"There's some asshole at work
you have to kowtow to, and you find yourself doing things you thought you'd
never do. But you try and minimize that stuff; be the best person you can be.
But you set your priorities. And that's the way life is. I wonder if your
friend Alex knew that. One thing's for sure, he couldn't live with it. I know I
shouldn't talk; you guys knew him. But the thing is... no one ever said it
would be fun. At least... no one ever said it to me." (The Big Chill, film 1983)
After everything I have been through. After all these years, it once again seemed that life was nothing but struggle. For the last decade or so, I was so focused. I was actually as normal as normal could be. That is why the struggle found me wanting. You can concentrate, you can appreciate; you can tell yourself it will all be okay. It never really is okay. We just pretend it is. We convince the man in the mirror that things are different. We tell ourselves there is change but there is nothing more than just the same words that have been used before. We polish them up. We dangle in between. We become so sure things are better but all they are is artificial. We think it's real but people don't change unless they are forced to. Shine up the pole all you want but you're still just a whore.
When the way we imagine things to be conflicts with how things really are, we become unbalanced. Without stability, I could never really function at full capacity. I never imagined I would feel this way again. After over 30 years battling Bi-Polar disorder, I had come to a place were I was in control. I moderated my feelings, I conquered my impulses. In spite of trying not to, it appears there is no choice regarding all the chaos. I have concluded that nothing gets fixed. Nothing ever will. It will always come back to bite you in the ass.
You pick yourself up, you dust yourself off and you have no choice but to start over again. Well, perhaps you do have a choice. You could just lay down and die. You could repeat, repeat in a syncopated rhythm with a tap tap tap tap. You might just drop down to sit, waiting for things to be better again; not that they ever were. When you are lost, it's hard to find out where you are. As I stand on the edge of a new unknown, I have to wonder. Does anything really matter much at all? I have to move forward believing that something does matter. I have to hold to faith as if it were a street sign, leading the way. I can surrender to life and settle or I can press myself, reaching for something better, something that makes me happy and is not mired in sadness and defeat.
"It's a cold world out there.
Sometimes I feel like I'm getting a little frosty myself."
(The Big Chill, film 1983)
We
need each other. I know this is an archaic idea, one that seems to have little
place in our modern era. It is still very true. Like rats left alone in a cage,
madness begins with isolation. Perhaps we do it to ourselves. We lock ourselves
away, not interacting, not involving anyone outside of me me me. We have become
isolationists, escaping through our smartphone or a tablet or some outdated PC
somewhere. Instead of being necessitated, we consider ourselves absolved. Who
gives a shit about other people when we can Pokémon or Angry Birds and run away
from it all? Nine hundred channels and
there is still nothing is on. Human beings are a destructive race. We
kill each other, and often ourselves, with little compassion or empathy. We
have turned into the very thing that the ancients warned us of. We worship
mammon. We dispose of God. We become our own god, high Caesar and all the ides
of March stuff. Somehow all the
searching and questioning has done nothing but push us further away. Somehow we
are disengaging from what it means to be human.
I
recently had a bout of hypo-mania, brought on by outside forces and due to the mistake
I made in skipping my medication. It came out of nowhere and stole me away. I
got lost in it, tossed in it. I wasn't prepared for it to come. It would have
been easy for me to surrender to it. I could run away much easier. I could end
it all without thinking. As it grew, I grew more destructive. For weeks, I
walked that line so many people talk about. I had to decide how I wanted to
continue. So, I got up and fought to return to my longtime friend, normalcy. I
didn't really choose it because of any other. I didn't decide to abandon it all
but I couldn't convince myself that the other way would not bring the very same
things. Life continues whether you're in your right mind or not. It was my
approach that needed adjusting. Once I stabilized, once the pills kicked in and
I started over, I quickly realized that healing, in almost any capacity, means
little to the world around you. Things are always in flux, chock full of chaos
with a side order of desperation. No
matter your state of being, no matter your focus, life is a pile of shit,
rotting in the hot sun, covered with flies and ants and much like carrion. In the end, it is ironic that existence can
turn out to be unfit for human consumption.
"I haven't met that many
happy people in my life. How do they act?"
(The Big Chill, film 1983)
I
never realized how much frostbite has formed about me. I am often cold to the
world in order to survive it. I can become so lost in the big chill. I used to
think there was something wrong with me. It wasn't normal, in my eyes, to ice
up in such a defensive manner. Unfortunately, cryopathy is the new norm. My
detachment isn't a side effect from the pills that I take. It doesn't come from
my relationships or my interaction with people on a daily basis. It doesn't
mean I am without empathy or compassion for my fellow man. My distance is a
survival instinct, not just a reaction to the world around me. It is a lesson I have learned on
the road that I travel. Don't get too close, sometimes the beast called man
will bite the hand that feeds it.
Detachment
is often overlooked as a lifestyle choice. It allows for room to move and
breathe in safety. It is a formidable lesson to learn. One must insulate one's
self in order to function within the modern parameters. I am not frozen solid.
It is still my mission to be kind. It is always a challenge to merge the two. I
continue my attempts to rise above and see people as souls rather than the
rude, cranky asshole sonsofbitches I encounter on a daily basis. They must be
frosted over like me. There is a familiar glaze I occasionally slip and slide
on. I am reminded just how imperfect I really am. You don't have to be a nice
person to be a nice person. You don't have to think differently to act
differently. After all, we all know what really matters the most.
Harold: "Feet grow as you get
older."
Michael: "I wish everything
did."
(The Big Chill, film 1983)
I
refuse to abandon all hope and give in to permafrost. I cannot help myself. No
matter my encounter, no matter the chaos once brought, I always find a way to
see the mortal in the man. I have great empathy, even for my so proclaimed
enemies. We all gather them about us. They are the flies on the shit we talked
about earlier. I use a swatter to squish them in real life. Yet
somehow, I always manage to see the me when I am looking at them. I would hope
that I am not as easily disposable. No matter the nip in the air, there is
warmth in this popsicle. If kindness is a weakness, then so be it. I try to be
guilty as charged. I have to see the good in them or I have to admit to myself
there is no good in me. That's the way it works, I suppose.
"Nobody thinks they're a bad
person. I'm not even claiming that people always think they're doing the right
thing; they may know that they're doing something dishonest or insensitive or
manipulative but they almost always think that there's a good reason for doing
it. They almost always think it will turn out for the best in the end, even if
it just turns out best for them, because by definition what's best for them is
what's best." (The Big Chill, film 1983)
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