Mindless Blather and Inane Twaddle, Redux

Being alive and aware of oneself as a living thing, having to interact with all sorts of other living things, really doesn't ever get less strange. In a lot of ways it actually becomes stranger. I can only speak (or write, in this case) for myself but the desire is to have more simplicity and directness, but as time marches on and the newer generations assume primacy, things make less and less sense to my old brain. As I've stated before I don't see this as bad, I just see it as an evolution. I think there's a time for each of us, whether it's a narrow window or a span of years, where things make sense and we have a place in the world. I also believe that time passes, no matter what we want or choose.

As a musician I've seen things move from analog and human to digital and largely dehumanized. Where we praised artists for their personalities and quirks, which equated to originality, to glory in imperfection, the drive for decades has been to produce increasingly marketable product and things which have less of all those qualities we once sought out. At the same time the empire created by record labels is all but gone. But its impact is still felt in the fact that now an artist's look is the first standard by which he or she is judged. It's ridiculous. Can you imagine someone like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa or the Beatles trying to launch a career now?

It's all moot, though. Time marches on. The standards of the day pass with a new day. What's viable today means nothing tomorrow. One of my stranger exchanges was not too many years ago, asking about who I thought was the greatest _________ of all time. When I started describing those musicians who created something new and allowed for the development of entire new vocabularies and genres, the response was "But they couldn't shred."

Surreal.

Obsolescence happens. It's an inevitability. But it's nothing one can be prepared for. When I left social media it was because I felt an increasing disconnect with technology and with those who rely on it for everything. Means of communication were changing in ways I didn't grasp, both in terms of the interface and in the language used to navigate it. Once a friend of mine wrote to tell me she was tired of my swanning about it I knew it was time to remove myself from things, from any kind of a public light.

What's funny is that I embraced social media in its early days. I loved it. Connecting with people all over the world on any number of levels, exchanging all kinds of things and getting new input as well as distraction. It was glorious. Most of my friends at the time didn't understand and wanted no part of it. By the time most of them joined MySpace and later Facebook, I was networked to tens of thousands of people all over the planet. When those connections became too much to negotiate while having a regular life, my friends were all at the point where I was ten or more years earlier. Consequently when I jumped ship, no one got it.

And no one uses much else for communication anymore. Texting is preferable to calling. Email is a thing of the past. Letters are an idea from another century. The last women who wanted to date me gave me phone numbers and told me never to call; text only.

But I am from another century. I adore letters, both reading and writing them. The phone allows me something a text won't provide. And I can't keep up with technology. The idea of changing all my communications tools every few months is beyond me. Changing the operating system on a computer several times a year makes no sense to me.

Then again, the vast majority of the adult experience makes no sense to me. Everyone wants sex and love but no one wants to talk. New and exciting is somehow better than what's fulfilling and meaningful. Moving on to a new person with whom one has no real connection is preferable to fixing the problems that exist in a relationship and maintaining a friendship.

I have never grasped how someone can be central in a person's life, but after the romantic relationship is done all contact must be severed. That just levels me. But as I've written previously, I never learned how to fall out of love with someone.

These days it almost makes more sense not to connect with people, not to bring them into my world, if they're just going to disappear without warning or explanation. I think I'd rather simmer in the cauldron of my own brain than be left stranded and cold over and over.

Don't get me wrong: I do in fact miss society and people. But I miss basic civility more. Simple considerations. Living in a time where people hang up the phone without saying goodbye or walk away from receiving a gift without acknowledging thanks is not for me. I can't be someone other than who I am and who I am is no longer someone welcomed by society.

A friend asked not long ago if being alone was better than being surrounded by people who want a part of me. The answer was yes. I shared too much of me for too long with those who didn't actually care or even want to know who I am. I'd rather keep contact with the tiny handful of people who are friends now. It is wholly possible that the future will bring wonders I can't imagine at this moment, but for someone rapidly closing in on codgerdom, actual reality is a better choice than virtual reality.

Except here.

Damn it.

The Inevitability of Bafflement

"Be careful what you wish for," I was told, "you will surely get it."

"Pain stems from desire," the Buddha cautioned.

Why don't we ever believe what we're told?

I have seen dreams and desires come to pass. Not a few of them. But like a tale where the devil is making deals, these things are seldom what we think. Which, if there is a plan, is probably why we get what we think we want.

At the same time, things I never imagined have been my reality, too. Marriage. Divorce. A May-December romance. Maybe more than one. Solitude. 15 minutes of fame. Becoming a part of an industry that was the stuff of childhood fantasy. Seen friends die.

So maybe it's not so surprising that I'm in a semi-permanent state of befuddlement.

We want. Not just for ourselves but for those we hold dear. Happiness, love, validation, success, joy, money, sex, chocolate, a new car... we just want. It isn't about the reality of something, it's about gratification.

And we get what we want. Only when we get it, it turns out to be different than what it was supposed to be.

I really will write about the conditional tense, as well as my gripe with the words 'weird' and 'normal.'

Back to the pointlessness at hand: desire and fulfillment.

