Ready for the floor
Some days are just empty of meaning, and you rack them up and before you know it, you are an old man. Some days you just cannot be bothered, and cannot remember how you once wished to rise above it all.Some songs are the soundtrack for aspiration. I am left thinking, I want my life to fit this song. I want to live something this could soundtrack. Other times, they are the soundtrack to my life, and I am not uplifted, because they are not songs of joy, but songs of desolation. And I'm left thinking, I am still sure I fucked up for all the right reasons, even if I'm not sure why I fucked up.
Sometimes, I feel deeply saddened by the realisation that there will be a band I love whose last album I do not hear.
***
I want to die.
Or to live. But not to be stuck in between.
It is not something you just turn on. When you are younger, I think you can choose. But once you've chosen, the number of choices you can make starts to diminish.
I think that is why we have midlife crises. We realise that we ran out of choices and we are afraid that that means we just die.
***
I have never been patient. I have always wanted the end to come. When I went to gigs as a youngster, I wanted the encore to be playing, so I could bask in the satisfaction of having been there.
I never enjoyed the chase, only the eating of the rabbit, iykwimaityd.
I have only played about 1.5K STTs, not anywhere enough for someone of my modest thinking ability and poor maths to have learned how to be a pro, yet I want to be there already. And I get so discouraged because I see the goal, not the steps I have taken towards it. It helps that I have been trying to help Father Luke learn poker, because I realise how much I have learned because it is what I know and he doesn't. Now, this will sound weird, but when I teach, I'm not at all goal oriented. I do not care about results. I just like sharing. If it is on my terms, what I want to give, I like to share.
I think I am like the American view of themselves. They are said to be awesome in their charity, yet they hate taxes. (Curiously, I don't think much about taxation, and consequently don't mind it so much. I think it is because I see it as simply one facet of an imposition I resent, and not as an evil all of its own.)
I do not want anything in return. Except, I suppose, to be thought well of. Is it such a sin, to be desirous of being loved, or at least, to need to feel wanted?
I suppose it must be, because it has brought me so much trouble.
That has made me start thinking. You know why I'm an egalitarian? Because I don't think anyone's my better, but I know I'm nothing special. I feel hurt when people think they are worth more than I am. I like people to think they can gain something from me, but not that they can exploit me.
I felt sad when S dumped me. I hadn't wanted to think she was exploiting me the way she does others. But she was. And I also felt sad, although by no means as much, when K decided I was trash she should clear from my life, because I felt she was exploiting me, and to have someone decide you are not even worth exploiting is a bad feeling.
I felt like I should be permitted to say, you do not know what you might have gained, because you were not treating me as an equal and gaining what an equal would gain from me. I feel the same way about Mrs Zen, as it happens. She and K have the same approach to the world: it is almost abusive, that they feel entitled to use the world and not have it use them.
I like to think I am Father Luke's equal. I am not teaching him poker as a means of feeling better than him. I do it because I like him and want him to be able to have what I have to the degree it makes him happy.
Although I have a convoluted relationship with P, I like to think she too is my equal. We play games of inequality from time to time, but\they are based in trust, and trust is based in a sense of equality.
I wish I could explain that to Mrs Zen. I am not trustworthy for her because she treats me as something to exploit. I suppose you could find equality if you were each exploitable for the other, but what does she offer me?
That reminds me. I have an email outstanding from boots. He will think I have been avoiding answering it, that I think he's crazy, dumb or something of both. But to think someone is wrong, you have to think you are right.
And am I? If I am, it's not doing me any good. So I'm ready to be wrong.
posted by Dr Zen @ 6:21 pm
9 Comments:
So, out of curiosity, how come you never write about the football? The best I get is the satellite feed of 606 and a weekly show from NY with an NASL pedigree and an annoying wanker whose only saving grace is his apparent love for the Toon, all on my new Sirius recvr.
Nobody in this podunk backwoods town understands football. Hell, I'm just starting to understand it a little. NFL they understand, sure, and baseball, and [urk!] NBA.
Oh well, hope you find some ways to feel better soon. Leeds to the Championship?
So I'm ready to be wrong.
What does that look like if you apply it?
Sweetheart, this blog is a chronicle of one man's mostly being wrong.
But you just said that you've been thinking that you are right. Or possibly. And that it hasn't done you any good. So saying now that you've been wrong doesn't change anything. It still hasn't done you any good (not my opinion, just trying to follow your thoughts here). So if you've been wrong, and it hasn't done you any good, what could you have done differently that was right?
