Loved and Lost

I tend to be a private person. There are thoughts, opinions and the like I keep to myself. I have enjoyed sharing such things here. When I do open up I reveal things to very few people, and to each I give a portion of me (so to speak), such that to get a full picture of me, a group of people who do not know each other, who are largely unconnected will have to find each other, sit down and share the bit they know. I don't know why.

I was speaking to a colleague at work about lost loves. They expressed that they have not gotten over their first love, this is someone who has been married (happily) for about 10 years. I wanted to laugh, not because it was funny, but because I could relate. I have never admitted before today that I am not over my first love. I wonder if it is the first lover's place to ever be on another's mind?

We met in college, on the first significant September 11th. We were familiar but had not spoken. On this solemn night we spoke and went out to buy gas. Though I am drastically different now, we were goofy together. We always played games, or rather made games of everything. She was competitive. In order to win she would change the rules. (Every woman I have ever loved changed the rules, actual and figurative). I am prone to drawn out crushes that go nowhere for fear of rejection. This would have been such a relationship, but we had our first fight which pushed me to express love for her. After 3 or so years, we broke up and fixed up and repeated several times until she finally settled for another, she strung me along until she was sure. That was her style, 3 years prior another guy was pulled along until she was definite about me. It hurt to find out. Love hurts, that was the repeat lesson. But...
she was the first to make me feel really important (drove 20 minutes just to get me a Happy Meal toy!)
I was grown up when with her, she tended to be childlike and it was a joy to witness and be part of
she made me laugh, oh how we laughed
she taught me compatibility is not necessarily similarity
I belonged, just because she was there, I belonged
she inspired me
"...you make me want to be a better man" (As Good as it Gets)
we made out, a lot, it was goood
she was fine breaking bounds
always down for doing crazy (at times cheesy) things
she too was almost deviant
she supported me during many dark dark days
she was the first woman I seriously wanted to marry and the first one I told
I am sure there is much much more.

What happened? We argued a lot, she was dissatisfied with us. My personal problems kept us on edge. Childlike carried some childish, so some of her desires I could not fulfil and still be a responsible adult. There is often a last blowout. Even though she later said all she wanted from me was an apology, my apology was not enough to fix the hurt. So she went her way with the other guy, they got married and are living. I went to another state, I could not be around her and still breathe. Every time I saw her, the pain came back, I wanted to beg and grovel. More than that I wanted to make her laugh and love me again. I left. I too am married (happily).

I still think of her. It is easier to breathe.

Thinkers

Ancient civilisations could not quite place the brain. It seemed too inert to do much. All other crucial organs were coursing with blood vessels, except this pale white, mucusy blob whose purposes were as secretive as it was, only seen post-mortem. What was the solution to its labyrinthine furrows?

We are all talented in different ways, Spartans threw sickly newborns off a cliff thus raising a kingdom of warriors, smart ones even. What was a Spartan 'high school' like? I digress. Other provinces of Greece applauded both mental and physical prowess. I do not know of any culture (of philosophers maybe) that threw their dumb-jocks away. Some people are thinkers and others are not, (don't know what to call the non-thinkers yet). And many more are in between, plying both climes successfully.

The battle for the soul is in the mind. Before we do anything for good or evil, a plan is sparked in our little brains. And there it is incubated, nourished and eventually birthed or it is starved and aborted. The less mentally apt have ways of quickly taking their battles out of the mental realm. I am not well versed with this. A weak example is my friend who has concluded that he needs to do these '15' things to keep an even keel. When anything is off kilter, he goes through his list and ensures everything is in place, and he has done well for himself. He is of a ripe age, enviably moving along in his life. I on the other hand (the weak example of a thinker) will ford my mind for reason, motive, cause, effect and so on. Everyday problem solving is a mental pursuit. Put me in my friend 'List of 15's shoes - when something is not in line I look at the situation then I trace its life to find the source of my problem. If and when the source is found I clean it up, sometimes I like the source so I prune it and try to remember to keep it up so that the problem does not persist. If it does, then I have to come up with a new plan...the point is there are rarely easy, cut and dried solutions, but rather flow diagrams, and decision trees that branch in numerous directions. It is a wonder to many how I have made it this far, yet I make it work. List of 15's methods are insane to me, to him I am just insane, forget methods.

What happens when a Thinker becomes terrified of his mind? When his element has caused him hurt and he will not venture there anymore? I have tried before to run from my mind. I have tried to stop it, to slow it down anything for a moment's quiet. I have never succeeded. It keeps going, so I removed the leash. There is pruning and killing necessary to keep a clean mind, but I have let it go. Let it run. Until the next time it causes me pain...I will shy away for a while and dive back in. It is where I live my best.

Let it run, if it is your element, it is who you are. Be.

I wonder who I would be in the village had I been born in ancient times? A mediocre mind like myself.