Whether it's a big house or the hottie on the other side of the bar, we crave. It's always about something outside of ourselves that will bring something to our lives, our sense of self. Is it really about enrichment or completion?

Not usually. It's a momentary lust. An infatuation. A passing fancy.

I'm more guilty of this than a lot of people I know. At the same time I had a brief window of my life where I knew contentment. It had grown out of a series of crushing defeats and losses, a conscious choice to step back and away from what I normally pursued. I hadn't been able to identify why every relationship, particularly since I thought I was learning from each, would fail. There was something, a pattern, I couldn't see. So I began a process of brutal self-interrogation and introspection. Don't know that it brought wisdom or enlightenment but there was definitely some clarity. And I was able to step away from my traditional idiocy.

It was glorious. Peaceful. Calm. A state of gratitude and appreciation. Finally able to see just how much I had, that in fact I live with an obscenity of riches, that I am surrounded by beauty.

Which meant its end was inevitable. I hadn't learned everything I needed to.

I don't think learning comes for most of us as satori, as an all at once with clarity and acceptance proposition. In my experience we learn in steps, in stages, and we often need to relearn things. Sort of like the difference between intellectually grasping something and accepting the reality of it on an emotional, psychological and maybe even spiritual level.

We are flawed creatures. Imperfect. And I think that's also a part of our glory.

Yes, I wrote that. Cynical, sarcastic, griping me put that into print.

Imperfection is our strength. We may strive for ideal, but we live in something else. I don't think perfect is beautiful. I don't. It's not human. And I love humanity. Not the shitbag collective among which we walk, but that state of being that is a glorious bundle of contradictions while wanting to do good.

Make more sense?

When I was a boy, I fell in love with someone. But we were both damaged and scared so we became friends. It doesn't mean I fell out of love with her. Actually, I'm not sure that I know how to fall out of love with anyone, but that's another blather for another time. But when we finally did become a couple, when she fell in love with me, it was magic. It was unreal. Until she left me the way she did.

I am not blaming. I actually, had I ever stepped back from my feelings (desire),  knew it was coming. Not because she didn't love me or because I was a failure, but because as her friend for years had seen it again and again.

But I'm human. "It would be different with me," I thought. And it was. Well, it was and it wasn't. None of this takes away from the aforementioned mystical nature of the thing. It really was magic. That doesn't change the fact that I'm me and she's her. Even together as the thing that was us, we couldn't get away from ourselves. In some ways, because of what the pairing was, we may have even been more our essential selves. That's for good and for bad.

It was an episode. A time. A chapter in a story. The point is that I knew her and she knew me but there was so much we chose not to see. I looked at photos of us for the first time in a long time this week. It was nice to see the happiness, the unfiltered nature of what was our relationship. I wish there were more photos of when we got together, or when we met as kids. I wish there weren't so many of our last year together.

But that's desire and not reality.

The reality is that we both got what we wanted. The reality is that we weren't enough for each other. We weren't right for each other. I could never give her the thing that would bring contentment and she, even when she finally realized it, didn't have the heart to tell me. That's just life.

And it's fine. There was magic. Good stuff. Now there are memories and some of them are the stuff of books and movies.

The point is that wanting something is rarely wanting the right thing. It's the difference between seeing an onion and craving a burger with carmelized tasties atop it.

Years after that relationship, after I was convinced I had learned so much and was so much wiser, I wound up in another romance. Again, the stuff of dreams.

Have I ever mentioned my weakness for brilliant women? No? I'll babble about it someday, I'm sure.

Anyway, this new romance was just all kinds of unexpected. We got to do and be and say things we'd both wanted for so long. We talked openly and candidly, about what we wanted and what we hoped. After a year of this we decided to make a go of it, as a trial run, and I moved in with her.

Within a matter of days it was clear that we'd made a mistake. Neither of us realized what we actually wanted. We wanted each other, yes. We wanted love and a partnership. But neither of us realized that we couldn't have it with the other. She needed someone I was not, and I needed someone she was not. Not that there wasn't a lot we could share and a lot we could learn, but we were wrong about that damn first thing: the want.

So now I'm brutal. With others who may be interested in getting to know me or get close to me, but much more with myself. When the pangs of desire first manifest as yearning aches, I allow myself to feel them but they kick in a sort of internal Inquisition now. Is the desire for something momentary? Is it lust? Voyeurism? What do I really want? If it's a relationship, I generally just shut down the whole process. I'm not in a place where I can be in a relationship. I have nothing to bring to the table. Sex, love and romance, sure. But right now I can't be a friend to a lover or a lover to a friend. Most women want a complex combination of things, many of which they haven't articulated to themselves. Maybe it's a blend of danger and stability, or empathy and distance. Whatever it is, I'm not that. Not now. And I don't sugarcoat who or what I am on those rare occasions where someone broaches something more than simply conversational.

Does that mean I'm successful in dealing with this stuff?

I wish. But I'm (barely) smart enough not to lead anyone on, to give the indication that I have anything to offer more than my mind or my body. I got a decent heart but it's tied to one quirky, damaged mind. Can't tell anyone I have anything else to offer. I won't.

But I still want.

Damn it.