Becoming Invisible

It isn't bad. It certainly isn't what I imagined. Considering how much of my life has been consumed with a fear of being mediocre, being consumed in anonymity is actually almost reassuring. I thought it would be like drowning, but it's just the opposite. I feel free. Invisible but free.

As a kid I was paralyzed by shyness but craved attention. Both my parents worked and we moved often enough that I didn't have many friends. I've never made friends easily. So I was alone a lot and lived more in my imagination than in the real world. This was fine until those chemical changes started and my drives shifted.

The shyness and desire for attention both became stronger, but so did the poignancy of my being alone. Luckily this was about the same time that we settled down for a few years and I came into a group of friends who accepted me and encouraged my imagination. My shyness was removed from the equation and I was getting attention.

But it was adolescence and I was on my way into young adulthood. Sadly I believed things I was taught and so was ill-equipped when it came to love, romance, sex and the general melee of the man-woman paradigm. Love was all I needed but no one explained that it's only the beginning of what a woman needs to stay with a man. If anyone had told me as a boy that stability and ambition count for a lot more than being a great lover or being a poet, I probably would have just focused on my art and not wasted what's amounted to decades in pursuit of what has only been a satellite to my own life.

Don't get me wrong: the women who've been in the picture have brought color, depth and resonance to my existence. I am grateful and appreciative that they were a part of things for the time that they were, I just wish I'd know that none of them would be sticking around.

It also would have been nice to know that the pain of a woman leaving would always be fresh and brutal.

So now that I've landed in middle age and stepped away from the fracas, removed myself from most social media, I'm left with simplicity. My shyness dissipated long ago and attention is about the last thing I want. A few years ago there were thousands of people following my interweb and career efforts, posting to my pages and reaching out to me constantly. I would get hundreds of notifications daily about things. Women from all over the world thought me interesting enough for all manner of banter and some even broached the possibility of starting something in the real world. My ego was overfed and glutted. I had carved a niche for myself in the musical community and was being invited to perform and to speak in addition to holding down a couple of jobs.

How could I let that go? Why would I??

It was easy. And it was time.

The internet can be lovely. For someone like me who will never make an entrance like Cary Grant, it was a goldmine. One can craft the image he or she wants, develop an entirely different persona than what people see at the day job and there is the luxury of being able to filter communications. Distraction and entertainment are everywhere. Porn is more accessible than data and appearance is more significant than accomplishment. It's a Fellini-Dali dream come to pass.

And it was too much for me. "Be careful what you wish," the wise man cautioned, "for you will surely get it."

I did. And as is the case so often, it wasn't what I thought. All that attention left me more painfully alone than when I was a confused teen. The flirtatious words connected with the enticing photos, real time chatting and the flurry of activity to try and keep up with it all left me cold. I'd shut down the devices and look around me to find no one there with me. Those who moaned and rallied when I announced it was time for me to leave the zoo rarely made any effort to keep up with me. Maybe that last part is what's amazed me the most.

My friends dragged their feet when I embraced social media. By the time they began to find in it what I had, I was over it. I didn't need or want to play games, take surveys or find out what character of (fill in the TV show or movie title) I was. I knew who I was and I know who I am.

I don't have conversations about what's happening on Facebook. The latest wave of hate has no more interest for me than whatever video of a cat or child is making the rounds. People are talking politics and it's getting heated? That's fine.

Maybe someday I'll return to that milieu. I think if I can tone it down and stop the notifications, there might be a time I resume a virtual presence. But until then I will glory in no one writing to tell me what an awful being I am or to demand I give them free things. In real life most women don't initiate contact of any sort so I don't have to reject anyone.

And I'm good with this. No one takes a second look if I'm out walking or standing in line. My phone isn't ringing and the number of texts I get in a month is nominal. It isn't a point of contention that I don't do hands-free calling while I drive. In fact no one is curious when or if I drive. My whereabouts are of no interest to anyone but me. No one seeks out my relationship status. Those things about me which are broadcast to the world are not from me and are all but overlooked.

On some level it would be nice for this blog to find an audience, but I'm simply glad that the documentation exists. That satisfies my vanity and insecurity more than anyone 'liking' something posted online. Let this be an archaeological anomaly, some odd token stumbled upon long after I'm gone.

In the meantime I'm gonna be in the world, wandering unseen between beauty and horror, waiting for sunrises and counting blue moons. It turns out invisibility is everything it's cracked up to be.

The Death of Empathy

I don't know when it happened. No idea if this is a global phenomenon or something unique to the States. I have survived the 'me' decade of the 70's and the cocaine fueled self-centeredness of the 80's, but never have I witnessed anything like what I see daily around me.

