In a perfect world, I would actually fit in my own skin.
In a perfect world, home would follow me wherever I went.
In a perfect world, comfort would be a given reality, not an abstract concept.
In a perfect world, I could have ice cream for dinner and pizza for breakfast with little consequence.
In a perfect world, my little corner of the world would be safe, warm, and perpetually bathed in a soft light.
In a perfect world, I would not only be loved, I would feel loved.
In a perfect world, the moments of sadness would correspond to sad things that happen.
In a perfect world, I would feel like a priority. To someone, to anyone.
In a perfect world, sleep would be plentiful, worries would be few and far between.
In a perfect world, I would not just realize my good fortune, I would live it.
In a perfect world, I would never be in a hurry.
In a perfect world, every little thing would not be of life-or-death importance.
In a perfect world, I would be more focused on the well-being of others than of myself.
In a perfect world, I would have myself and that would be enough.
In a perfect world, I would have someone to hold my hand when I am eighty.
In a perfect world, I would not feel the need to write lists like this.
In a perfect world, I would be a better person.
In a perfect world, I would not be perfect and that would be okay.
In this world, I need to find a way to peacefully co-exist with me.
Enough complaining.
Tomorrow the funny-ha-ha's return.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Being alone is simpler. Being alone is more complicated.
These phrases likely ring true for every condition in life (Something about "the foliage being more verdant in someone else's domain..." or something). However, as I do not know much about any other condition in life, I cannot really speak to it.
There it is. The "oh woe is me." It was inevitable. Now that it is out of the way everyone can rest easy. The rest is just logical progression. Tune out now. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Being completely honest - I have not always been alone. Rather, I was not always a singleton as I am now. There was a four year block of time where I belonged to someone. However, in all rational contemplation of that phase of "belonging", I probably was never more alone. In all the world, there is nothing more lonely than feeling alone when you are with someone. Such a feeling in such a situation is so unnatural that its undeniable bob to the surface of your consciousness simultaneously sets off alarm bells and yet causes you to cling to the other person more tightly. The human life raft - saving you from certain drowning or sailing you ever closer to the inevitable waterfall? The questions abound. I am with him. I feel alone. What is wrong with me? Wrong question. What is wrong with him? Once the right question has been asked and the inevitable answer surmised, the path is clear. You walk away. You tentatively pace off into the sunset. You plaintively look back, but you keep moving forward. You save yourself. Loneliness is not to be tolerated indefinitely. Something has to give.
After the long day's journey into night, there you stand. Alone. Wholly alone. Yet you do stand. Whole.
This is the fact that is easy to lose sight of.
Often I feel weak. I cry. I complain. I sigh. I mull. I complicate. I make a scene. I cry some more. But at the end of the day, I am still standing. I stand on my own. I may waiver. I may always feel broken, but I do not break.
"Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."
I am not alone now. I have no life companion. Hell, I don't even have a late Saturday night companion. Well, not usually. But I am not alone. I am blessed with friends of a caliber which I am not sure what I ever did to deserve (if I deserve them at all). The universe has a supreme sense of humor about a lot of things - often injecting irony at incredibly inconvenient times - and yet, it always takes care of me. There are many shortcomings to my family structure - at least as far as dealing with my sensitivities. Granted, such sensitivities are highly acute and truly unwarranted most of the time ("Chicken Little - The sky is falling!"), however, they are what makes me "me." My parents are befuddled and bewildered in the face of this. They always have been. Bless their hearts, they hang in there, but they will never understand.
So to make up for it all, the universe gave me this: my sister, my friends, my health, and my fortune (as in luck, not as in money). My friends make me feel like "me." No, that's wrong. They make me feel like me (no quotation marks necessary, no explanations necessary, no impressive verbiage necessary, no questions asked, no apologies needed, gloves off, dirty jokes appreciated, fine bottle of wine shared, cards slid under doors, flowers sent at the most appropriate times, listening to the same schpiel for the millionth time and still saying all the right things, unselfish to a tee). Actually, there it is. My friends are always themselves and in being themselves, they are all, collectively and individually, the most unselfish people I know. Whereas I have difficulty in seeing my own hands sometimes through the mists of my own angst that I allow to envelope me, I have, on so many occasions, had my friends reach out to me and offer me comfort and shelter in a time when their own pain was residing a little too close for comfort. If that is not love, I don't know what is.
