Other people have such admirably insightful, honestly touching, and intrinsically useful things to say.
I don't really have anything to say.
Unfortunately, I feel that something ought to be said.
That is never a good starting point.
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&}~
Eeyore stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.
"Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic."
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.
"As I thought," he said. "No better from this side."
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&}~
It's a perceptual thing; I'm keenly aware of how hard it is to separate what's being seen from the person doing the seeing of it.
When I hear someone making generalizations about another person / a group of people / world events, I think to myself: no person has the absolute grasp on truth. This statement reveals to me more about this person and their thought process than it does about the subject at hand.
So, when I try to grasp at the truth of things, it's difficult for me to separate my assessment of world events from meta-thinking those assessments; and I'm uncomfortably conscious that any "analysis" I might proffer would really be more about me.
I might try pretend I am not part of the equation, and attempt to assess the motivations behind every scrap of news/information/propaganda/opinion put forth by everybody else. But then there are so many possible aspects to consider that I reach a point where my brain shuts down like a sci-fi robot foiled by paradoxical logic. I can't possibly comprehend it all.
Some part of my ego eggs me on, saying, now is the time to try to organize your thoughts, make sense of this incoherent situation, have the guts to impose a narrative thread, find your voice no matter how embarrassing it may sound to your own ears, and to hell with whether or not it comes back to bite you on the butt.
Like I said upstairs, I can't help but feel that it is important to try to say something, anything, to acknowledge this day. Even though it is going to be self-centered, even though it's just going to be about how I feel, I don't want pretend this is just another day.
But, now that I've come down to it, the honest, ugly truth is: I do want to pretend that this is just another day, and that there is no need to say anything at all.
No need to get my thoughts straight, or my affairs in order. No need to think about the future or lack thereof. No need to be considerate of others who are already suffering. No need to assume any reponsibility for anything.
No need to worry about whether I should buy duct tape and stay, or buy survival gear and run. No need to bewail the fact that I haven't the money to afford either.
Frankly, I'd love to totally ignore what's going on in the world right now.
It helps that I do not have fingertips that thrum with the political pulse of world events; that I do not have a heart that instinctively empathizes with others; that I do not have eyes that are perceptive enough to see through the eyes of others, nor skin sensitive enough to feel under the layer of another's skin. It helps that I am perfectly capable of walling off the world.
I know bloody well that I oughtn't.
But it's what I crave.
And the frightening thing is, I think that I could manage it.
We'll see if I don't. I'm not laying any odds.
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&}~
It's not like any of that needed to be said, or read; the world's hardly a changed place for me having posted it, and certainly not an improved place.
But I have marked this day.
I hope there are a great many people out there with better things to say today.
If anybody sees anything well-said about this day, about this whole turn of events, please let me know.
Meanwhile, Eeyore's going back to his gloomy place. TTFN.
Posted by edgar at March 20, 2003 10:15 AM