I suppose it's one possible outcome of humans being subjective creatures, an illogical inevitability of short-sightedness and conspicuous consumption. Even having changed my life to minimize contact with my fellow bipeds, giving up TV and walking away from mainstream social media, I see it every day. Every fucking day.

I see it in the way people drive, in how they act at coffee shops, in the things I overhear where I work and live, in so many communications I receive. Empathy is gone and compassion is on life support.

This doesn't mean there aren't incidents of loveliness or heroic acts, but these things are becoming more and more rare. I can't remember the last time I heard someone or read about an individual putting him- or herself into someone else's shoes and trying to understand their feelings, choices or actions. No, we live in a time of hair-trigger judgment. Preconception is now as valid as fact. Opinion is king in the land of the self-important. Cruel statements are lauded as brilliance, especially if worded cleverly. And worse, I am now seeing people made fun of for trying to be kind.

As a boy I was cautioned that kindness would lead to people to take advantage of me and ultimately take me for granted. For a long time I never cared because I liked making others happy, seeing them smile and if it was possible, making their lives easier, even for a few moments. But in the last several years I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of people who have asked how I'm doing. This is not an exaggeration.

Do I think there's a solution? Not one I can imagine. Making the world less pleasant has got to be one of the strangest trends I've seen. This from a man who remembers pet rocks and Billy Beer.

None of this is to state I'm a particularly pleasant individual. Ask anyone I've dated. I'm moody, intense and prone to all manner of less than lovely things. But I try and keep my mouth shut when I could spew bile. Venting spleen now is something that happens only when I'm alone or with my best and closest friends. I don't meltdown in public and online. I don't attack strangers. When I'm attacked, if I can't rise above it or confront it with reason, I walk away.

Am I a pacifist? For the most part. But I was taught to fight. And I have friends who tell me I should be in the world and fighting every day. From their perspective this makes sense. From mine it's alien. This is partly because I'm alone and damaged, and partly because I have fought so much. I'm no longer a young man and I'm not wealthy, so I want whatever time I have left to be of quality. Once I reveled in triumph, in victory. That was an accomplishment. But for someone to win, someone else must lose. I don't deny that there are times for conflict or that there are things that are wrong. But I'm an artist and a lover. If people don't like what I do that's fine. It makes me sad for them if they feel the need to belittle me or mock me, but that's their choice. I'd rather just make music and write. If I never perform or publish again it makes no difference. It feels good to me, even if no one hears the sounds or reads the words.

And we live in a time where people don't read. I have a Twitter account mostly as a barometer of what's going on in society. It's getting to the point where I can make neither head nor tail of what people post.

But as I've stated, I'm old. I'm from another century. The values instilled in me are antiquated, anachronistic. This realization has not escaped me. But it saddens me that to be a hacker or an anonymous bully is somehow a badge of honor. In fact, I'm no longer sure the word honor has a place in my country.

Every day I see fewer and fewer decent things, decent in the sense of treating one another like fucking human beings. People make fun of the homeless and lose their minds when it takes two minutes to make their obscure espresso drinks. I don't recall the last time I saw two people holding hands. This is a time when people put their children on the roofs of their cars to open the doors and drive off without putting those kids inside the cars. There are more and more things I just can't grasp in human behavior. Does anyone remember the word humane?

It's heavy-handed and outdated, but there's an episode of the original Star Trek entitled "The Empath" and I encourage every biped who claims to have a heart to watch it. If possible watch it with someone significant to you. It's as simplistic as so much is that attempts to tackle something substantive in a short time, but it's worth the watching. Even if just to plant a seed.

There's an expression I was taught long ago: don't mistake kindness for weakness. As a culture we've lost sight of that. People give compliments as the overture to manipulating and exploiting others. Some days I feel I walked onto a playground where all the kids are pulling the wings off flies. Others I literally wait to see any sort of kind gesture between strangers.

What floors me about this is that all the people who are callous or even cruel will bitch about how no one is kind to them. But I think kindness is not something done for the expectation of reciprocation. That isn't what it is. Giving is giving. Giving to get something in return is something else, something darker.

Maybe I'm weak. I don't think so but I'm wrong a lot. But this may be one of those cases where I don't want to change something in myself. I still feel good when I can make others smile or laugh, if I can ease things even for a moment or two. I will keep trying, even in a world where no one asks "How are you?" anymore.

I'll keep asking.

