whole day of solidly good things? It seems unfair.

And if I expand just a little further, it’s a tiny birdbrain academic worldview that’ll really throw everything off fast. In case you’ve not had the utter joy and horror of having any contact with the academic world, lucky you. But if you have, you know that one “no” from someone who you really require to say “yes” can really wreck your whole day. And it’s because their tiny worldview threatens to destroy everything you’ve sunk into the past six, miserable, interminable years. That one little world is enough to cause full on panic in a way not even an enormous natural disaster can.

That kind of power shouldn’t exist in this world. Built on the back of corruption, it’s completely gross; for anyone who’s ever been in a compromising position (and haven’t we all at some point), you know the pain of having someone else controlling your sad, minuscule puppet strings as you just hang there and honestly hope for the best…which will only be determined by someone so socially maladjusted that they can’t pick up a phone or at least drop an email in any kind of reasonable time.

All I can keep saying is, “just wait until I’m free of you.” I’ve never been a person seeking revenge…but people change, don’t they?