Rage
I was trying to find a pithy quote about rage that would help qualify the seething agitation that has been bubbling just beneath my surface today. But as I started looking, I realized that I cannot muster the effort necessary to sift through the emotional wrecks of others that resulted in such articulations.
So, I will just say that today I was mad. But not just mad – mad to a disproportionate level with the causes, off the charts mad, mad at the world mad…
It is amazing that people can maintain this level of anger and rage for months and years at a time – often dedicating their entire lives to the substance of this immense anger. It is amazing because it just made me tired. Tired and sad. Something’s gotta give…
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Most Depressing Day of the Year
As blog entries from Monday 1/14 and Wednesday 1/16 were left unfinished and inevitably deleted in disgust, I wonder if I have the stomach for this writing thing. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations about what is blog-worthy, since right now everything in my life just seems too painfully pedestrian to place pen to paper (so to speak).
Today, while I have ingested no more caffeine than I normally do, (and certainly less than I have on frequent occasions) I am feeling jittery to the point of distraction - after a frustrating, yet not particularly terse exchange with tech support, I briefly found my hands shaking uncontrollably. And while not even remotely suicidal, I am struggling to anticipate with pleasure, any event in my immediate future. What is wrong with me?
I am growing tired of malaise, tired of melancholy, and tired of the monotony of this same discordant tune that is playing behind me. I need better background music!
It turns out that several years ago, hired by the British tourism industry, a researcher named Dr. Cliff Arnall came up with a mathematical equation that takes into account things like weather, debt, salary, time since Christmas, etc. and calculated that January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. Perhaps I am simply celebrating early...
As blog entries from Monday 1/14 and Wednesday 1/16 were left unfinished and inevitably deleted in disgust, I wonder if I have the stomach for this writing thing. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations about what is blog-worthy, since right now everything in my life just seems too painfully pedestrian to place pen to paper (so to speak).
Today, while I have ingested no more caffeine than I normally do, (and certainly less than I have on frequent occasions) I am feeling jittery to the point of distraction - after a frustrating, yet not particularly terse exchange with tech support, I briefly found my hands shaking uncontrollably. And while not even remotely suicidal, I am struggling to anticipate with pleasure, any event in my immediate future. What is wrong with me?
I am growing tired of malaise, tired of melancholy, and tired of the monotony of this same discordant tune that is playing behind me. I need better background music!
It turns out that several years ago, hired by the British tourism industry, a researcher named Dr. Cliff Arnall came up with a mathematical equation that takes into account things like weather, debt, salary, time since Christmas, etc. and calculated that January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. Perhaps I am simply celebrating early...
Friday, January 11, 2008
Sherpas
Two nights ago, as I was temporarily driven out of bed with aggravation at my two bedmates (one human, one canine) I found myself in the unusual position to do a little solitary thinking.
And at 3AM, as I sat on the couch deciding whether to just sleep there, I started thinking about the image of a Sherpa. Not something I ever think about, and I’m sure not an accurate image, but what folks generally picture when they think of Sherpas. I was thinking that, while vital above all else to the climb, the Sherpa is not only denied the glory of the accomplishment (often solely lavished on the foolish European/American climber), but he is usually denied the view to the top as well. Carrying supplies, measuring each potentially perilous step, always staring up to gauge the weather or down to gauge the ice, he is never afforded the splendor of the journey. And as I sat there wrapped in the chilly darkness thinking of my “expedition” as a partner, I felt very much as a Sherpa. While I may end up somewhere “important” (a highly subjective idea in itself), have I spent so much energy securing the safe passage of my companion that I will not have my own experience of the journey - or for that matter even have journeyed to the peak of my choosing?
Albeit an abstract an image to pluck from the darkness, it was, to say the least, somewhat sad. But the oddest element of my musings was to then receive TWO subsequent references to Sherpas on the two days following my dark night. Both involving Sr. Edmund Hillary – one a brief mention in a random National Geographic documentary of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal and their climb of Mount Everest, and one today as I read the surprising notice of Hillary’s death this morning.
While I often maintain the belief that there are no coincidences and I believe that these three uncanny occurrences must be related, I’ve yet to figure out how.
However it feels as if there is gravity to the unusualness of the situation, and I am scared that I will miss its message.
It is unsettling…
Two nights ago, as I was temporarily driven out of bed with aggravation at my two bedmates (one human, one canine) I found myself in the unusual position to do a little solitary thinking.
