All But Six

 This was an inevitability. So while I hope no one who's read any of what's come before from me isn't surprised by the difference in tone, I won't apologize. Similarly, there's no caveat going in this time. You're here and you're reading, so I hope you'll follow this through to the end. And that is exactly what this is: finality.

Over the last year, like everyone, I've seen a lot. Little of it has been anything I wanted to see. But it's also thrown a few things into sharp focus. Chief among these is the fact that I don't make sense in a world I can't understand. I am quite literally from another century and the things I was taught just aren't valid in the new millennium. This is a part of the natural process of aging. There comes a time when assimilation loses any appeal. When I was younger it was considered rude to hang up the phone without saying goodbye. Now it's just the way things are done. Or not done, depending upon how one feels. 

But this isn't bad. Because the world is moving in a direction I can't understand is simply an organic process. Who knows? Maybe things can unfuck themselves. It's nice to think that centuries and centuries of racism and inequality may be dismantled and that everyone can have a chance at a decent life. Don't know if that will happen before I shuffle off this mortal coil, but it sure as hell would be great. 

No, it's time for me to finally become less outspoken about things, to let my carping and whining be kept to myself. For all that I've spoken and written about it, I'm finally embracing my invisibility. Having a life, even in a small way, in the public eye was a trip. To be a shy kid who gains some acclaim and a place in my community was an absolute gift. No matter what that became, there was a time it was very nice to have respect. 

For all I've mentioned here and elsewhere about vanity, this is the last time I trot mine out in public. I can't let go of the values that have taken me this far and they are at absolute odds with how things are now. No one needs to hear or read about the plight of an old guy who doesn't fit in. Because it isn't plight. I could choose to be a part of life's tapestry. I could make an effort to have a relationship or put my art out there. At the end of the day, it's my choice to carry on the way I have. It's what I know, yes, but it's what feels right. Does it matter that people don't feel for me what I feel for them? It does to me, but in the bigger picture? Nope. Not even a little. 

It's been a hoot to vent, cogitate and ruminate here. If anyone wants to reach out, I'm pretty easy to find. The trend seems to be that people just don't. Sometimes they'll reply if I contact them, but it happens less and less. This is good. It means people have lives and they're putting their energy into their own pursuits. Of course for me it also means that I'm not a part of those adventures anymore. 

So it's back to creating art, searching for meaning, trying to do good but keeping out of people's way as I do. Thank you to everyone who's stopped by here to read any of these posts, who's visited me when I was active on social media, who's sought me out for reasons that don't involve hurling invectives. It's been a great ride and I am grateful. 

What's the title of this piece mean? It's part of something my dad used to say: "Fuck 'em all but six, and let them be my pallbearers." How ironic that nine months after the man died, we still haven't been able to have a funeral. 

Take care out there and try to be a decent person. When it all comes down to it, those are still the best choices.

See ya.

An Absolute Lack of Perspective/Swimming in the Subjective

Again, I start with the caveats: this may never go anywhere and I can't reply to comments made on this latest version of Blogger. That written, I'm just diving in this time. 

Like a lot of people who are aging, there is less and less I see in the world that I recognize. This is an across the board thing. Conventions, behaviors, linguistic traits and most of all it's apparent in the ways we treat each other. Bereft of so much people used to do for fun and distraction, there are so many shifts in how we see. Central to this, if you'll pardon the expression is how we are seeing ourselves and the importance we place on our individual circumstances. 

Years ago when people stopped saying goodbye at the end of a phone call, it rankled. It utterly perplexed me. Two syllables. Even just one. Yet, this had become too much. Unimportant. It isn't that I'm comfortable with it now, but I accept that it's the new norm. 

When 17 new pronouns appeared in the English language, I absolutely understood their significance but I could not assimilate them. Consequently, even though I saw it coming for decades, I am having a very hard time with they and them being used to represent an individual. 

Such is life. Not good. Not bad. It just... is. It's more important for the current generation and those that follow to know how to navigate the world. People like me have less and less place in it, so I don't expect my values to carry forward. As much as I've been an anachronism, I am fast becoming obsolete. There is still some I can contribute, and I'm glad for that, but I know it's diminishing. 

I'm not sentimental about this. I'm certainly not morose. 

So it's not likely a surprise that my existence turns more and more inward. I interact less with everyone around me. My yearning for anything social, in real life or online, diminishes. I was invisible before I wore a mask. If I hear my name spoken aloud twice in a month it's an absolute fluke. I don't have any expectation for it but it's nothing I imagined would happen. 

Of course the flip-side of that is how many lovely and wonderful things that have happened that I could never have anticipated. Not the massive ones nor the silly little ones. Hell, I never could have predicted I would live this long. 

Then why does it drive me crazy that everyone is so self-involved? It isn't that I'm waiting for the next Mother Teresa or Buddha. But in a time when so many people are suffering, enough self-awareness to step outside of our individual situations and check on those around us. 

Mind you, I'm not elevating myself in this context. I reached out to friends and family for the first four months of lockdown, but since March I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of people who have done the same. At least until my father died in July. 

This wasn't really a blindsiding event. Those of us who had seen him over the last years saw a decline on many levels. The man who had joked for so long about living to 120 intimated more and more that he had made his peace with what he knew was coming. But that doesn't mean everyone knew it and even some who were told it was coming didn't take the caution to heart. So there was a wave of people who needed to talk and be heard, and I was happy to be someone who did. I am honored to have been that. 

Consequently there was a definite point when I just pulled into myself, when I stopped making the calls or sending the emails or texts. I just couldn't read any more posts about how hard it was not to be able to get a haircut or that it was just so strange to wear sweats or pajamas all the time. I do have empathy for people. I really do. But the first thing I thought when the realities of COVID-19 began to emerge was what the hell are the homeless going to do? 6 months in and I still haven't heard anyone talking about this. 

As someone who chose a solitary way, my life hasn't changed in the way most people's have. But that does give me a slightly different perspective on things. The realities of being denied luxury and convenience have their impact. We feel these emotionally, intellectually and psychologically. A part of this is the inclination to pull in, to simmer in our subjectivity. This is even the case when hearing about what is going on around us. But the desire to be acknowledged, just to be asked how we are or to know someone is thinking about us, is huge. 

It's expecting that to happen when we aren't willing to take that step that creates the ethical friction for me. It's another form of entitlement. And it can be sidestepped by simply stopping for a few seconds and realizing that we all have the power to reach out, to give someone the feelings we so desperately crave. It's not hard. It really isn't. But it does require subverting our self-pity long enough to text, call or email. Even though the postal system is completely overloaded, we can still send cards or letters. 

My equilibrium will return. The fire raging on the mountain will run its course. The grieving will start to make their peace. I'll go back to reaching out. I may even pop back up on social media. But until then, I hope people can stop feeling sorry for themselves, driving like they're insane or choosing to and act solipsistically. Or at least take a step back and maybe think that others are going through what they are. Some are going through much more.

It's All Relative. Except When It Isn't.

I've written about empathy and compassion, about how they're seen as outdated in the same way many of my core beliefs are. But I want to revisit these aspects of cognition for just a moment as this may be more than a little ironic.

Having distanced myself from most social media, I only really only get the barest of it these days but seeing the reactions of people having to stay home has been something for me. Everything from boredom to borderline mania with a lot in between has popped up in my feed a lot. People who have never dealt with it before are now staring depression square in the face. Having to confront all those things pushed to the back of the brain pan must be powerfully unsettling for those who never have chosen to deal with them.

And I bring it up because the reaction seems all but inevitably to voice even more the 'woe is me' sentiment rather than to simply look at all the people who have been dealing with the ghosts and demons and take the opportunity to reach out in support or solidarity. But no, instead of this being a time and a chance to find how much more we all have in common, I'm seeing even more separation and hearing louder whining. Yes, I realize I grew up in another century but when did the paradigm switch so far from "help one's fellow humans" to "my problems are so serious, you guys"? I won't say I'm not cynical and there won't come a day I describe myself as a Samaritan, but of all the time for people to choose superficiality, this one surprises me.