Lucky, lucky, lucky me.
As of this moment, to my continual disappointment, I am not capable of being that unselfish, that giving. I can only hope to learn. A lifelong love of my own eludes me, most likely, because I am not ready for it. I don't know how. I am still learning. For now, I recognize my own shortcomings and hope that in surrounding myself with the unequaled generosity and all-embracing, unquestioning love of my friends, that such ingrained traits may find their way to my heart someday.
For now, the focus is to lessen burdens. On myself. On others.
Opportunity knocks. Fortune smiles. Love is.
Given all this racket they are making and the attention they are drawing to themselves, it shouldn't be too hard to find them....
These phrases likely ring true for every condition in life (Something about "the foliage being more verdant in someone else's domain..." or something). However, as I do not know much about any other condition in life, I cannot really speak to it.
There it is. The "oh woe is me." It was inevitable. Now that it is out of the way everyone can rest easy. The rest is just logical progression. Tune out now. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Being completely honest - I have not always been alone. Rather, I was not always a singleton as I am now. There was a four year block of time where I belonged to someone. However, in all rational contemplation of that phase of "belonging", I probably was never more alone. In all the world, there is nothing more lonely than feeling alone when you are with someone. Such a feeling in such a situation is so unnatural that its undeniable bob to the surface of your consciousness simultaneously sets off alarm bells and yet causes you to cling to the other person more tightly. The human life raft - saving you from certain drowning or sailing you ever closer to the inevitable waterfall? The questions abound. I am with him. I feel alone. What is wrong with me? Wrong question. What is wrong with him? Once the right question has been asked and the inevitable answer surmised, the path is clear. You walk away. You tentatively pace off into the sunset. You plaintively look back, but you keep moving forward. You save yourself. Loneliness is not to be tolerated indefinitely. Something has to give.
After the long day's journey into night, there you stand. Alone. Wholly alone. Yet you do stand. Whole.
This is the fact that is easy to lose sight of.
Often I feel weak. I cry. I complain. I sigh. I mull. I complicate. I make a scene. I cry some more. But at the end of the day, I am still standing. I stand on my own. I may waiver. I may always feel broken, but I do not break.
"Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."
I am not alone now. I have no life companion. Hell, I don't even have a late Saturday night companion. Well, not usually. But I am not alone. I am blessed with friends of a caliber which I am not sure what I ever did to deserve (if I deserve them at all). The universe has a supreme sense of humor about a lot of things - often injecting irony at incredibly inconvenient times - and yet, it always takes care of me. There are many shortcomings to my family structure - at least as far as dealing with my sensitivities. Granted, such sensitivities are highly acute and truly unwarranted most of the time ("Chicken Little - The sky is falling!"), however, they are what makes me "me." My parents are befuddled and bewildered in the face of this. They always have been. Bless their hearts, they hang in there, but they will never understand.
So to make up for it all, the universe gave me this: my sister, my friends, my health, and my fortune (as in luck, not as in money). My friends make me feel like "me." No, that's wrong. They make me feel like me (no quotation marks necessary, no explanations necessary, no impressive verbiage necessary, no questions asked, no apologies needed, gloves off, dirty jokes appreciated, fine bottle of wine shared, cards slid under doors, flowers sent at the most appropriate times, listening to the same schpiel for the millionth time and still saying all the right things, unselfish to a tee). Actually, there it is. My friends are always themselves and in being themselves, they are all, collectively and individually, the most unselfish people I know. Whereas I have difficulty in seeing my own hands sometimes through the mists of my own angst that I allow to envelope me, I have, on so many occasions, had my friends reach out to me and offer me comfort and shelter in a time when their own pain was residing a little too close for comfort. If that is not love, I don't know what is.