And at 3AM, as I sat on the couch deciding whether to just sleep there, I started thinking about the image of a Sherpa. Not something I ever think about, and I’m sure not an accurate image, but what folks generally picture when they think of Sherpas. I was thinking that, while vital above all else to the climb, the Sherpa is not only denied the glory of the accomplishment (often solely lavished on the foolish European/American climber), but he is usually denied the view to the top as well. Carrying supplies, measuring each potentially perilous step, always staring up to gauge the weather or down to gauge the ice, he is never afforded the splendor of the journey. And as I sat there wrapped in the chilly darkness thinking of my “expedition” as a partner, I felt very much as a Sherpa. While I may end up somewhere “important” (a highly subjective idea in itself), have I spent so much energy securing the safe passage of my companion that I will not have my own experience of the journey - or for that matter even have journeyed to the peak of my choosing?
Albeit an abstract an image to pluck from the darkness, it was, to say the least, somewhat sad. But the oddest element of my musings was to then receive TWO subsequent references to Sherpas on the two days following my dark night. Both involving Sr. Edmund Hillary – one a brief mention in a random National Geographic documentary of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal and their climb of Mount Everest, and one today as I read the surprising notice of Hillary’s death this morning.
While I often maintain the belief that there are no coincidences and I believe that these three uncanny occurrences must be related, I’ve yet to figure out how.
However it feels as if there is gravity to the unusualness of the situation, and I am scared that I will miss its message.
It is unsettling…
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Surveying the Frozen Horizon
As one year ends and another begins, there is the inevitable social discourse that involves questions such as “How were your holidays?”, “Did you have a good New Year?” etc. Niceties that serve less to elicit actual information than to fulfill expected obligations. After being lobbed one of these random and meaningless inquiries, this year I took to volleying back with something along the lines of “Oh fine, but I’m looking forward to the vast social wasteland that is January.” Glib? Probably, but more often than not it garnered a knowing smile, asserting that while festive, a little holiday goes a long way.
But as I actually settle into January, I’m forced to consider what I really meant.
Part of me (the part predisposed to hermitude) knows that I was wistfully envisioning mythical bright winter days spent alternately tromping through snow-covered woods and curled up in front of a fire with my four-footed familiar Dougal. A fabulously false image, about as real as the Emerald City, without the benefit of a poppy field to dull the true drudgery of the journey.
Part of me knows that with the passing of the holidays, my “vast social wasteland” was shorthand for hope that the anxiety and strategic preparation that marked this year’s obligations has passed on for at least a bit and I am offered a reprieve from tense gatherings.
But was I actually more prophetic than glib?
Right now, due to a bit of poor planning mixed with a boatload of bad luck, January finds me (us really, but for these intents and purposes, me) financially f*#@&d and trapped with nothing but time to contemplate how much of a wasteland January (and more than likely February) really might be. And while I haven’t hit rock bottom by any means, every now and then I do catch a glimpse of it in the distance and think “What the hell am I doing?”
So as I stagger through storms that are starting to swirl across my January wasteland, I’m not adopting cute little resolutions like I will lose 10 pounds (which I certainly need) or I will get organized (which is highly unlikely). Instead I am, if not tackling at least pondering the question “What the hell am I doing?” And hopefully if I’m not doing the right thing (which is pretty apparent) this will be the year to change that.
However I am adopting the resolution to give this blogging thing one more go…
As one year ends and another begins, there is the inevitable social discourse that involves questions such as “How were your holidays?”, “Did you have a good New Year?” etc. Niceties that serve less to elicit actual information than to fulfill expected obligations. After being lobbed one of these random and meaningless inquiries, this year I took to volleying back with something along the lines of “Oh fine, but I’m looking forward to the vast social wasteland that is January.” Glib? Probably, but more often than not it garnered a knowing smile, asserting that while festive, a little holiday goes a long way.
But as I actually settle into January, I’m forced to consider what I really meant.
Part of me (the part predisposed to hermitude) knows that I was wistfully envisioning mythical bright winter days spent alternately tromping through snow-covered woods and curled up in front of a fire with my four-footed familiar Dougal. A fabulously false image, about as real as the Emerald City, without the benefit of a poppy field to dull the true drudgery of the journey.
Part of me knows that with the passing of the holidays, my “vast social wasteland” was shorthand for hope that the anxiety and strategic preparation that marked this year’s obligations has passed on for at least a bit and I am offered a reprieve from tense gatherings.
But was I actually more prophetic than glib?
Right now, due to a bit of poor planning mixed with a boatload of bad luck, January finds me (us really, but for these intents and purposes, me) financially f*#@&d and trapped with nothing but time to contemplate how much of a wasteland January (and more than likely February) really might be. And while I haven’t hit rock bottom by any means, every now and then I do catch a glimpse of it in the distance and think “What the hell am I doing?”
So as I stagger through storms that are starting to swirl across my January wasteland, I’m not adopting cute little resolutions like I will lose 10 pounds (which I certainly need) or I will get organized (which is highly unlikely). Instead I am, if not tackling at least pondering the question “What the hell am I doing?” And hopefully if I’m not doing the right thing (which is pretty apparent) this will be the year to change that.
However I am adopting the resolution to give this blogging thing one more go…
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