With all the means of communication and connectivity at our disposal, the one thing I've noticed is that people stopped reaching out to me when lockdown/quarantine began. Some return my communications (and I love those of you who have!), but fewer and fewer do. This is not me blaming anyone as a populace has to face things it never did and most know I'm just fine on my own, but it does mean my isolation is a bit more profound. Luckily, I have music and writing to see me through and the view from my window is always breathtaking.

As usual, I am not trying to draw conclusions or offer up solutions so much as just ruminating and meandering, so thank you for coming along for the non-journey. Next time I'll see if I can't maybe actually write something cohesive and more fun to read.

Oh! One quick caveat: this latest iteration of Blogger doesn't allow me to reply to comments. But please know that I read them all and thank anyone who's taking the time to pore over what I e-scrawl here!

Strange Reflections

In a time of uncertainly, I think a certain amount of introspection and reminiscence is inevitable. It happens to most of us at weddings and funerals, reunions and driving past old haunts. So with the entire world on hold, we're all looking inward more than usual. What does that mean for your humble narrator? Why, more blather! So yes, here's your window of opportunity: flee if you want not to be stuck in the mire of my grey matter.

The day to day of my life hasn't changed much, other than my no longer needing to use an alarm clock. No one knocks on the door now, but occasionally someone yells from outside the window. Far fewer flatlanders walking the street or parking in the driveway. Some loss of appetite, but that works better for rationing anyway.

If things are not so changed, upon what am I reflecting?

Just going deeper down that rabbit hole of 'having passed the half century mark' really. When I look in the mirror, no matter what is going on otherwise, I see a man. No really physical traces left of the boy I've known for so long. The shape of face and frame seem to rearrange themselves regardless of what I think or want. Even the line of my jaw is different.

But as I watch the ways people interact, as language's structure metamorphoses on a daily basis, I have so much more empathy for those folks I looked at perplexed when I was a boy. The world has to change, but there's a point at which we no longer want to as well. Some of us. I see a lot of people that are good going along with the ride and I salute them from my small kingdom of Anachronism.

No for me this is a time to look at the dreams of my youth, the aspirations of my earlier adulthood and the contributions I may or may not have made to the world. If this is a time of stasis, am I okay putting things on hold?

Nope. There's still too much to do. There's a book to finish. Music to create. Friends who need to hear that I love them and family living with uncertainty. Smiles are in short supply everywhere and even the weather seems to have gone wacky. Some of us seem to be dealing with anxiety while others are struggling with boredom. Forced to keep distant from one another, it's now becoming apparent to many that things like hugs and handshakes are often taken for granted.

It isn't surprising that a bunch of people I know have reached out to me lately to get advice on how to cope. And one sent me an article to a man who's been living alone as long as I've been alive. What's interesting to me is that he and I have developed a lot of the same skills to stay sane and functioning: having a routine, keep track of something, do things that make you feel good, challenge yourself.

Most important is realizing that even being isolated, none of us is really alone. I stopped engaging in social activities because I realized my expectations were high, that what others wanted of me was not what I could do or be. But most who are now homebound are not there by choice and are starting to feel those things that they generally only have to deal with when sick for a protracted time. But this is a great time to text silly things, to reach out to friends and let them know you're thinking of them, to do what you can to support one another.

It is not the time to mindlessly panic and raise everyone's anxiety. The ambient dread and uncertainty are high right now, but the reality is that we have no idea vat's ahead. Given that and since we're all knuckling down already, why not try and put more positive out there? While I have always be a 'love is all you need' kind of guy, this is a time for some of it. It's easy to give in to doubt, worry and fear. Now is the time to be there for one another in all the ways we can, even if we can't hug.

Uncertainties. Great, Small and Otherwise.

I've made no bones of the fact that I'm at odds with the world. This has never been more clear than in the last weeks. While I make no claim at understanding things, I'm very clear there is much I don't grasp. So bearing that in mind, here is your chance to check out before I start blathering.

For anyone who's still here, hi!

This is not a soapbox for me to complain. Not this time. I don't want to whine or go on about about my nature or a lot of the things I typically address here. There is already so much negativity that a recluse carping about the way things aren't or should be is just heaping dung on offal.

So instead I just want to put out a wish that we can stop inducing panic for a bit.

We live in a time where perspective may be more rare than platinum. Reason has given way to simply following big, shiny exciting things. We've become reactive creatures that don't really process stimulus beyond our reflex response. We parrot what we see and hear but rarely think about it in between.

This is not me trying to downplay a pandemic. Of course we need to be cautious and vigilant.

At the same time, we have no idea of how things will play out. How many predictive models have been put forth? How accurate are they?

Again, this isn't about science so I apologize if my language is trite. I'm not a scientist and I'm certainly not an epidemiologist.

All I'm writing about is that we're freaking out when stepping back to watch and wait may make more sense for our collective wellbeing.

This is a scary time. We really don't know what's going on. So much is hypothetical and conjecture. That part is good. Looking at this from as many angles as possible benefits us all. People are dying and we feel helpless.

But adding to the hysteria or over-dramatizing when most of us are in a situation that is not yet really bad helps no one.

I'm fortunate in my day job to be in contact with people all over the world, from other parts of this country, to Europe and Asia. No one is taking this lightly and no one should. But speaking to and writing with people all over the planet has shown me that we are the only country sensationalizing the situation. Every headline I see is playing up aspects of the events to generate fear. Not wariness. Not leading with what new information may have been garnered. But those elements of any statistic likely to scare anyone reading them.

The reality is that we have only been looking at this for a short time and we are just now starting to see the bigger spread pattern. Whatever this is and will be, we're still learning. We're gathering data and working to deal with it. We know -- we think -- who's at highest risk. That part is good. But the longterm is still an absolute unknown.

We're alive. We're part of an ecosystem. We're also the only species trying to unbalance it continually. We want to live longer and without disease. But disease is a part of the ecosystem, too. And each time we find a way to combat something new and more dangerous than what's preceded it, we're unintentionally causing the ecosystem to create something even scarier to try and maintain balance.

Let me repeat something: we're alive.

Some have died and I'm no fan of that, but it's also reality. Yet the reality is that being alive means any of us can die at any time. The most mundane things can end a life. Its fragility is what makes it so precious. The fact that our lives are finite is a part of what gives them meaning.

But we're still here.

I don't think for one minute that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and step into an episode of the Twilight Zone where I'm the last two-legged critter about. I know there will be more bad news. But if I've learned anything from surviving riots, earthquakes, floods and a mudslide, it's that there is always hope. We may not be getting the good news from the big media sources, but I promise you there is still good news in the world. There are reasons to hope. We can still love. We can still believe in all kinds of things.

You may be a nihilist or an anarchist. If so, you're likely having the time of your life. But for the rest of us, step away from the TV or the computer screen for a minute. Look out a window. The world is still there. You're still in it. There really are worse things than having to be home for a while. Honest. Really and for true.

I know few are going to read this. I know it isn't going to be a significant gesture on any large scale. But if one person reads this and has one more moment of comparative calm, I'll have done some good. And in a time where there is more and more freaking out, I'll take that.

Now back to reclusion for your not so humble narrator.

I wish you only the best.

Quixotic More Than Curmudgeonly

Anyone who's meandered through my meanderings must have gleaned that the only real thread is that the author is at odds with the world. Whether it's a matter of being an anachronism or simply never having the basic skills and sense to navigate society in all its minefield glory, I am a metaphorical square peg. But this is not all bad. Yes, I am more challenged than most when presented with new tech or some shift in contemporary jargon, but this has been the conundrum for anyone who's ever lived to a certain age. As someone who never imagined making it to 30, the ways life surprises me are many. At the same time, I think I provide an interesting reference point for those who are actually in the flow of things. I'm sort of a window into another time, another way of thinking and of doing things. Also my inability to assimilate smoothly or quickly is pretty amusing from the outside. I'm cool with that.

But I'm reasonably intelligent and am surrounded by many who are far more adept at making their way in the 21st century. Why am I not joining their ranks?

Because I don't want to.

The world is moving faster than it ever has. Technology is obsolete in weeks or sometimes months where it was once in place for years. Our paradigms for most everything are in flux. Language is becoming clusters of consonants interspersed with emojis. A smart phone is all but de rigeur at this point in history. We have access to all literature, science and history but are far more interested in creating the ideal selfie.