Lucky, lucky, lucky me.
As of this moment, to my continual disappointment, I am not capable of being that unselfish, that giving. I can only hope to learn. A lifelong love of my own eludes me, most likely, because I am not ready for it. I don't know how. I am still learning. For now, I recognize my own shortcomings and hope that in surrounding myself with the unequaled generosity and all-embracing, unquestioning love of my friends, that such ingrained traits may find their way to my heart someday.
For now, the focus is to lessen burdens. On myself. On others.
Opportunity knocks. Fortune smiles. Love is.
Given all this racket they are making and the attention they are drawing to themselves, it shouldn't be too hard to find them....
Thursday, May 13, 2004
The legal profession, it seems to this keenly interested observer, lacks for even an ounce of proactivity. Your basic-model four door, two-suit lawyer, comes with a capacity for generating infinite over-thought pseudo-intellectualized ways of saying "Would you like fries with that?" Accompanied by a limitless capacity to complain about it. Lawyers are, regardless of gender, as a rule, never men of action. Words, words, words. They get caught up in the spiraling thinking of Hamlet, and considerations of the meditations of Polonius. They ruminate, they cogitate. However, under no circumstances do they act, at least not until Time or some other pesky law of nature forces their hand.
Is it really any wonder that the attorney suffers an insurmountable paralysis in life? Put "esq." after your name and you have committed yourself to a chosen profession where you can spend a lifetime working at perfecting your craft and still just be "practicing." Reach the pinnacle of what you do - zealously advocating at every opportunity - and you will forever and always simply be "trying" cases. Do lawyers actually "do" anything? Or are they perpetually warming up for the big game, so to speak? Loitering around the on-deck circle - watching the seasons pass. Apparently, lawyers get pretty fired up about those exhibition games - in that they act out a bit in such situations and actually "take" or "defend" depositions. And of course, surely as the sun will rise, there is action to be found amongst the pursuit of lucre as lawyers will always affirmatively "bill" time. Mainly, however, they just do a lot of talking about action, complaining about it really, in that they "object", "complain", "oppose", "demur" and "reply." They are forever gesticulating - "motion"-ing to "strike", to "compel", to "dismiss." But still, these are just wild movements designed to attract the attention of others, to get someone else to make a move, to make a decision. To act. Without question they "settle" - but not often, and never early. They "continue" till it is almost too late. They "discover" and "demand" and "draft" but, under no circumstances do they, "do."
Wonder if anyone actually ever gets those fries. Bet they're not even super-sized.
168 hours in a week. Fair amount of time. General rule of thumb - more of that time should be spent sleeping than complaining. Otherwise hysteria ensues. Correction - otherwise unfettered hysteria ensues.
In my little corner of the world, drama is ever-lurking. When I don't sleep, the dramedy (painful at the time, laughably ridiculous in retrospect) of it all takes center stage; Thing is, it can't act, and always leaves the paying audience wanting more. Good thing they had to check their tomatoes at the door with their coats.
Mandatory nap times for all.
zzz ...
Is it really any wonder that the attorney suffers an insurmountable paralysis in life? Put "esq." after your name and you have committed yourself to a chosen profession where you can spend a lifetime working at perfecting your craft and still just be "practicing." Reach the pinnacle of what you do - zealously advocating at every opportunity - and you will forever and always simply be "trying" cases. Do lawyers actually "do" anything? Or are they perpetually warming up for the big game, so to speak? Loitering around the on-deck circle - watching the seasons pass. Apparently, lawyers get pretty fired up about those exhibition games - in that they act out a bit in such situations and actually "take" or "defend" depositions. And of course, surely as the sun will rise, there is action to be found amongst the pursuit of lucre as lawyers will always affirmatively "bill" time. Mainly, however, they just do a lot of talking about action, complaining about it really, in that they "object", "complain", "oppose", "demur" and "reply." They are forever gesticulating - "motion"-ing to "strike", to "compel", to "dismiss." But still, these are just wild movements designed to attract the attention of others, to get someone else to make a move, to make a decision. To act. Without question they "settle" - but not often, and never early. They "continue" till it is almost too late. They "discover" and "demand" and "draft" but, under no circumstances do they, "do."
