One final ramble for anyone who might peruse this speed bump in the ether. No whinging about vexation or musing about the ghost of love. No trying to understand the mores of the twenty first century western world. No life advice or attempts to amuse. Just a last meander before diving back into the real world.
Much has changed since I posted last, and really not a lot at all. Circumstance, other than the inevitability of biologic change, is much as it was on this side of the keyboard. But the reality of my inner world has shifted. I've dived into the book with enthusiasm and am enjoying the unspooling of the thing that's been in my head for years onto the page. The sprawl of it is in some flux, meaning I could make it comparatively short or let it unfurl into its full weirdness across a series of books. I doubt any attempt will be made to publish and it's unlikely I'll share excerpts. Not because of any personal judgment on the quality or nature of the work, but because I don't think this is a time when people read.
Since my last installment here, life has been about making peace, letting go and working to shift my perspective and allow beauty back in since it is literally and figuratively all around me. Walking through my days bitching and moaning rather than being able to appreciate all I can has been at odds with what I believe. And since I haven't been able to practice what I preach, much of these months has been spent silent and melancholy if not outright sad. Or angry. What's the expression? Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die? It isn't that I've held a grudge, but I've clung tenaciously to so much that hurts in some strange hope that the universe would intercede and essentially tell me that I was wrong and things will be fine.
But it doesn't work like that. Anyone with a brain will tell you words like 'right' and 'fair' don't figure into adult existence. However I know from first hand experience that it is possible to live a good, fulfilling life without much in terms of material goods or resources. Here in America there are so very many people who don't see all they do have and spend most of their energy on accruing more stuff for which they will also not be grateful.
I'll add that I'm not better than anyone else, more compassionate or more evolved. In fact it's my own shortcomings that pushed me to put this blog online. At the same time I've reviewed a lot of what's here and found it -- and me -- powerfully lacking. Not, as my mother would have put it, particularly good grist. In fact I'm coming to accept that the last woman I dated was right: I'm not a real person.
But that frees me to live in a way that makes more sense to me. Whether one chooses to call me recluse, hermit or anything else is irrelevant. It's become painfully obvious that I fit in this era about as well as a fish on a bicycle.
Happenstance: the tune "Survive" by Bill Connors started playing as I wrote that last sentence.
Does any of this mean a thing? Nope. Just the opposite. I've come to realize that I want to put good into the world, but I think I've been going about it all wrong. I'll leave the grand gestures and true moving/shaking to the brilliant while I work in the small, subtle ways to which I'm better suited.
Who knows what's ahead? I mean seconds from now, not years. As a friend sings in a wonderful tune, this is not a trial run. We're in it. And it's fleeting. To sit and wait for good to come is a dangerous approach. Certainly it's possible but I don't know how likely it is, particularly as one gets older. Obsolescence and anonymity are more probable.
These are funny words coming from someone who's rankled at pep talks and motivational speakers. But that's the nature of subjective creatures and shifting perspective. Nothing comes easy (guilt and grief excepted) and it takes work to bring and keep the good in one's life. Humans don't like work. We're just a mass of contradictions.
Anyway, this is spiraling fast into nothing and its being written at all is a pretty silly gesture so I'll just thank those who've slogged through what I've scrawled and wish you all the best. Life really isn't all doom and gloom. Go out and find what makes you happy, cherish it and understand that it's not likely to be with you long.
Take care, everyone. See you in the funny pages.
