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2007-02-24 - 4:10 p.m. - Today I was reminded of several things over the course of a fairly short period of time. The first thing I was reminded of is that you can never know that anger towards someone who is not present will remain more or less harmless; they have a strange way of popping up in vital situations, and then you freeze. I suppose if they weren't popping up in a vital situation we'd simply ignore or roll over them without a second thought, but the vitality of it forces us to take notice. So it's not so strange. A guy I weight-trained with in highschool who wasn't paying attention when he was supposed to be spotting was at a little Tetris-related get-together today and I responded poorly; I froze, my mouth said foolish things and I put my head back in my book until it stopped. I am fond of reminding my associates at work to lift all weights, however insignificant the amount, with proper legs-not-back technique because -- as any of them can repeat tiredly -- "back injuries are forever". I say this because of the guy who was there today, and have thought of him in some capacity or another for the last decade of having my back randomly spazz out and decide that I'm not getting out of bed for a couple days. I was still in the process of responding less well to that than I would have liked when one of the guys there stood up to leave for work. On his way out, he kissed the person who invited me there, with whom there's been sort of the open question of involvement for the past few weeks. Apparently the question was on my end, and I don't know what to think about that; I've never misinterpreted things quite this badly before, I don't think, and I am worried that perhaps now that I am getting out into the real world of older people who have been out socializing while I've spent the last seven years tearing myself apart and rebuilding with proper materials, maybe I don't know how things work with people anymore. Realistically, there are no magical changes and since I still understand the ever-increasingly complex friends that I've kept for years on end, it seems reasonable to think that perhaps I just don't understand the place where they are right now. One of the guys was having trouble with a simple math game (When I say simple, I mean subtraction of a one-digit number from a two-digit number), the others were putting out large words but cautiously and clumsily, like unfamiliar chemicals handled through thick gloves. That said, I know at one of them could knit, another could crochet, and two of them could play multiple instruments. I am having an extraordinary amount of difficulty learning to knit and have not since college managed to make myself sit down and play the instruments I used to enjoy; discipline, other than what I apply to the ongoing autodemolition and renovation, is so hard for me when it's neither painful nor entertaining but only tedious. I think I have also failed a friend, entirely aside from that. Someone sent me an IM after I'd gone to bed one night, when I'd forgotten to turn off AIM. I had no idea how to respond to it since I'm mildly intimidated by them as it stands. The best I could come up with was to send a message to someone I thought might have something helpful to say who was present in their real, physical life. That's not true though. The best I could come up with would have been to say something and be there as best I could, like friends do. The best I did was to hand it off to someone else, and now they're simply not around to talk to anymore. I question my progress as a person so very much this past month. There are moments when I feel that I will inevitably be more than I am, and moments when I feel like I am living those realizations; like I am already immeasurably more than I have been in the past, shining with a light all my own. This is not one of those times. I have taken up running in a continuing effort to combat the purely chemical side of unhappiness, and it's working fairly well. Days on which I run, I spend the rest of the day with heightened energy, good banter with the people around me, and a smile for passerby. Days that I don't run, I still have those things, but it's an effort, and I like it when positive things are effortless. So I run, and I run, and I run until standing up from my chair leaves me off-balance and staggering with muscles like cold chewing gum, stiff and sweating inside. I am also noticing how very strongly religion has shaped my expectations for success. The song of accomplishment that makes me catch my breath is Tool's "10,000 Days". "You're the only one who can hold your head up high / Shake your fist at the gates saying: I have come home // Fetch me the spirit, the son, and the father / tell them their pillar of faith has ascended // it's time now, my time now / give me my, give me my wings". You know what gets me? It's mockery. It's sarcasm. It's about me. Camus said, "How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits." It's religion, it's a way of thinking and selectively ignoring your own acts. It's me. I have so very far to go.
DLand |