Wonder if anyone actually ever gets those fries. Bet they're not even super-sized.
168 hours in a week. Fair amount of time. General rule of thumb - more of that time should be spent sleeping than complaining. Otherwise hysteria ensues. Correction - otherwise unfettered hysteria ensues.
In my little corner of the world, drama is ever-lurking. When I don't sleep, the dramedy (painful at the time, laughably ridiculous in retrospect) of it all takes center stage; Thing is, it can't act, and always leaves the paying audience wanting more. Good thing they had to check their tomatoes at the door with their coats.
Mandatory nap times for all.
zzz ...
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Is it possible to be a philosopher when one has no philosophy? In chiseling one's philosophies into cyberspace (if such an etching in the space-time continuum is in-fact at all permanent), the question looms: Do you have an obligation to make a point?
Filling space is not an objective. Outsourcing all of one's angst - while useful in preventing the need to sniff glue, scream incessantly, or call a bad-for-you boy for companionship, in order to relieve some of the stress of everyday life - will probably be more embarrassing than enlightening in future years to come.
"Isn't it true that this phrase you wrote here, 'call a bad-for-you boy for companionship' is a thinly veiled reference to what is colloquially called a 'booty call' or in other words relations of, well, a sexual nature?"
"Yes, Senator, that would be correct..."
I guess it seems that Janet Jackson and I have both blown our chances at becoming attorney general this year. Ah, long hours, bad pay, questionable photo opps. Don't need it.
Have enough trouble with the paparazzi as it is.
Surprising, considering I often feel like my work/gym/dash of sleep here-and-there routine is not exciting enough to merit a plum role on a reality show cast. This is my way of coping with being too old for the "Real World." Damn. Going to have to find another way to million-dollar-fame-over-exposure.
Wizened 26.
Okay, in the interest of making some pithy observations to justify my ramblings (read: to have a point other than the one on the top of my head):
The way to measure the adoration-adulation-appreciation factor of a job --> exactly how much cocktail conversation you can make about what you do in life to pay the bills before your partner in conversation reflexively rolls their eyes. [Tip: Taxidermists & Corporate Attorneys - Accept the truth and just tell people you are a bounty hunter, or even an accountant, anything but...]
The way to measure the hype-hipness-faux high art factor of a life --> whether you have enough material for a half-way motivated, intermittently-competent writer to craft a Lifetime docudrama of the events that made up the cinema-verite of you on this great stage. [More glamorous - a full out VH1 Behind-the-Music show - especially cool and accomplished if you didn't happen to sing *or* present a reasonable facsimile of lipsynching (though it won't count as much if you happened to have a sensational mid-riff).] [Within the realm of acceptability - a 10 minute Dateline segment, especially if Stone Phillips actually introduces it.]
In such a tizzy to be didactic and poignant (is such a combination the first indication of schizophrenia?), I have broken my own cardinal rule. Never make pop culture references in writing. It dates the word. Makes them temporal. Hate that. Feel like it means the author doesn't have anything deeper or more meaningful to say.
Then again, maybe I don't. Not at this juncture.
Will plunge back into faux-depth tomorrow.
For today, abject silliness is the golden rule.
Levity. Laughter. Luck. Lollipops. Simple pleasures abound.
Filling space is not an objective. Outsourcing all of one's angst - while useful in preventing the need to sniff glue, scream incessantly, or call a bad-for-you boy for companionship, in order to relieve some of the stress of everyday life - will probably be more embarrassing than enlightening in future years to come.
"Isn't it true that this phrase you wrote here, 'call a bad-for-you boy for companionship' is a thinly veiled reference to what is colloquially called a 'booty call' or in other words relations of, well, a sexual nature?"
"Yes, Senator, that would be correct..."
I guess it seems that Janet Jackson and I have both blown our chances at becoming attorney general this year. Ah, long hours, bad pay, questionable photo opps. Don't need it.
