Friday night ramble
So here I sit, savoring a cup of coffee along with this odd sensation of contented solitude. It's a feeling I was used to, not that long ago, and it's something I'm rediscovering.
It's not unlike opening your eyes early on a Saturday morning, with an empty schedule before you. You know you haven't yet fully awakened to the world, and there's a languorous, velvety warmth wrapped all around you. You're fairly certain that you're being lazy, but equally sure that nobody cares.
It's all right. But it gets kinda old after a while.
This was basically the state in which I've existed for several years; stumbling out of high school into college, then into a career, cruising through a decade with my eyes closed, my mind still wrapped in hazy half-sleep. I was becoming comfortable with the idea of this as an inevitable constant; my future as a soft-focus blur. Alone, regrettably, not exactly happy, but with no real hardship to speak of.
Safe.
Comfortable.
Then, of course, I went and got into an actual relationship.
It was astonishing.
This tiny woman, simultaneously as familiar to me as my own childhood and as alien as the minds that enjoy NASCAR, sauntered into my life, took a casual look around, and pulled all the walls down. I was left squinting (yes, I'm aware my eyes normally look like that anyway) against the savage light of some very harsh realizations.
It wasn't really something I was ready for, so I started wrapping my life up around her, instead of facing it. So, you can kind of imagine (or if you're anyone I've talked to in the past year, you're probably already sick to hell of hearing about it) my reaction when she propped the door back up on its hinges and walked out.
Yeah. It wasn't pretty, let's just leave it at that.
So now I have most of the old walls built up again. They're familiar. They're comfortable. I'm (mostly) over her, over it, and trying to get over myself.
But it's not quite right.
I wake up early these Saturday mornings, and there's no velvety warmth behind my eyelids, there's no silky stretch and yawn. Instead there's a crackling light racing round the inside of my skull, and a hammering in my chest. I can't do anything but lie there and gasp for a while, then I have to get up and pace. It doesn't matter where. Lately, it's been up the side of :gps:Cowles Mountain::32.812607::-117.032216:gps:. Every day. I mean, I'm starting to recognize rocks.
I think it's actually a good thing for me. Aside from getting me outside once in a while, it's once again convinced me I have to do something, and learn some things -- all those things that make me snicker cynically when other people talk about them.
You know. Like, about feelings and shit.
I'm not used to that. I'm used to analyzing things. I've grown accustomed to the idea that I can figure out most of my issues by picking them apart and thinking about each one, because I've been under the happy illusion that I'm intelligent.
Of course, I'm not intelligent. I'm mildly clever, which is not at all the same thing. It's the difference between the chimp who leads his troupe to local dominance, and one who's figured out his favorite stick makes a dandy ass wiper.
Now I'm starting to understand that it's not enough. I can rationalize away a lot of stuff, but not a purpose. I need something to do, and not for the sake of doing it, nor just because I don't really want to do anything else. I've been here before, too, and it's not exactly heartening to see how little progress I've made. If I don't make any more progress than this, so be it. But I probably shouldn't sit around and watch the next ten years pass the same way. I just have to, you know. Whatever, I'll do it tomorrow.
Ahem... anyway.
Socrates, Lao Tzu, Shakespeare, &c. have expressed and/or expanded upon the notion that a wise man is one who admits he knows nothing.
For me, and I'm sure countless others, I believe this is a fallacy. If you're just smart enough to know you're a jerk, in no way does that make you not a jerk.
It just makes you more insecure than the stupid jerk next to you.
Oof. I need to stop drinking coffee. Gotta wake up at the crack tomorrow to try and find personal growth at the REI used gear sale, or else some other asshole is going to buy it first.