I'm not standing in judgment even if the language of that last paragraph reads that I am. Really.

So why don't I want to keep up? What possible reasoning could there be for choosing not to be a part of the mainstream? Am I just watching the world go by?

It's simple: I'm a romantic.

I love so many things left in the dust of wild advancement. I write with a pen. I can appreciate that people love taking pictures of their food, but I would rather relish in everything it is then step away fro my enjoyment to capture its image and post that to social media. But that's me.

Infatuation. Flirtation. Taking the time to get to know someone, even if that means having phone conversations and writing letters. I love the immediacy of texting and nudes as much as anyone, but there's something about a slow burn seduction that's just delicious to me. Caressing someone's brain with just words is an art form that seems nearly extinct. As I'm closer to extinction by the minute, this makes sense. But, as someone I know likes to put it, I ain't dead yet.

This is not a lament and it is not harping on things being better in some bygone time. That's horse shit. The world has always been a struggle for the thinking and feeling. And society has always marched unrelentingly forward. That's how things are. I'm fine letting the advancements happen, they just have less and less relevance for me.

Each new device I'm convinced to get has a shorter lifespan than the one it replaces. For this old brain all the convenience of new functionality makes less sense on an intuitive level. We used to joke about owners manuals for the things we bought. Now they don't exist. Where customer support was once something everyone looked upon with chagrin, it's all but gone. I could relay incidents from the last years of my trying to get assistance from one company or another, but it's pretty evident from all I say and do that I'm from another era. And it may be an era that never happened.

I have watched the weird twisting of inspiring to inspirational and tone into tonality. I have been given phone numbers that I'm told never to call. I watch world leaders daily who have no idea what diplomacy is. And this is fine. My bafflement is fine. And so is my solitude. Stepping out of the current of life around me is really what allows me to enjoy those things I'm able to savor. And I revel. I'm a creature of the senses. Give me a great view, wonderful aromas, the tactile glory of something exquisitely sculpted. Let me look into a lover's eyes for hours, let me kiss for days.

But in a world where everything's in motion, faster and faster all the time, I'll stand away a bit and delight in some stillness. A friend has taken to calling me Zarathustra. It's a compliment I hardly deserve but infinitely preferable to the far more common Unabomber comparison. I'm not truly a hermit although I am definitely reclusive. My life was so accessible for so long that I am really easing happily into anonymity.

As I've written loads,  I'm difficult. It isn't that I'm complex or complicated, but I am obstinate as hell. It isn't that I think my way is right, but it works for me. No one else needs to believe in the same kind of love I do or harbor sentiment the way I choose, but why is it so many want me to let these things go. Yes, I have had unrealistic ideas of a lot of things for most of my life, but that kind of view also allowed for a kind of magic in the world. I'm not opposed to tech, but as an artist I need magic. Need it.

In a world that seeks to reduce everything to sound bytes and memes, I'm writing an epic novel that's equal parts adventure and philosophy. Not to publish or to convince anyone that I'm valid, that my viewpoint is (likely it and I are both obsolete), but because this gives me a world where I can understand something. It's no ideal reality, but the conflicts and struggles are those that resonate with my skewed take on things. It's not a noble pursuit so much as an endeavor to challenge me cerebrally and aesthetically.

So yeah, I'm that guy living in a forest on a mountain, the same one who's not jumping into conversations. But don't take the wry smile on my face as condescension. And please don't assume that my confusion over something said to me is simply the reaction of a doddering old dude (although it may be). It could simply be that I'm observing the way things are to throw it into contrast somewhere in my writing or music.

I Am Not Here. You Do Not See This.

So why am I writing again after posting I was done? Seriously, what is wrong with me?

These are probably questions no one will ever be able to answer and I really hope that no one's concerned enough to pursue their resolution. Yet here I am and perhaps there is a you out there reading this. If not, life goes on and none's the pity.

Don't worry, there's nothing appearing below that will change the shape of the universe or mold your aesthetic into something new. It's just more meandering and, I hope, blather without morose carping. If any carp manifest, obviously I should not be writing at all.

The months since June have been interesting. Friends and heroes have died, time has marched on unrelentingly and I am going more invisible with each passing moment. These are all just symptoms of living. With all of it, some clarity has come. Not much, but some.

I doubt it will surprise anyone who's read any of these posts that the one thing of which I've become keenly aware is my own sadness. Not that huge self-esteem crushing, paradigm shifting stuff, but much smaller yet fiercely tenacious sorrow. Some of it is due to what I see in the world around me (see any of the previous posts for examples), but much of it is due to the fact that what was once a freakishly connected life is now floating through the ether all but completely untethered.

Side note: this will not be kvetching nor will it be laying blame. Really.

One of the side effects of living is, if one's lucky or focused, having a life. This means gaining a certain momentum and having some things sort of spin free of one's metaphoric/metaphysical gravitational field. If the life is having a family and/or having a career, it means that some of what's thrown out of orbit is individuals.

That is some powerfully awkward grammar, but I think (hope) you get what I meant.

My trajectory was very public for a long time and it was glorious. But then things changed dramatically and little has been the same since. This is no one's fault but circumstances changed and I have done what I could to keep pace with things.

I have failed.

People have told me that my solitude and isolation are easily remedied and they are right to a degree, but there is much that people can't, won't or don't see. First, no one is me so no one truly has my perspective. The facts are easy to review, but without having my mind and life experience that's like equating data with wisdom. Fallacious. Given my circumstances and how they changed, many people would respond differently. But this is the point: I'm me and no one else.

I do not blame Mother Nature for weather, nor do I hold people with different views than mine in contempt. I sometimes wonder why it is that few attempt to see another's perspective but I doubt I'll ever understand that. Again, this is life.

But the events that redirected the trajectory of my life had a powerful impact on me as a person. I became more closed off and jumped less frequently into things head first. This was both a result of fear and a desire for self-preservation. I don't expect anyone to understand that, including those who have been through similar things, but what's happened to me since has also sealed my decision to stay on this path at least for now.

It isn't that I don't want to take chances, but I am tired of being hurt and abandoned without explanation. I think these are things most can grasp. Please if you're reading this and riled because of what I've written, don't tell me to buck up or pull myself up by the bootstraps. I have done this. It's why I'm alive. But over the last decade or a little more, it's become clear that I am just not that twenty-first century. This is not bad, it's just a matter of having an outlook that doesn't line up with most of those around me.

Part of that is a result of getting older, but it's also due to that same foolishness of me being me. You see, my views have never made a lot of sense to those around me. They're romantic and I've traditionally held myself to a fairly high ethical standard. I don't expect the same from others, but I have hoped that the people who choose to be in my life will accept these things about me and not make fun of me for them... too much or too often.

If I haven't written before about my realization about quality of life, maybe I'll make that a future installment. And if I have written about it then I'll try not to repeat myself. But what it all boils down to -- for me and probably for me alone -- is that it makes more sense to be away from the world for a number of reasons. I get to deal with less random hostility. I'm much less caught up in drama that has nothing to do with me. And I get to be the architect of my life, free of the concerns of dragging anyone else along for the ride.

I am still not opposed to a relationship. And if one comes along that proves substantial, obviously I will amend the way I live now. But I stopped holding out hope for one and making the rest of my life contingent upon that possibility some time ago. I will always love women. Always. Now I just understand that I've gone into so many relationships with ridiculous expectations that there's no way any of them could have worked out. Yes, I absolutely own that. Do I wish any of them could have worked out? Hell yes! But the person I was then made it unlikely at the very best. I salute anyone who tried being with me.

As I sit here, I realize I could write much, much more. But considering I hadn't intended to post even this much, maybe I'll just post again.

Maybe not.

Either way, have a great weekend and take care of yourself!

Commit This to the Void with a Glad Heart/See Ya

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.