More of It, Hopefully Not Morbidly

I was a nomad as a younger being, first when my family moved every few years for my father's work, but then later on my own. I went where life led me and would have to think hard to remember how many times I've driven across the country. There's no way I could recall how many times I've flown. But that rootless lifestyle allowed me many experiences, meeting people, seeing things, just experiencing. Like anything else, it had its upsides and its downsides. One becomes adaptable, which can be very good. A certain elasticity in perspective and in the way one chooses to be seldom hurts.

But today I recall a visit to my grandmother as I was relocating from California to New Hampshire. She was in Texas then and I hadn't seen her in a long time. We'd actually begun corresponding and she wrote great letters. I got to see sides of her I hadn't known as a boy and she wasn't ginger in her words.

At that point I'd been a musician professionally for a few years, having dropped out of college to go to music school. To the chagrin of many, I never graduated there either simply because I'd opted not to take any of my tests. I bring this up because she was the first member of my family who asked me to perform. My parents and my brother had heard me practice for years (sorry, guys!) but none of them had heard me in a band or asked me to play a song. She set out some snacks while I hauled in my amp and ran through my warm-ups. It's something I'll never forget.

What was unique about that visit, though, was a conversation we had over dinner. This was in the early 90's, nearly 20 years after her husband had died. I didn't -- and don't -- have many memories of my grandfather but have been told a lot about him. I remember his height, his eyes and his smile, but I don't remember his voice or anything in particular he said. She, in the years since, had never been with anyone else as far as I knew. Curiosity got the better of me and I asked her about it.

"Oh, I've been out with a couple of men but I'm still in love with Mac. Never stopped. And I talk to him all the time."

"Really?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Of course. Just because he's dead doesn't change that."

It's been almost 25 years since that exchange and it continues to resonate. I'm sharing this now because my uncle, one of the few members of my small family, died yesterday. The brain cancer was inoperable but it was complications of pneumonia that did him in. Even so, the suddenness of it took me off guard. I was hoping to visit this summer.

Rory was a bigger than life character, an Irishman who'd played rugby professionally and had one of the quickest wits I've ever known. After the cancer was pulled out of his skull the first time, there was a shift in his perspective (of course) and he went from a wisecracking scoundrel to a positive and concerned individual. Always a great storyteller. An ineffably sweet soul.

As the news hit me yesterday I thought about how long it's been since we'd seen one another. Through a bizarre set of circumstances I'd missed his wedding to my aunt, even though my family had flown cross country to be there for it and I was slated to read at the ceremony. While I still wince at this and it still stings that I wasn't there for one of the biggest days in their life, he never once mentioned it. And he loved to tease. Lovingly. Always lovingly, but he adored teasing. Of all the members of my family, both by blood and marriage, he knew more about my nature than most. And he was the first to defend me when people spoke ill of me.

So am I sad? I'm gutted. Leveled. My first thoughts after the news were all the things I wouldn't be able to say or hear anymore. I thought, like an ass, of myself. It's human, I know, but it's ridiculous. Has his impact on my life been diminished? Have his words been taken from me? Are all those stories gone?

No. Absolutely not. He is still larger than life. In fact, now that he's slipped its bonds he's truly larger than life. I feel like crying but I'm smiling as I can hear his cadence and that little pause while he waited for me to catch up with what he'd just said, seeing if I would laugh and pushing on before I had the chance. This was a man who believed life was for enjoying and that we're all here to learn and support one another, someone for whom family was probably more precious than anything. He was a spectacular friend and a cherished husband.

As I sit before this screen, the early stages of grief creeping over me, I recall my grandmother's words and those of the poet Henry Scott-Holland. Rather than blather further I'll simply leave you with someone else's eloquence.

Love the ones in your life, even when life leaves them.

Overdue. And Grudgingly.

The hope was to drop the kind of piece that you read with a wry smile, the kind that makes you feel smarter and that you might reference casually in a conversation with cool people you've just met. Alack, to quote Jeff Altman, I'm blank as a fart. So instead I'll deal with some of those things I've mentioned previously. Thus I blather on weird, normal and the horror of the conditional tense.

I've been called weird longer than I can remember. Maybe it's the same for you. But I've never seen this as an insult or even as an observation. It's always struck me as the clarion call of someone who clings to one of the more odd words in this language: normal.

I've never understood normal. It's never made sense to me. Someone once told me it has a place in the world of statistics, but I was also told that there are three kinds of lies -- white lies, black lies and statistics.

From the time we're tiny we're told about our uniqueness, that it's what will lead us to success and maybe even happiness if we can embrace it. We're called special and those qualities which do not conform to statistical norms are often praised.

