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2006-09-16 - 4:56 p.m. For Helen, Who Already Knows I am considering the very real possibility that my weakness for heroism -- particularly acts thereof in vain -- may be having a distinctly negative effect on my psychological growth. Bear with me here, it all makes sense at one end or the other, though how it smells may be distinctly different. A wise someone who writes for chinamatters.blogspot.com characterized George Bush as constantly seeking a master stroke that perpetually eludes him due to short-sightedness and some other flaw that eludes me at the moment. It got me thinking about panaceas, master strokes, and fel swoops as well as the ways in which they affect your life and the choices that are clearly not going to end in glory. I have always envied a hero's clarity; good is almost always easy to determine, and is at least always revealed at climactic moments even if you were initially mistaken about its identity or intentions. I have always envied a set of choices that span the gradiant of "amazingly active choice" to "moderately active choice", all set against complete inactivity as a sucker's fallback. Real life is lived as a slow progression of quiet choices that may or may not have a visible effect on our lives regardless of their position in anyone's moral compass. No one applauds, there is no alignment shift, and regardless of the direction that you choose there will most likely be no gain whatsoever. I found a checkbook in the parking lot today on my way out of the restaurant. At first I walked past it, but then I had second thoughts. Someone else might pick it up, at which point the original owner might never see it again; they might even simply drive over it on their way out and no one at all would ever see it. This is the story of why I got a lot of weird looks handing over a full book of blank checks and banking information to a confused waitress in the middle of lunch rush. Maybe one of them will make a slightly better choice today as a result -- no way of knowing. No orchestra, no "thank you" -- it's just life being itself in a typically roughshod way. This time it was to someone else and I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that next time there's a good chance it'll be me. Well, except that I sort of expect that sort of thing and my checkbook does not leave my house, but you get the general idea behind the above paragraph. I'm finally back at work and it feels amazing to have some concrete approval in my life. It's very difficult to meet the normal goals for the position with half the staff, but we're working there and my presence makes a difference. I'm a low-grade hero to several people whose lives would be almost imperceptibly more negative without me around. My head is slowly coming back together or slightly apart, whichever metaphorical phrase seems more apt. My thoughts are scattering again instead of clustering in a corner waiting to be shut off at the end of the night, and while my writing has not only rusted but actually mildewed, molded, and deteriorated into a fine film .. It's a start. I have a clean start and the makings of good habits and a chance to do things differently if only I can figure out what things I would like to change to. I'm going to learn to swing-dance, and I'm going to collect the woodworking tools that I will need to construct and delicately warp my bench into existence. I will save money so that I can buy my way into a duplex or actual home so that there is a garage in which to keep these tools properly on a pegboard and locking tool-chest. I will design and plant a garden so that this bench will overlook something more beautiful than a simple property line, and I will build it all myself. If I thought I had the time I would go into construction just to make the first few steps easier on the pocketbook and the sense of triumph on completion all the sweeter, but I don't know that I do (have the time). There are books to be read and thoughts to be brilliantly thunked that have been waiting and I will find them all. I will find the Two and I will apologize to them both and then continue toward my bench because it's small enough to hold always in my heart and the larger people get the more complicated they become and I question my abilities with people so very much after this. What a stupid set of reasons for losing even a small amount of hope, but how understandable they are! "My life is a penance", I told Brianne once. She said that was a stupid way to live and no one who cared about me would want that to be true and I understood but it didn't touch me. The real and frightening truth that I did not tell is not that I am in penance but that I do not know how to live any other way; this is not necessarily what or all I am good for, extracto dramatis, but it's what I know. I am looking at Tuesday Night swing-dancing as the next skill-quest. Then I will learn Spanish as a venue to ease my entrance to Italian and then I will smile because I have vastly lowered my chances of suffering irreparable linguistic damage in a stroke -- it's true, polyglots have better recovery rates. Look it up, goddammit, I don't have time to convince you and I don't have the numbers or citations so you can find them yourself. My devotion is questionable. I do not know that you would be flattered in the slightest by this body of work. Nine hundred and sixty-two doll heads shaped into a giant cast of your face's imprint in my mind would still be doll heads and creepy; where does quasi-obsessive prose sit in the standings? Life is fair, life does not care who you are. Life is not a problem, nor are its contents. Our goals are the problem because our goals map our paths and our paths reveal the obstacles. Change goals and your obstacles will shift, even if only slightly. Why can I not take the advice that I believe?
DLand |