Vanity Thy Name is Stew (A Reckoning of Sorts)

When I returned to these meanderings, I was at a rough point and feeling raw. I had no intention and I was at a metaphoric crossroads. I had watched social media, what had become my primary social interaction, pass through a few iterations until it had become something far removed from what had initially drawn me to it. Where it had been a distraction and a place to amuse myself, to sometimes learn of or experience what was outside my own world, it had become a gateway to overt hostility and was no longer about connection. Instead of posting silly, fun or musically instructive things, I was spending most of my time ignoring and deleting hate mail, trying diplomatically to tell people who were hitting me up for free instruments that I am not rich and fielding strange random missives from people who had never interacted with me prior but who I somehow betrayed by showing affection or amusement to my actual friends. This was my outlet for, well, just about everything that was percolating in the grey matter.

But things change. And as I read those comments posted here in the last months, I reflect on what this page has become for me. What I've left here recently has been neither insightful nor amusing. I've been carping. Nearing the end of each month I would think, 'Oo! Better blog!'

The truth is I'm not who I was when I started The Unheard Music. It's not about the artist's path or the struggle of an individual to sort through trauma in a changing world. And, funnily enough, it stands in direct opposition to my assertion that I want invisibility.

Of course the truth is I don't. Invisibility, while possibly an inevitability for me and those like me, is actually an inversion of what I want. It's not to be famous or remarkable or anything similar, but to be seen. Ideally by one person, bu probably to feel like my thoughts and feelings mean something.

They do and they don't.

To me obviously they're at the center of everything. Outside of me, they're meaningless. And in keeping with so much of what went into these posts, irrelevance is nothing to throw at people again and again.

The other day I had the most bizarre exchange online. Someone posted an odd comment on one of my videos. I attempted to reply, sharing facts. The poster claimed that because he didn't know me or what I'd done (having a career in music) that it couldn't have happened and that I was instead delusional. As those things I wrote about earlier in the month, it was a coffin nail. It's evident I no longer understand how people interact and should therefore restrict how and when I do. Buying groceries, paying bills and what's on that order are probably safer.

So perhaps someday I'll turn Facebook on to prove I was here. Maybe there will be something significant that occurs in my quiet life that will merit my sharing words, thoughts and feelings. Who knows? Maybe I'll return to performing, recording and teaching. Maybe I'll finish and try to publish the book.

Maybe not.

Living a quiet beautiful life was enough. I think it can be again.

Take care, all. See you in the funny pages.

Nails in a Metaphorical Coffin

So I've mentioned more than occasionally that I'm at odds with consensual reality. No, this hasn't changed. I'm actually about to spew some more virtual blather about why that's still the case. This is your chance to head elsewhere rather than slog through the morass.

There have been a handful of hallmarks in my communications with lovers before, during and after our time together. I am powerfully aware that my side of that equation is not ideal. While I've tried making sure that's understood going into a relationship, liaison, affair or whatever term one chooses to use for connubial time shared, I know I'm not an easy partner. I wish that weren't true, but it is.

But it's the other side of things that remain baffling. Yes, years after I've washed my hands of having a playmate or even the abstraction of one. You see, I know I'm crazy but even with that as a given, I'm still hoping someone can help me with understanding things like what I'm about to throw into the electronic ether.

Like most peoples', the breakups I've got through have been painful, extreme, unpleasant and at times just bizarre. I've enumerated too much here already, so this meander is really not going to be about circumstances so much as it is about, for lack of a better term, communication.

At the end of one relationship -- what I didn't know was the end of one -- my partner had gone ahead of me to find us a new place. I had my hands full with work and used the time to finish my commitments performing and recording with various people. We checked in daily to see how things were going for each other. Until the day she didn't answer, and the subsequent days she neither answered nor returned my calls.

I'm going to interject at this point that I know it's seldom an easy thing to leave a loved one. I know that the decision was not an easy one for anyone I'm about to describe. Even thinking of leaving someone can be brutal. Having only had to do it twice myself, it's horrible. Being left and blindsided isn't much better, but that's the side of the coin I call familiar. Tangent over.

She finally called me and was ominously quiet, using short phrases and leaving long pauses. While it was clear at this point something was up, I left it to her to explain rather than push or wheedle to get some resolution to my curiosity. And then she offered that she didn't want me to join her, that she didn't want to be with me anymore. I'll spare you my emotional reaction to that statement, but after a long pause of my own I asked if she'd made arrangements to have the rest of her things picked up.

She exploded, demanding if that was it. I tried pointing out that us living in different places and her not wanting to be with me made it seem like, yes, that was it. She railed at me for several more minutes before the call ended.

Now you're likely seething. Yes, the romantic in me did want to fight to save us. But we'd already been through months of couple's therapy with more than one counselor. We'd tried all kinds of exercises, given one another time and made various attempts at spontaneity. I was tired and sad. Even if it wasn't clear to her in that moment, she'd made up her mind. With time to talk about things, she'd opted to leave and announce her decision this way. I don't blame her, although at the time I was devastated. What leaves me wondering is this particular exchange, not her choice of actions.

Years later, another relationship ended abruptly by my other simply disappearing. No goodbye, no explanation. I am expressive, though, and wrote for months after. She regularly wrote that she missed me, although she never explained what changed for her or why she left. In fact, she still hasn't said goodbye. Eventually she stopped replying to anything. I wrote to tell her that I felt foolish and wouldn't write anymore.

Then she wrote her first real communication since before her disappearance, telling me she would be sad if I stopped writing as she adored reading my words.

Huh??

I tried explaining that it felt masochistic to put my thoughts and feelings into communications that were never returned. She wrote to tell me she could understand what I meant, but she still wished I would write.

More than a decade after the end of a relationship, I had a fun night and it reminded me of an ex. I sent a quick text about the evening, ending it with the explanation that I wouldn't write again. For the first time in I don't know how long, she replied and asked me to please stay in touch even though she was terrible at doing the same. For the first time in my life, I didn't bother to reply.

There are other things I could bring up but this is probably too much already.

Again, I'm no prize. I know I've left an awful wake of my own and have hurt others, regardless of my intention. Has this resolved anything? Nope. Sure hasn't. But I am willing to bet that others have stories like these. If you've endured these kinds of things and you're still willing to march into the fray, you have my admiration. Maybe things will change for me. After all, I am always in love. That doesn't change. And I am mightily infatuated on a regular basis. No matter how I've tried to exorcise it, sentiment remains. That yearning for love, affection, romance and the host of goodies they bring are all still alive in me, I'm just tired.

And for someone with aspirations of invisibility, it's probably not a good idea to fan the flames of this particular hope.

Probably...

Crawling from the Mire

It’s really something to reach a point where I can look back at my own life and just be amazed. I’ve been in love, homeless, worked an assembly line, written for an international magazine, made the cover of a magazine, met some of my heroes, crossed the country alone more times than I can easily remember, helped to build a community and a hell of a lot more in my time so far. Someone once even wrote to tell me I’m his musical hero! For someone who expected to be wiped out in nuclear war before ever reaching puberty, this is nothing short of remarkable. 

My wont is normally to kind of kvetch and crack wise here, so this is a conscious effort not to do that. Doesn’t mean I’ll succeed, but I always figure I don’t know what I can do until I try. 

And there have been avenues I didn’t tread, too. I was offered work in the porn and escorting worlds. I had a chance to audition for one of the biggest bands in history. Though offered the chance, I never shot heroin or snorted coke. Although I’ve worked in them, I’ve shied away from becoming a full time studio musician. Could have married younger or jumped on a freighter bound for the Caribbean. 

Life is all about choices and consequences. Cause and effect. Living with what we decide and not carrying the kind of regret that makes us constantly ask, ‘what if…?’ So while these last years have probably been the quietest in my few decades, the quality of them and the ways I’ve spent my time have been good. I may have been taught not to be proud as a boy, but I feel like I’ve accomplished more than my healthy imagination could have predicted. 

That’s more than a little cool. 

So when I step back and think that not only am I still alive but there’s more ahead, it’s mind-blowing. 

Had you told juvenile me that I’d be described at different points as a pioneer, a cult leader, a lothario, a svengali, a role model, an inspiration or infamous, my response would have been 

incredulousness, shock or most likely uproarious laughter. Which is why when I look back, I still sometimes think I’m looking at someone else’s life.