But I think for most of us, we're pummeled and browbeaten with 'normalcy' almost as long. So what the hell is it?

Most people who use the word tend to fling 'weird' as a weapon. It's a quick way to point out, "You're different from me and that makes me uncomfortable." But I think this is odd. This may be one of those times that my cockeyed upbringing and vagabond life allows me an alternative viewpoint which may -- or may not -- serve to illuminate.

Our house was a wild place when I was growing up. My folks are from different races, countries and cultures. Dad's a cowboy with roots in Scotland and Texas who spent time in the navy and has been a corporate titan for most of his adult life, a man who has denied himself little in terms of experience or adventure. Mom's an elegant yogi and gourmet cook who grew up in India under British rule but left her homeland to work in American magazines before she was out of her teens, by which time she's already graduated university. They are both brilliant in very different ways. And our home played host to the most incredible cross-section of humanity.

No one was ever called weird. This was our normal.

We lived on the East and West Coasts, in the Midwest and in the South. My brother and I attended public schools and private schools. We made friends and dated. We spent a lot of time alone. We were taught to pursue whatever we believed in as long as it was sincere and not something done for some frivolous reason. Whether we were into photography, cars, film, collecting comics, roleplaying games or what have you, it was all fine. Curiosity was encouraged as was tolerance. The word hate was frowned upon as was any kind of condescension. Learning was important to my parents, but understanding was paramount. Dad taught us practicality and logic. Mom never let us forget that the arts show us all humans aspire to be.

Consequently we were culture shock for many, just as we encountered culture shock in many of the places we moved. British raised Mom had a hard time assimilating into 70's Southern California. Moving to Kentucky from Connecticut when I was a teen provided me with a lot of challenges, but my younger brother embraced it.

You live and you learn. Very few of us can predict what our path will be, and that unexpectedness gives us the chance to be more than we are. We can grow and change. Wisdom may actually occur.

But then again, how many of us are weirdos?

I have marveled at the things I've been called and about the assumptions people have made of me. Hearing "Sand nigger!" screamed at me and a half full bottle of beer hurled along with it during the height of Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield while walking back to work from lunch in Westwood was surreal. Being told that people thought I was a cult leader and a male prostitute were nothing I could have imagined. Having people spit on me when I was a boy because I looked different or because of who my parents were was baffling.

But I'm weird.

So maybe what I consider normal is weird to some. To many? Weird to me is intolerance and closed-mindedness. The exclusionary is not what I want to be normal. People who believe hate resolves anything, that hate is 'normal', scare me.

Don't worry, I'm not going to resolve anything or draw any conclusions. But I am going to meander over to another pet peeve of mine. Yes, the conditional tense. Would, could, should, supposed to... EVIL!!!!

The conditional tense is wonderful for teaching ethics. Knowing what you should and shouldn't do is important in a world where bipeds must interact with one another. The problem is the real world where things are done or not done. What could have been done is moot. Someone knowing better means nothing.

I don't know about you but I can't count in the course of a day how many people moan about things in this nebulous abstract realm. Is there actually any point in talking about hypotheticals in one's day to day? If you're alone and balancing options to make a plan, maybe. Sitting with friends and analyzing a political speech or the choice of an athlete, though? Mm-mmm. Nope. Making a joke? Totally. Killing time and filling the air with meaningless words? No thanks.

It's easy to look back at something that happened and wonder about a different course, another decision. But you know what? It already happened. If you're thinking about what you might do next time, cool. File it away in your cerebral rolodex and speak of it no more.

I realize these are idiosyncrasies and neuroses, that most people don't get hung up on adjectives and verbial forms. But you're reading this which means you accept I'm a nut bag and you're reading anyway. Thank you for humoring me. Rant done.

For now.

Holidays, Half a Century and a New Year

Yep. It happened. That thing that makes middle age definitive. I turned 50. 

I could carp and kvetch about how old I feel or how life is just not fair or anything along those lines, particularly in light of the last several months leading up to the event itself, but why bother? Is it going to change anything? Will I somehow magically feel better about the state of my life and me smack in the middle of it?

Nope. Not even a little. So instead, I'll do what I've been doing for these posts since I returned to the blog: ramble extemporaneously and hope that something cohesive comes from it!

Or something.

I don't live extravagantly but I do allow myself indulgences. Sometimes that means food. Occasionally it's an instrument. Once and a while I take a sanity day just to stay on the mountain and enjoy the quiet. But the fabric of my life is nothing too fancy for the most part. Nope, I try to stay down to earth. 