Passion

I watched School of Life today, instead of sleeping. It will be a long night, but that's besides the point. It is the story of a teacher who desperately wants to follow in his deceased father's footsteps (teacher of the year award for 43 years) that he loses focus on his being a teacher, father and husband. All because another teacher came in who was more popular (student vote award). SPOILER ALERT, the other teacher is dying, so he lives in the moment. When he asks, "How much time do we have?" His favoured response is, "Not a lot."

Life is not a movie, in case you missed it, life inspires movies! I like to learn from a good story, so there. When we live passionately, we excel. The people who are best at what they do for the greater part love what they do, then after that they have to pour effort in. "...but his delight is in the law of the Lord and upon His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted beside the waters whose leaf does not whither..." The Psalms 1. A tree on a river bank does not try to grow gloriously, it just does. One plugged in to ones delights will thrive on them exceptionally.

I sleep fitfully, and when I wake up, my first thought is usually, "I cannot wait for bedtime again." I dread waking up, facing another bland, dissatisfactory day I would rather have missed. If life is a gift, I am not happy with it so far. I am not happy with this state of affairs! One should look forward to life. It should be like a drug you take a huge whiff of in the morning and you are high all day. Yeah, sometimes you will be dive bombed by a pigeon on your way to a big job interview, or worse, she leaves and takes your heart and your dog! So what? You sleep it off, wake up broke, aching and hungry (or whatever), but, ALIVE! And you take another big whiff of life, high as a kite all day again and again until there is nothing left to inhale, then you take a moment to look back and hopefully you say, "It was grand" before you exhale your last.

That is fantastical fiction. The real thing would entail being excited about life, or at least something in life. Burn for something, let something burn in you. The best people to watch have a propellant fire driving them. They sit by the river of their delights and feed from it, then unconsciously bloom and bloom passionately.

Office Space

I found delightful counterpoint in the fact that I watched Office Space before I went back to work after a 10 day vacation. Here I was, watching a movie that comes across saying, "Work sucks, either find something you love or you too will be a rat in a wheel. Running the race and getting nowhere. Braving the maze to the smell of cheese, but no actual cheese, they are testing some freeze dried pasteurised dairy product!" Office Space is one of my favourite bad movies, this means I don't comfortably enjoy it. The language is bad and I do not agree with the attitudes and behaviours portrayed, but I watched it anyway and I enjoy it.

Facing its, "I am a slacker and this is almost cool" swagger, I went to work. I admit I missed being at work. I enjoy what I do, that is it. My employer, my hours...no, not so much, but I will take what I can get. I hate sitting at home going, "What should I be doing now?" so I would rather be at work. Yet, when I get to work, I can relate to Peter Gibbons, it is usually the same old humdrum and I cannot wait to go home and sleep (to get away from life - mild insomniac, so it is a bit of a challenge!) At least at work I know what I am supposed to be doing at any point. I am not concerned about expedient time usage. How much I do and don't do is dependent on my work load, when I have no work what so ever, yes I sigh, but I have stuff to read and/or write. Stock options for productivity would be great, but it's healthcare. There is no such thing, I have no control over the number of drunken moped accidents happening on a particular night.

Peter, Milton, Micheal and Samir are not exactly motivational when it comes to going to work. They make me want to call in to stay at home and watch kung-fu. "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go."

Almost Deviant

The world has changed a lot these last three decades. Granted I have moved to the Western hemisphere, life and times move a lot faster the closer you get to MTV (geographically and otherwise). I was raised in a place and time where virtue was, well virtuous and sought after. Society was strict, right and wrong were explicit. Accordingly, deviance was frowned upon. Its presence a source of shame, and so it was kept in the shadows. I grew up and find now this was a child's eye view of my world. As one matures, one finds that "It is a grayer and more complicated world than...ever imagined" (Heaven Lake, John Dalton).

Not only have the lines between right and wrong become blurry, the times are such that deviance is a badge worn with pride. I confess, it is difficult to define what should be a source of pride and what should bring shame. So much has changed in the last century. So many norms have been challenged and refuted. It is not entirely surprising that we have come to this point. Like the squeaky wheel, the deviant's cause is at least seen, due to the way they distinguish themselves they are more visible.

What bothers me is this: I am a decent man whose mind is plagued by mischief. The complication this presents is that I do not know who I am true to. The absence of this kind of truth in my thoughts limits their efficient expression into action, hence I am wholly half-hearted. Part of me is glad I am awarded the grace to somewhat contain my darkness, yet part of me longs to let all of me hang out, to wear deviance and virtue on my sleeves and say, "Hello world. This is who I am inside and (now) out." In such a state I do not creep about, I concede to my deviance and my virtue. I think it will lead to a more honest me. That in turn I hope will produce the passion for life that I yearn. Maybe I will be able to have some fun, even say "Woohoo!" once in a while.

Christ blasted Pharisees. He likened them to white washed tombs, lovely on the outside, but inside full of corruption and uncleaness (Gospel of Matthew 23:27). I do not want to be a Pharisee, I want Christ to like me.