Along the way there have been things that were tougher to learn or accept. Understanding I can choose to be happy was a big one. Truly grasping that I can be or do anything, well, there are times that one hasn’t fully sunk in, but the biggest thing I carry with me is that I don’t have to be as hard on myself as I historically have been. I don’t fully understand the mechanism, but the cutting of slack is not easy. Not for me. For much of my life, I’ve held myself to an impossible standard and beaten the snot out of me when I all but inevitably failed. I was well into my 40’s before I could even seriously call myself an artist. I’ve been one of those people who accepts all the negative I hear or read when it comes to me and would probably receive uranium before a compliment. So getting word that I’m talented or talentless strikes me in very different ways. 

Thus it’s been kind of a revelation when I’ve spoken with those I’ve looked up to only to have them tell me they only see the mistakes and shortcomings in what they do. Some of these are individuals considered iconoclasts and legends, but trailblazers across the board. It’s even more inspiring having seen them do what they do with such (seeming) confidence and facility. One of the things I hear most among creative types is that this constant questioning and demand for more and better keeps one honest but also striving. One of the things I hear from the rest of the planet is that this is commonly called beating oneself up. 

Contradictory input seems to be a recurring theme in my life and in my posts here.

So maybe it’s just that lines are blurrier for humans than for most other critters. Maybe, as a friend points out, there is no truth or that if there is, we aren’t destined to know it while we walk the earth. I don’t know. 

But I know that it’s seldom too late to learn. If we want to grow and change, we can. Where we’re blind to things about ourselves, we will have occasion to see. Whether or not we do anything about it is personal choice. 

Again, choice. 

These things to which we’re blind in ourselves are often also the same things that rankle when we see them in others. This has got to be one of the strangest things in human nature. People who cheat on their partners are often the most jealous and demanding. Those who bloviate are aggravated hearing others get on a soapbox. The intolerant criticize this same behavior in others. Or as the Russian proverb holds, don’t blame the mirror for your ugly face.

But it isn’t that we’re ugly souls so much as the fact that we assume we are where we aren’t and gloss over the things about us that are. An absolute gem of a line popped up in an otherwise bad film: “He’s a prince who thinks he’s a frog.”

And this is the beauty of aging: gaining perspective when we let ourselves. There are so many things that are hard to see or accept, but once we acknowledge simply that we’re human and imperfect, once we accept something less than glorious in the mirror, we can begin to accept more. We don’t have the power to change everything about ourselves, we can change a lot. More importantly, we can change how we feel about things. While we can’t change circumstance, we can change how we react to it. 

I was thinking the other day about some past relationships and partners who chose to walk (or run) away rather than work through problems. I’m not excusing myself from issues in those relationships and have certainly been complicit or denied that problems have been there, but these are individuals whose patterns I’ve watched repeat again and again. What a horribly glaring way to see one of those childhood cliches proven: those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. 

As a stubborn cuss who is anything but enlightened, I offer you some small hope at this point. It isn’t impossible to cast ourselves in a different light, see some of those things and then work to change them. Find good friends who you trust to give you the truth and ask about this stuff. There are professionals paid for this. While your friends love you, there is some real benefit to talking with someone who’s not only trained to navigate the psyche but whose concern is your wellbeing. If finances permit, it can be a good choice. But as is the case with all relationships, not all therapists are a good fit for all patients just as there is no one method of teaching that can be applied universally. 

All that written, and as I pointed out recently, it’s definitely time for me to start doing some of this more assiduously. Working on the book has shown me just how far from the person I want to be I am now. But I know I can change. I know that while it’s not fun to see those parts of my character I don’t like, it’s about having the will and dedication to metamorphose. I’ve done it before and will do it again. If I can do it without sagotaging the process or making myself feel bad for not succeeding immediately, then I am indeed learning.

I’ll take that.

The Architecture of Balance / Connection-Disconnection

Being human, thankfully, means that imperfection is built into the equation. We change, forget, assert, guess and demand, but through it all we just kind of cruise along and call it life. For some time now my wacky universe has been out of whack and when it was recently called to my attention that my reactions to things, as well as my decisions when dealing with them, have been unexpected, it finally dawned on me that my own humanity was making an appearance... as well as reminding me that it's time for a change.

In the past I've written that learning for me is a slow process that really means relearning continually. I've also scrawled a bit about my own personal Camelot, that glorious window in my life of calm and contentment. It was the one time I actually felt sane.

So how does this all intersect and is it worth writing about again as well as sitting through for you, the reader? Per usual, I'm just improvising at the keyboard and you're the one who'll have to decide if what's here is drivel, dross or a murky fog concealing actual insight.

As a boy I was painfully -- or gloriously -- unaware of labels or the boxes into which people like to put other people. Being raised around art and hearing from the earliest that those who made art were geniuses and world changers meant that I assumed I was not one of them. Instead I simply did what I did, even when it was deemed odd or went against what most took for my own grain. I was a powerfully emotional little guy whose strong instincts were always being challenged by teachers and the other authority figures in my life who all chanted the same chorus: you're intelligent, so why aren't you letting reason guide you?

But no matter how many times I gave the same answer nobody took it to heart: reason doesn't work for me.

I was taught that people generally do the right thing and that being female meant possessing a specific weakness that required protecting girls and women. But the short history of my time on earth showed me again and again these things weren't true. People most often worked in their own interest and femininity equates (not past tense) with strength. Those world leaders who worked for peace, which to me seemed one of the highest goals, were made fun of and mocked. Artists and musicians were described as fringe dwellers, yet those people who described them this way lauded art and could not go a day without listening to music.

Thus while I was confused anyway, what I was being taught and shown did not make things in any way clearer. So is it any real surprise that I was middle aged before anything like clarity found its way into my paradigm?

So I didn't think it strange that I loved writing, making music, playing sports or spending hours in nature. These things all spoke to something at my core. But with each year those around me told me two things simultaneously and with increasing vehemence: 'you need to focus on your path, but don't change who you are for anyone.'

Huh?!?

It was a strange event that helped to form the man I am now. When I was in college I studied with a published poet, someone whose writing I enjoyed and whose observations inspired me. She asked me to meet her and talk about my writing. When I arrived she was cheerful and encouraging, but she quickly shocked me. "You're a good writer," she said, "but you could be much better. I asked about you and people told me that you play music. Seriously. That you're considering majoring in it. I'd like to tell you that as long as you're serving two masters, you'll never be great at either art. As someone who's read what you've written, I want you to consider writing."

I could not have been more surprised if she had leaned across her desk and punched me in the head.

This had never occurred to me. I enjoyed both pursuits and never thought myself particularly talented in either regard. Music came from an emotional place and writing from a cerebral one. Her statement was well intentioned but jarring. She may as well have told me, "Look, you can have romantic love or agape. Why would you want both? Do you think they coexist?"

I didn't say it, but I was indignant. This came on a a Friday afternoon and -- pardon the pun -- I stewed all weekend.

Then a curious thing happened: I had one of those decisions that makes no sense to me. I had been making music (trying, anyway) for most of my life. I had not gotten serious about writing until I was probably 10 or 11 years old. It may have felt like it, but the reality was that neither of these durations was a great span.

So for a year, I would only do one art or the other. If at the end of that period, I could not live without the other, I'd reevaluate.

Since music had been a part of things for me longer and that it made me feel better, I opted to forego writing. No poetry, no fiction, no essays... nothing but assignments and what was required to function in society.

It was a wildly productive year. Without the split in my brain between where I felt these two parts lived in me being at odds, I made great strides as a musician and specifically as a bassist. A friend told me about something he'd seen on TV, a new type of music school. I immediately contacted The Musicians Institute for literature (ironic!), and weeks later I decided to apply.

Not only was I accepted, but it led to one of the most intense years of my young life. I was constantly working on my technique, playing in bands and recording. Learning while teaching and performing, without the distraction of any other pursuits freed me dive aggressively in and take chances I never had.

But then at the end of that year, something else curious happened. I hit a saturation point. So much had lodged itself in my brain and under my fingers that I just had no desire to play. I needed to decompress and process, not necessarily in that order. At 23 I needed a break from the arts.