It seems that your life was good up to a point. What was that point? Marriage? You said she was nice. You wanted to be married. Was that a wrong choice? You said she changed with kids. You couldn't have known that would happen. Was having kids the wrong choice? You moved to Australia. You hate it there now, yet you felt it was a good decision for your children. Should you not have thought of your children?
I'm not seeing it. Your blog is not a chronicle of a man who has been mostly wrong, it's the chronicle of a man who made choices for which he could have no idea of the consequences. Just like most of us and our choices. I know, that doesn't help, and you hate comparisons with others because you're not others, you're you and this is your experience, but sweetheart, you wouldn't have changed a thing and there is no right or wrong to it. Even the part with S and Mrs. Zen finding out.
It just is. You can't go back. You can only go forward, and I hope you don't let fear of being wrong stop you from making decisions about the choices that you have now.
And another thing. YOU'RE NOT OLD. You just feel old because you're miserable.
"But you just said that you've been thinking that you are right. Or possibly."
Possibly. Thinking you are right =/= being right.
"And that it hasn't done you any good. So saying now that you've been wrong doesn't change anything. "
It changes my view on whether I was right.
"It still hasn't done you any good (not my opinion, just trying to follow your thoughts here)."
I am suggesting that more humility might help.
And not doing "the right thing" also might.
"So if you've been wrong, and it hasn't done you any good, what could you have done differently that was right?"
Taken more advice that seemed wrong at the time.
"It seems that your life was good up to a point. What was that point? "
My tenth birthday?
"Marriage? You said she was nice. You wanted to be married. Was that a wrong choice?"
Yes. Without question it was a bad choice.
"You said she changed with kids. You couldn't have known that would happen."
No.
"Was having kids the wrong choice?"
It's impossible to say that about your kids, as you know. I refuse to be abstract about them.
"You moved to Australia. You hate it there now, yet you felt it was a good decision for your children. Should you not have thought of your children?"
I should have thought less about them and more about myself.
"I'm not seeing it. Your blog is not a chronicle of a man who has been mostly wrong, it's the chronicle of a man who made choices for which he could have no idea of the consequences."
For a thing to be the right thing, you must correctly understand the consequences. If you have a track record of bad choices, you might have to review your belief that you are a good judge of what consequences will be.
"Just like most of us and our choices."
I am not most of you. I'm me.
"I know, that doesn't help, and you hate comparisons with others because you're not others, you're you and this is your experience, but sweetheart, you wouldn't have changed a thing and there is no right or wrong to it."
You are wrong.
There is plenty I could have changed and things would be better. Knowing what I know now, I would never have left the UK. I knew it would be bad there, but I refuse to believe it would have been this bad.
"Even the part with S and Mrs. Zen finding out."
You have to be kidding. If I could return to then and tell myself not to trust her, I sure would.
"It just is. You can't go back. You can only go forward, and I hope you don't let fear of being wrong stop you from making decisions about the choices that you have now."
You must not have been paying attention. I have been absolutely paralysed for months through fear of making another poor choice.
"And another thing. YOU'RE NOT OLD. You just feel old because you're miserable."
No. I'm miserable in part because I'm old.
OK, my apologies. Carry on.
boots sez:
Dude, did I just call this in the poker blawg or whut? I am kickin up my heels here, I was looking around for a rusty razor blade or something to slit my wrists after reading about one more music-critique post. Zen is back, Zen is back, yeehaw!
I am thankful that you made your way through midlife crisis #42193. I had my first midlife crisis when I was 14 or so. Since I'm way past 28 those must be a thing of the past. Or at least have some other name now.
btw, I would only worry about you if you thought I was not crazy... or maybe in that case I'd worry about me, that I'd left the house without my clown-nose firmly affixed or something.
Party on!
"Every life is delivered with a 'Worry Free Guarantee' but we make money on the deal because most warranty certificates are lost long before they expire."
I wish I could explain that to Mrs Zen. I am not trustworthy for her because
You have cyber affairs.
Father Luke sees you teaching him poker as therapy for you and Christ you need it. Watching your decline is painful in many ways, i wonder when you will realise what's happening to you.
boots sez:
""Marriage? You said she was nice. You wanted to be married. Was that a wrong choice?"
Yes. Without question it was a bad choice."
If you had not married Mrs Zen your children would not exist as they are. Perhaps rather than a bad choice, it was a tiptoe through poopie on the way to the clear part of the pasture.
Recognizing things in the past that affect who you are is one thing, retroactive psychoanalysis is another. Even knowing what made you who you are does not change who you are. The only thing that changes who you are is... well, all those next-things you have yet to do.
In life there are always more aces in the river but when you forget that it's easy to get bluffed out of a winning hand.
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