But for the 50th, marking two decades of life I never expected to see, I wanted to do something nice for myself. A little vacation in the midst of the inevitable end of the year craziness. So I researched for a couple of months and found a place not too far, not too expensive, but beautiful and with a chef reputed to be one of the best in the area. Huzzah! Plans finalized, reservations were made unreservedly.

Which meant getting the flu the night before I was to leave. Of course. Not the end of the world, certainly, but still a bummer. So rather than enjoying new vistas and gourmet fare, I plied myself with juice and water while going through unbelievable amounts of tissue paper. How a human body can produce so much gunk without completely shutting down is beyond me, but as a writer I suppose it's good to know these things. Regardless, the fever and ache reduced me to getting around like a nonagenarian, unable to read, write, watch TV or do much more than wheeze. And think. 

I thought a lot. 

Yes, it would have been great to get away with someone special and enjoy the indulgence but just turning to my window reminded me I'm surrounded by beauty. Cards had come in the days before the malady and on the day itself there were texts and emails. For a guy huddled and freezing under three layers of winter clothing, the cockles of my heart were indeed warmed and warming.

In 50 years I've had great love, legendary romance, ridden a motorcycle absurdly fast, been on the cover of a magazine, become a part of a community and heralded as a voice in it... the list is long. And it is absolutely more than I deserve considering the drama monger I've been for the majority of my life. 

But the beauty is that we don't get to decide how we're seen or what comes our way. Life does. Others do. For all the time I spent hating myself and thinking I'm not good enough, there have been others trying to convince me just the opposite is true. For the decades I worked hard to be respected or taken seriously, when I stepped away from all that to instead just do what I love, what makes me happy, that validation came. 

I would love to say that this means something and that I have wisdom to impart to you (assuming anyone's reading this), but I think it just comes down to doing what you believe in with no thought of anything more than doing the best you can. For your own peace of mind. Maybe you'll be rewarded. Maybe you'll live and die in obscurity.

And at the end of the day it doesn't matter. Can you put your head on your pillow before falling asleep with a clear conscience? If you can, you're in good shape. If you can't you're not likely someone who'd be reading this anyway.

It's not hard to get caught up in the expectations of others, in a life spent second guessing rather than just acting. That's human. And we are all human. Sometimes we see things clearly and other times that's about impossible. We can be as giving as we are selfish. But it's about doing the best we can and not tearing ourselves apart when we don't succeed in the ways we want. 

My life has kindly offered me moments of wonder, incidents that pulled me from my own limited view to see that others see and feel things very differently than I imagined. Once was a crying fan in Whitefish, Montana who thanked me for bringing good music to her town. She was talking about the band I was a part of but I am so grateful every day of my life since that she chose me to convey her message. Another time was a message from a musician in eastern Europe who wrote at length how I was his musical hero. None of us knows who we are to someone else. 

Would I live differently if I never had either of those moments. Yep. Absolutely. I do what I do to stay sane. Being alone, the priorities are different. But I am so thankful that those moments, and more than I can easily count, have happened. Not because I feel special, but because they ground me. They humble me.

When I was 15 and had not been playing bass too long, I was listening to a recording that my teacher had recommended. It was a kind of music that I'd never really heard before. I wasn't sure what to make of it intellectually. But at one point I started feeling... funny. I don't know that I have a word for it even at this point. But something was different than it had been before. It took a few seconds before I realized I was crying. I was weeping, right there in my parents living room in the middle of a weekday afternoon. I could tell you the song and what point in the recording, as well as the personnel in that session, but there isn't any reason. I had been touched emotionally and in that moment I knew I wanted to be able to do that same thing. I didn't know if I would be able to, but that was what put me on the path. 

And even when it was tough and sacrifices have been made, when I didn't achieve the things I wanted when I wanted them, I have no regrets. Zero. Just the one decision, the one realization, made it possible for me to strive. For me that's what it's about. Success is lovely. It's great. So is getting paid. But I'll tell you flat out that nothing has come close to hearing I'm someone's hero, to having a fan tearfully thank me for something that I was a part of. 

I hope there are more birthdays, with or without others to share them with me. I hope there's sex and romance and laughter and a ton of stuff. But I'm pretty good with what I've seen come to pass so far.

No, I'm really good with it. I'm honored. 

Mindless Blather and Inane Twaddle, Redux

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

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

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

Surreal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except here.

Damn it.

The Inevitability of Bafflement

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

"Pain stems from desire," the Buddha cautioned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to the pointlessness at hand: desire and fulfillment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make more sense?

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

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

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

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

But that's desire and not reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I still want.

Damn it.