For three years to the day, I worked in retail. I took the stage a handful of times in that period, but I didn't teach and I doubt I wrote three tunes. Of course this too led to another crossroads because trying to live like everyone around me didn't work. I'd denied myself the emotional outlet of music and the intellectual release of writing. Trying to be 'normal' was a complete fallacy. What I didn't see and couldn't articulate was that we are all simply different, but much of what we feel is the same. We don't deal with things the same way, but we're told that there is one. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what that is. Dozens of people have told me their solutions but none of them seems to realize that they're different from everyone they address.

So yeah, balance comes for me in fits and starts. And I am out of balance. I forget that balance needs to be tested. Things have to be shaken up. I have to relearn.

For six years I wrote for a music magazine and people told me more and more than I'm a writer. I finally hit a point where I had nothing to offer in my own column, but I'd started working on the book by then. In fact, I've been working on it for almost three years now. When I gave notice at the magazine and dove into my own world building project, there was an initial feeling of relief, as if I'd taken a bunch of pressure off myself. Maybe I had. Pages and pages flowed freely and before I knew it the cabin was littered with reams of writing, covered in research materials and there were paths on the floor from the front door to the kitchen and the bathroom, with a little trail leading to my bed.

When someone pointed out the aforementioned curious reactions and decisions I was making, a few things dawned on me. Slowly. First, a big wave of bass related hate mail crashed over me at almost exactly the same time I decided to resign at the magazine. Second, I really hadn't been making music in any significant way since I'd injured my arm a few years back. I'd worked to get it back into shape, but if and when I picked up my instruments, it was more noodling that creating.

Again, out of balance. Again, slow learning. Relearning.

So all that brings me full circle. It's time to forge a new equilibrium. No matter what else may be true, I'm an artist. There is no way I'll gain enough objectivity to see whether I have what I consider talent, but it's moot. I have these different facets and expressing them makes me feel good. As I'm human and imperfect, I'll no doubt continue stumbling along my way, but that's fine. What's emotional and instinctive lives side by side with what's intellectual and rational. Of course they're at odds. Of course I feel crazy.

But I've had balance and perspective. I've been healthy and had contentment. There was a window where I lived without want. It is absolutely possible to form a new kind of balance. It's just as possible I'll lose it again.

That's just fine. Whatever I am, whatever I'm not, I'm just this guy. Like Howard the Duck, trapped in a world I never made. But for all the hostility and harshness, this is not a bad world. There's beauty all around me. Not just in the grand vistas and great art, but in the small momentary, day to day ways. Little things can be glories. A look or a word might just be perfect in a certain moment.

If you don't see me here or on mainstream social media, I'm working on navigating more smoothly. I'm teaching myself to see a bigger picture and making peace with my place in it. Time to forgive myself for being human and letting go of a lot that's keeping me from enjoying it.

Does this mean I'm going to have Buddha-like equanimity and mythic enlightenment? Probably not in this short lifetime. But it means I hope for good, both within me and in my ability to put that into the world. Will I squelch the snark in me? Doubtful. Will I purge cynicism and sarcasm from my humor? HAH!! But I can be my own enemy a little less, and I can let love both in and out more.

At the very least, I can hope.

There are Worlds Between the Worlds

It isn't that there's been nothing to write so much as time's gotten away from me. I stepped away from one job to try and have more time for writing and music (not necessarily in that order), but time's been gobbled up by life, the living and the dying of it. Bass and the book get their allotment, but it's the day to day that keeps me offline. Ultimately that may not be a bad thing as, let's face facts, the rambling I do here is nothing that needs to be posted (foisted) with any kind of urgency or regularity. And in that spirit, let the blather commence.

The last span has been odd. Yes, even in the context of my lack of life. The fire still burns on the mountain, about 40% contained now. And while we can't see flames lapping up the hillsides, the air is still disturbing. Skies are sometimes orange-grey and air quality is... chewy. Some strange mass has taken refuge in my sinuses, rattling around when I blow my nose or gasp while trying to sleep through the night. Coughing has become a regular part of my functioning. This is not so much a complaint as it is my way of giggling at the fact that the accoutrements of 'old man-ism' are now on prominent display. Maybe it's time to add whippersnapper to the lexicon and start yelling at those kids to get off my lawn.

Actually, the demeanor has changed. I saw a photo of me a couple of years back with what looked like a blossoming bald spot, a patch of thinning hair, and thought I'd just head it off at the pass. Yep, shaved the dome. I could reminisce or opine my locks, but the reality is that it'd been years since anyone other than a coiffeuse or me ran fingers through it. Before I bought clippers, I visited a barber a few times. That was enough window into grumpy old man culture that I not only bought my own depilation apparatus, but I quickly became proficient with it. If you haven't, let me tell you that grooming with two mirrors and learning to instruct one's muscles to operate completely counter to what instinct dictates is quite something.

And if you thought that was exciting, I grew a beard. Not one of those lumberjack accessories that hipsters seem to enjoy, the ones that require combs and oils to maintain, but something like you'd have seen on Sean Connery in decades past. Only without the style or flair of that legendary Scot. But I do have a lot more salt than pepper, and while the women in my life tell me that's very attractive to the fairer sex, I have no evidence to support it.

Which works out just fine. For yes, I crave the company of a woman, but I'm even less in a place to have that in my life than I was before. I have only enough clarity now to know I'm completely off balance and out of whack. Then again, when was I ever in whack?

Life of course seldom lets up with its parade of the strange and unexpected. In a rare moment of peace recently, not one but three of my exes wrote. Not to ask how I am or to see what was up, but to flirt or unveil emotional need out of the blue. Neither of these is a bad thing, but it wasn't anything I saw coming. Of course that may be why they reach out, but I'll never know. And in tried and true fashion, as soon as I reach back, they disappear.

But the deepening invisibility is good for perspective. Taking my vanity out of the mix has meant that I can simply go my way anon. There's a line in an anime film that I adore and I apologize if I've brought it up prior, but a character is in existential crisis. While he's a considered and cerebral figure, he's also known and needed for his less savory skills. When discussing who and what he is versus who he wants to be, he paraphrases a Buddhist poem:

'Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.'

And it's to this I subscribe. It would be lovely to share me with someone who wants to share herself, too, but I think unless things line up just so, this is not a contingency for which I need to account. In all honesty, as I'm never out of love, there's no real need for someone in my life. The pleasantness of a partner or playmate is offset too often by that jarring, jagged weirdness of the blindsiding that occurs when something has come up in her cognition and rather than bring it up for discussion, she simply launches into some strange behavior or diatribe counter to whoever she's been to that point. If I have learned anything it's that this is the point where she's already got one foot out the door and this is the gesture that makes that exit easier and smoother. For her.

So I remain a solo act. I have a life filled with love, but I have no human contact. No canoodling or cahoots. I hug two or three people a year, but I'm more likely to roll around with a dog than caress a lover. I dole out some of the carnal on the written page, and I think there's sensuality -- even sentimentality -- in my music, but none of that is spent easing my own flesh. This is a time for living in my head, not below the neck. Maybe again someday, but not today.

Nope. Off kilter is not something to invite someone to join. Whoever I am now, it's not who I was a few years ago when I enjoyed the company of a lover or the squishier emotions. This person is too impatient and not empathetic enough for a partner. A time when I want attention is the time not to have it. If I feel that, then I have nothing to bring to a relationship. As nice as it would be to receive, I'm too damaged at the moment to give. This is when I need to let go, to find those things that are toxic and send them into the ether. So much needs untethering.

So how's that for a ramble? Sean Connery, Buddhist elephant imagery and a fire that won't stop burning. Sounds about par for this course, for discourse.

Blather While the Mountain Burns

Living in a fringe community, one expects a certain amount out of the ordinary. I've lived in a few and find them much more welcoming than big cities, where I used to thrive. As a young man I lived on an island for a while. Life on a mountain isn't the same as that but it isn't wholly different.

I remember the day I came to see the cabin. Every fifty or so yards on the one little road into town was another warning: mudslides, rock slides, bears and deer in the roads, wildfire. As strange as this is going to read, I knew I was home. More than a dozen years later that's still true, even as a fire required us to evacuate yesterday.

This isn't the first time and I doubt it will be the last. The town's been closed due to snowfall and a few years back we made national news when 9' drifts of mud took out the road and the president actually deemed our tiny town a disaster area. Last summer an arsonist (coincidentally one working in the Fire Service) started a blaze that forced me to return to work on a Friday evening and camp out. Because of all this I started keeping basic supplies in my car a long time back. Last night I was glad the sleeping bag was among them.