Have enough trouble with the paparazzi as it is.
Surprising, considering I often feel like my work/gym/dash of sleep here-and-there routine is not exciting enough to merit a plum role on a reality show cast. This is my way of coping with being too old for the "Real World." Damn. Going to have to find another way to million-dollar-fame-over-exposure.
Wizened 26.
Okay, in the interest of making some pithy observations to justify my ramblings (read: to have a point other than the one on the top of my head):
The way to measure the adoration-adulation-appreciation factor of a job --> exactly how much cocktail conversation you can make about what you do in life to pay the bills before your partner in conversation reflexively rolls their eyes. [Tip: Taxidermists & Corporate Attorneys - Accept the truth and just tell people you are a bounty hunter, or even an accountant, anything but...]
The way to measure the hype-hipness-faux high art factor of a life --> whether you have enough material for a half-way motivated, intermittently-competent writer to craft a Lifetime docudrama of the events that made up the cinema-verite of you on this great stage. [More glamorous - a full out VH1 Behind-the-Music show - especially cool and accomplished if you didn't happen to sing *or* present a reasonable facsimile of lipsynching (though it won't count as much if you happened to have a sensational mid-riff).] [Within the realm of acceptability - a 10 minute Dateline segment, especially if Stone Phillips actually introduces it.]
In such a tizzy to be didactic and poignant (is such a combination the first indication of schizophrenia?), I have broken my own cardinal rule. Never make pop culture references in writing. It dates the word. Makes them temporal. Hate that. Feel like it means the author doesn't have anything deeper or more meaningful to say.
Then again, maybe I don't. Not at this juncture.
Will plunge back into faux-depth tomorrow.
For today, abject silliness is the golden rule.
Levity. Laughter. Luck. Lollipops. Simple pleasures abound.
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Been away too long.
Lingering too long. Longing to linger. Flirting with disaster. Ducking from somnambulism. Decrying fatigue. Sipping away concerns. Imagining myself amazing. Waking to the actual reality. Fighting with myself. Developing a relationship with the refrigerator. Fighting with myself some more. Missing out on the obvious. Investigating the subtle. Avoiding obligations. Self actualizing on behalf of others. Asking the questions. Forgetting the answers. Singing loudly. Crying softly. Laughing unevenly in between. Obsessing about it all. Complicating the process. Contemplating help. Passing time. Hopping on one foot. Shifting. Hopping on the other foot. Still hopping after all these years. Seeking solace. Winding up. Sitting down. Lending credence. Having faith. Aspiring to grace. Walking up the steps. Simplifying patterns. Learning happiness. Accepting changes. Finding the right way.
Enough free association for one evening. Classic work avoidance, but given that it is late Fri night/early Sat morning - I am feeling entitled to a little verbal kookiness.
More is required. Less will be provided. Amends will be made.
G'Night. Sleep claims even the most stubborn little camper...
Lingering too long. Longing to linger. Flirting with disaster. Ducking from somnambulism. Decrying fatigue. Sipping away concerns. Imagining myself amazing. Waking to the actual reality. Fighting with myself. Developing a relationship with the refrigerator. Fighting with myself some more. Missing out on the obvious. Investigating the subtle. Avoiding obligations. Self actualizing on behalf of others. Asking the questions. Forgetting the answers. Singing loudly. Crying softly. Laughing unevenly in between. Obsessing about it all. Complicating the process. Contemplating help. Passing time. Hopping on one foot. Shifting. Hopping on the other foot. Still hopping after all these years. Seeking solace. Winding up. Sitting down. Lending credence. Having faith. Aspiring to grace. Walking up the steps. Simplifying patterns. Learning happiness. Accepting changes. Finding the right way.
Enough free association for one evening. Classic work avoidance, but given that it is late Fri night/early Sat morning - I am feeling entitled to a little verbal kookiness.
More is required. Less will be provided. Amends will be made.
G'Night. Sleep claims even the most stubborn little camper...
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