But they named this burn: the Valley Fire. Before I left home they had estimated 200 acres had burned. By the time I made it into the flatlands a few hours later it was up to 400. When I finally packed it in last night, 1000 acres were gone. This morning it's still at 0% containment.

Here's where I play the age card. Even though I live in a town with a population that swings between 1000-1200, I found out a few years ago that we actually have a handful of public access webcams on 24 hour feed. A friend told me about them when I was trying to find out about snow conditions one winter, to see if I'd be allowed up the road. So for the last half day I've been able to go online or provide a link for people to get in the moment status on the mountain. Even ten years ago I couldn't have imagined such a thing. As much as I kvetch about the state of things and the direction they're going, I really do think this is kind of a positive. At least in the sense that I can assuage the concerns of some about my situation; they all still know that I'm nuts.

So as I look out at an orange sky that's normally slate and soft pastel purple at this time of day, knowing that I'm going to spend a big chunk of my weekend living at work, I find myself surprisingly not too curmudgeonly. There are reasons to carp if I want them, but why go down that road? I'm awake and alive. The handful of things I managed to bring down the hill other than my clothes mean I have the absolute luxury of writing, reading and making music. If that isn't luckier than I deserve, I don't know what is.

Of course my being here means there could be another incident of online word vomiting before the weekend's gone, so you may not be so lucky.

And so it goes.

Time, Distance and Equilibrium

It's been a while since I sat here to write. Not for lack of desire, but for lack of time. Random life events and unexpected drama mixed with the busyness of my day to day and successfully conspired to keep me from clogging the internet with more of my meandering ruminations. But with my first breather comes this return to the screens of strangers with... what?

Nothing. Genuinely nothing. No planned course for the word flow and nothing to get off my chest or out of the grey matter. Simply a return to the improvised silliness that for some reason makes me feel better.

For someone shy and without a lot of self-confidence who chose to make a living as a performer (funny how that works), there may be a sort of symmetry in my choosing to quietly fade into the background. I've come into that point in my life where I look around and see that years have passed in what I thought were months. Friends' kids are going off to college, starting careers and building families. Some I remember as young people are now homeowners and rising corporate stars. Fans of mine have gone on to stardom. This is wild to see and also gratifying. In a strange way it feels good to be irrelevant.

At the same time realizing I am in the 21st century and that there really isn't a way out of it, I've decided to actively pursue what roleplaying game nerds and authors call world building. For the last few years I've been writing more than what appears here, on others' websites or in the magazine. In my free time (I love and loathe that phrase) I've been working on a story. Initially I was thinking it would be a novel but the deeper I get into the characters and the cosmology, the more I realize it will be a series. I like rereading that sentence because it makes the practical considerations of telling the story sound so pretentious!

To keep my heart in it and to make the rest of my life bearable, I'm scribbling away with no plans to even try and publish. That could change but right now it's just delicious to leave the concerns of the world in the flatlands and sit in a cabin where I can step into a world that's like this one but different. Different horrors, delights, truths and dangers. I don't need to worry about genres or pigeonholing or anything more than letting the characters interact and the events unfold.

So what is it? I don't know how I'd describe it. I've been telling friends it's anachronistic fiction, but the truth is that it has elements of fantasy, conspiracy, philosophy, action and even comedy. There's a bit of intrigue, but what I'm enjoying in the penning of it is the dichotomy between what happens on the page versus the unwritten, the internal life of my protagonist.

Is it autobiographical? I suppose, kind of. I'm not a good enough writer than I know how not to draw from my experience and perspective. Everything in the text is filtered through my brain as much as my hand so I suppose so. The man character is/was an artist and a hermit. He's on a literal and metaphorical/metaphysical journey. There's transformation in the tale, but I'm not going to get into that here.

Instead I'll tell you that this return to the mechanics and logistics of writing, of immersing myself in it whether or not it goes beyond the reams of scrawl in my cabin, has proven cathartic and liberating. Taking myself from the largely right brain creative process of making music to what for me is a much more left brain activity has done great things for how I see and express things. Others around me may disagree, but my inner life is the colorful one now. That's probably what I have most in common with my main character. Our worlds are changing around us, but the only thing that allows either of us to cope is through the struggle of trying to make some sense of what's within. So maybe my work is more paralleling my life than reflecting it?

Dunno. But as I work on that, as I see more gray in my hair and watch more of what I know disappearing from the world, I acknowledge the inevitability of things. I've made my peace with it. I think it's reassuring that the world has no need of me, that I have made some impact and also that the world isn't done with me. It's nice that as I become more and more invisible, I can look around and watch all those things that I can't understand and simply marvel. Then when I'm through with the surreal for a while, I can climb the mountain, close the door to my cabin and return to crafting another world and do my best to tell one story from there.

I was so terrified of change and the unexpected when I was a boy. Now these are among my sources of delight. Another symmetry, perhaps, and one I treasure.

Cynicism, Romance and the Confessions of an Idiot

So I carp a lot. This isn't lost on me. And to anyone who slogs through these words, thank you for persevering and enduring. It is appreciated. This junk is all trapped in my head so being able to put it 'out there' is powerfully therapeutic. I imagine it's either entertaining, disturbing or some mix of the two for you, however.

I repeat: thank you.

I figure rather than pontificate or offer up something like life advice, perspective or whatever what I typically post might be described as, this piece is going to be more about insight into me. You know, the kind of thing that shows you why I write the things I do and why I've made the choices I did. More than usual, I'll wish you good luck getting through the morass.

I've described myself as a grudging romantic. That's not really accurate. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. I love the stuff. I still get choked up watching or reading (or writing) love stories. Love is about as close to religion as I'm going to get. In my case it really is all I need. I have lived for it and I will not be surprised if I die for -- or from -- it. I love love. I was once called a love junkie. That may well be true.

Let that sink in.

If you've read more posts than the one you're pushing through, let that sink in more.

The issue in my case was that I didn't realize until I was in my 40's (yes, you read right) that not everyone has the same idea of love. By that point I'd made the connection that not everyone knows what he or she wants. Okay, most of us don't know what we want... but we think we do. The point here is that what love is to me is not what it is for most people. I kind of wish someone had explained things to me better as a kid, but I don't know that I could have or would have heard.

(Tangent: you begin to see why the conditional tense and I are not friends.)

For me love is what I was taught. It's what I read in books and saw in movies. It's that massive thing. It's Big Love. This means it has nothing to do with reality. In fact my definition of love is divorced from worldly concerns. Love is what makes it possible for me to endure the world.

So all the times I've opined being left or hurt, the truth is that I have really never lived much in the real world. I've had jobs, paid rent, been homeless, etc., etc., but for me it's always been about love. Big Love. If there were problems in a relationship, love would be enough to see us through.

Wrong.

Love was enough to see me through.

I remember vividly the first time a woman I was with told me love isn't enough. I can even remember what I felt. All of it. How could someone say that????

Easy. It was true.

Not for me. It's still not true for me. But now I grasp that the way I see the world is not a common thing. I don't give a shit about much. Looks, money, ambition, career... pretty much meaningless to me. But openness, directness, honesty... these are sacred. Probably because they're unicorns.

It's taken me a lifetime to realize that what someone says may have no bearing on what he or she thinks, feels or believes. I know for most people that's obvious, but I am not most people. And by now you realize that I learn slowly. Sometimes I don't know if I learn at all. For much of my life, I believed what people told me. In other words I led a disillusioned life. I was disappointed, frustrated and confused. A lot. Well, I'm still those things but not for the same reasons. For a long time that disappointment, frustration and confusion brought out a cynical, sarcastic edge. I could put some of that down to going through adolescence in the 80's when cynicism and sarcasm were kind of the way, but that would be inaccurate. I wore that armor as a defense. And I ripped it off every time I ended up in a relationship.

So, yeah, I was left by most of the women in my life. No explanation and no goodbye in most cases. Like many romantics, I saw this as being done to me. I saw me as the victim. That was only true inasmuch as I was naive. I clung desperately to a belief that my view was THE view.

But as I wrote earlier, my view was just my view.

Period.

Does that mean I've embraced cynicism? Am I well and truly sarcastic now?

Quite the opposite. I'm a romantic and I'm open about it. But I don't generally have faith in humans. I just don't. I don't even like most humans. The things I see, hear and read these days hurt me. People are open with hate and hostility. I can't say that things were ever 'golden' but things are different than they were and the direction I see things going scares the hell out of me.

So why would I choose to be a romantic?

Because it's the only fucking thing that makes sense.

Once again, let that sink in.

Take a moment if you need it.

In a world that's gritty and actually uses terms like 'murder porn', where a reality TV star is president of the US, where nuclear war is actually BACK on peoples' minds as a very real possibility, I choose love.

This is not a wide-eyed, puppy love. No. It's me being brutally frank and acknowledging that most people will never see things as I do. It's holding out as a solo act unless I meet someone who actually wants to know me and not be infatuated with some concept of me. It's a part of why I stopped recording and performing music in public. It's a part of why I shaved my head. It's a part of why I'm not particularly social. I make music every day, don't want my looks to be a factor in anything and am happiest when my interactions are one-on-one.

And I don't advocate these choices for anyone. Not for a soul. I choose a solitary life because it makes it easier for me to function. It strips away illusions and simultaneously allows me to spend more time in a world I prefer. The fiction I write is not happy or sappy. But there's humor and affection mixed with the carnage and chaos. My characters live as I would if I had their opportunities or if the world I spread on those pages was the one I wake to daily.

We aren't built to be alone. Not biologically and not sociologically. But most of us aren't built to love the way I do. I've written that I don't know how to fall out of love. That's true. I'm still in love with everyone I've ever loved, but since most of them have cut me out of their lives it makes no difference. I don't hear from them and I rarely see them. Having left social media for the most part, I don't even hear about them anymore. Not really. And I doubt given the chance I would ever be with any of them again. Trust is gone. But I do love them. I always will. And I'll continue to hope for the best for them. It's strange and hurtful to me that the friendships had to end, particularly with no explanation or saying goodbye, but that's life. It just is.

So, yeah, I'll still pen the harder edged comments but now you know that beneath the armor, under the scarred surface, I'm a marshmallow. I'm goopy and sugary. An idiot.

But you know what? Love is all I need. Having felt Big Love, even having lost it a few times, I'll take love over the alternative. I salute those who can live in the real world. They have my undying admiration. But my wiring is different and even if I could change it, I don't think I would. Sometimes the thought of feeling less or hurting less is appealing, but then I think I wouldn't mute the colors of my world. Not if there's a choice.

So I'll take the loss and the derision. The pain is a badge of honor, in a weird way. I may never be with anyone again. But I can live honestly, even if it's as a fringe dweller.

This is not abandoning hope but is actually embracing it. And for someone who lived most of his life as a pessimist, that's saying something.

If life has taught me anything it's that the unexpected is far more commonplace than I ever think. Half a century down and I'm still here. That's something, too.

I'll take that and rise to meet whatever's ahead for me.

Bring it on.

Digital Emancipation and That Kind of Thing

I don't like to threaten. It feels childish, like I'm taking a position on the playground, drawing a line in the sand. Instead I'd rather just state my intent, giving plenty of notice and follow through. So before I shut down my primary social media profile today, I wrote about it there more than a week ago. Throughout the week, even though almost no one saw it, I posted it so that anyone who might see would not be blindsided. Yesterday afternoon I noticed a post from someone I know about people making empty threats about closing their accounts, essentially browbeating them as cowards.

It was all the reassurance I needed to fire up the computer this morning and turn my back on what's become, for lack of a better term, the gauntlet. 

When I first meandered into social media, it was nascent. News boards and forum groups. But it was growing fast into something else. It still is. But back then, more than 15 years ago, my life was different and I was a different person. I wanted attention and I had a career in music to promote. My marriage was breaking down. I spent more time on the road and playing in clubs when I was in town than I did with friends or loved ones. Feeling something like validation in the form of 'likes' and even flirtation fed into that craving. Fostering virtual friendships and seeing the number of followers rise was more than pleasant; it was satisfying. It meant something to me that I had more than 25,000 profiles following mine on MySpace before I left that site. It was no less exciting watching as I quickly maxed out the number of 'friends' I could have on Facebook and having to open a second profile, a music page.

But my life has changed and so have I. The need and desire to take 'breaks' from virtual reality became a bigger thing. The last time I did it lasted years. For the last month I have done a little experiment. Every Monday morning before I left home, I'd open Facebook and scroll through my feed. Each week it took longer to find something I wanted to see. Last week, after an hour of looking, I gave up. What wasn't openly hostile was depressing. Painting politics in black and white or sharing video footage of cruelty to animals. Emojis depicting laughing uproariously were the only commentary and captioning of cell phone captured celebrations of human stupidity. Memes had become more popular than the construction of sentences or coherent thoughts. The only way to have any exchange with actual friends was in private messaging or risk incurring derision from others who've decided that public 'conversation' is really an invitation to be mocked. Or worse.

Again, I don't want this to read like I'm taking a superior position or that I'm slamming social media. I'm not. In fact, I still belong to a few sites. But the reasons I go to them now are not what they were in the past. It's rare that I'm seeking anything more than some momentary diversion or distraction. To do that in some places is like walking onto a shooting range wearing a target. 

It's taken me a long time to build a life that I like. I'll take that over what I generally see online now. I'm too old to decipher the changing vernacular, to decode a language I don't really want to understand. If it's a place you enjoy, I hope you continue to. You'll find me in the world of matter these days, not in the online soap opera and feud factory. 

Except of course that I posted this online. 

To Be This Particular Animal

Normally I sit here and simply vomit words onto the keyboard and ultimately the screen, but I have started this multiple times. My initial intention was to write something lighter, about being a middle aged man who's never been able to make sense of the mixed message that have come at me from society and from women in general. But the truth is no one really cares about that, including me. We're all bombarded by things that make no sense. What a man deals with is nothing compared to the horse shit that comes at women like it's shot from a bazooka. Yet I see some people who are able to simply... be.

Whether it's being told we're not enough, not conforming to some idea of what we're supposed to be (that damn conditional tense again) or just being made fun of for being different, we're besieged by this stupidity. As a man, the messages are confusing and conflicting. As a woman, they're insane and somewhere beyond the far side of debilitating. 

So how are some able to push past all of it and even thrive?

In some cases it's the result of being raised to believe in oneself and having that belief reinforced. This is more than having confidence. It's a synergy of elements and conditions that can put an individual on a positive trajectory.

In some cases it's finding the right partner, be it personally or in one's field of endeavor. That collaboration and support is rare.

But some individuals have none of these things and manage to succeed. How?

The answer, as far as I can tell, is to believe in oneself and in one's goals to the point of simply knowing they're right. This means not getting caught up in the messages of individuals or society to the contrary. 

In some ways this lines up with the earlier post about answers being out there, but I think this is deeper than that which was really about hard work and tenacity. This is more ineffable. Doing all the hard work in the world means nothing if you're not working toward something. 

And this is obviously a lot harder than what we teach children. This requires more than depth of conviction, more than the confidence that comes from training. I'm talking about knowing in one's blood and bones that something is what one's meant to do, that it must be done. In a way this is rising to one's calling. 

No, I'm not on about something so grandiose as starting a religion or saving a culture. This is more about developing into the person one wants to be or creating something, be it in the arts, sciences or manufacturing fields. This is knowing one's truth before ever setting foot on the road of life. This is what we marvel at without ever really stopping to think about what this kind of individual faces in terms of resistance constantly. 

We can all learn from people like this, but in this day and age what I see is much more often a chorus of those trying to bring him or her down. Being different and 'other' should be embraced because it throws light onto what we are not. It shows us that there is another way to be and another way to approach things. 

Yes, I'm aware that I've employed the conditional tense, but this is also the sort of context where that works. 

Maybe next time will be the lighter piece and I can blather about the woes of being a clueless guy who's wanted love and romance and found himself a hermit. Or maybe I'll finally pen something cohesive. This time you got neither.