Once More With(out) Feeling

I keep writing because it allows me to clear the dross from my head.

Nobody reads these but me, so I do not worry about what I say for any

reason other than I try to remember privacy concerns for others. I do

admit that at times I would like someone to read these and maybe be

able to hold a conversation about my thoughts. However, lately maybe

I think that I would rather not have others read these after all. In a

previous post from January of this year, I mentioned that I have opinions,

but I stopped sharing them on other platforms because apparently my

opinions were either wrong, or I was just not allowed to have or express

them.

(Insert image of a man who has been gagged or censored, except the

only images that I can find are of women because this only happens

to women.)

(And if you are already pissed off because I insinuated that it cannot

happen to a man as well, your attitude is showing.)

(People really do need to realize that another X [person or race or sex or

nationality] can be a victim as well without taking away your victim status)

In my prior post, I mentioned some of the responses I received regarding

me expressing my opinion. I heard “Oh, come on!” and “You can’t seriously

believe that crap!” and “Maybe you should just back down a little.” As I said,

I am not allowed to have my own opinion. 

Two recent events.

A recent comment I made in response to a friend’s post gave me pause

to consider that I wanted to say more on the subject. It was a poll post,

where people could select a specific answer, then add their comments

as well. I did. I then wrote my own post based on the comment I had

added and expounding further about how I felt a certain group had

been treated. Or, more accurately, mistreated. I (mistakenly) expressed

my thoughts about this and how I felt regarding this mistreatment and

offered some additional ideas about how I thought people could work

through making changes to prevent this from continuing to happen.

One friend, or former friend now maybe, commented on the first half of

my comments, but had apparently not completely read my words as

their feelings mirrored what I had stated later. Her words matched what

I had felt and posted, but stopped short of reading what I said after the

initial part. Another person also answered my comment on the original

thread, but, too, had failed to read to the end. They did, however, have

their own opinion on my words. Theirs must have been more valid. 

I absolutely loathe to delete my posts. I feel that words are important.

The words a person uses should be considered. I understand that learning

a new truth about something which you have had thoughts or feelings

about may make you edit your words, but I also do not think that people

should just post mean things just to hurt others. Stick to the truth.

Acknowledge when you are stating an opinion. Opinions should matter too.

Apparently, mine do not. After re-reading my post and understanding where

the comments were coming from, I came to the realization that my own

opinion does not matter and I removed my post and the original comment

on the other thread. Nobody has missed them.

The second event was similar, but had the same effect. Over a period of

time I noted that when I was talking with people they would simply just

shut down to whatever I was discussing. I literally just watched as they

stopped listening, stopped considering what I was thinking, and discounted

any further discussion. When it happens repeatedly, you get the message.

My opinion only matters when I agree with them or if the topic at hand is

inconsequential. How I feel does not signify.

But that is just my opinion.

Is Four Several, a Few, or Many?

 Is Four Several, a Few, or Many?

Generally speaking, several is used to refer to quantities above two or so but not so much that it's a lot or many. Perhaps the most common interpretation or intended sense of several is around three to five, but this can vary greatly depending on the context.- Dictionary.com

I grew up in a small town that was situated in a bowl of a valley. There are only a few ways in and out of the valley, most of which necessitate passing through a canyon. Of those canyons, one is prettier than the others, but also is the type of road that requires you to pay attention while driving the narrow, curvy road as well as the possibility of wildlife which can interrupt your safe passage.

Several decades ago, I was in the process of breaking up with a girl I had been dating. I will call her N, not wanting to use her real name. I have no illusions that she ever thinks of me, and severely doubt that she will stumble across this post. Dating her started okay, but then she began to get quite possessive of my time, and quite demanding. After a while, her demands began to be quite unreasonable, even down to timing how long it would take me to go from one place to another and giving me a deadline in which I had to call her. Things came to a head when she started to mention harming herself or others (meaning me or whomever I was seeing instead of her.) It was borderline Fatal Attraction type of behavior, but prior to that movie coming out. 

This was pre-cell phone times, so making a phone call meant being at a physical place where there was a phone. Landline phones were hardwired into the wall or an actual phone booth. An investment of time and committing yourself to a location. Phone booths were great for talking in private to someone, but you worked out in advance that they would know the number and you would call (drop a dime) them at home and let the phone ring once, then hang up and retrieve your dime. They would call back and not only was the call free, your call would not time out requiring investing another dime. 

I do not remember where I was coming from or going to one night, but I noticed that N was following me, so I started to just drive around town. Once N realized I knew she was there, she started to follow more closely, more aggressively. It was late, as in way after midnight late, the time of night when the town stoplights would flash amber north and south and red east and west. There were not a lot of other cars on the roadways and I just kept driving around the city and into the county. N began to drive even more erratically, enough so that I thought she might actually ram my car, so I began to increase my speed and distance between the two of us.

The chase was on.

Stop signs and traffic lights be damned. I was trying at first to stay at least close to posted speeds and obey the traffic controls, but N had no compunction about that stuff. She was flashing her high beams at me whenever she got close. I knew the roads better than she did, was arguably a better driver than she was, and definitely a lot less emotional at this point. I worked my way east through town on the main road to exit the valley through one of the previously mentioned canyons, which was one more benefit I had. I grew up, quite literally, in that canyon and in the wilderness through which it passed. We were now heading into my briarpatch. 

I realized that N may well crash in the canyon, so I did not want the chase to go too far into it. I managed to increase the distance between us by simply being quicker on the throttle, ignoring the brakes in favor of downshifting, and straightening some curves. She honestly had the better, faster car. I had a better skillset. Once I was far enough in front of her that I knew I could take a side road and get out of sight, I picked a turnout that took me across a bridge over the river and went dark. I only had to wait a few minutes and then saw her car zoom past behind me. I gave her another minute or so and then returned down the canyon.

I was really worried that she was going to go off the rails and crash, so when I got to the mouth of the canyon, I pulled off the road and parked where I could watch the cars come out to see if she returned. I was there for about 20 minutes and had just restarted my car to look for debris or evidence of a possible crash, when I saw headlights coming out of the canyon and N flashed by at a very high rate of speed. I waited another 10 minutes or so and left, taking nothing but backroads. I did not want to go home yet for fear that she would be waiting for me there. I was not afraid of her, I was just avoiding the confrontation. Well, delaying the confrontation that would eventually happen.

I have often wondered why she put so much effort into trying to keep me. I freely admit that I was never that good looking, certainly not enough so that I warranted that kind of trophy seeking actions. I was nobody’s great catch. I was immature and callow. (Some would argue I never got past that stage.) I just was. I was me, nothing more. Once we did finally cut things off, she moved on to another guy almost instantly. 

It was at that point where you have a hard time deciding whether it is still night or starting to be day. It was late enough that the sky was just about to lighten. I drove through the streets and through the gravel pit that is now filled with neighborhoods and homes. Back then, it was a favorite spot for young kids to drink beer stolen from their parents and to find out just what they did and did not know about the other sex. Giraffe Hill: a place you go to for a long neck.

It was empty that time of day, which did not really matter to me, but it did give me a feeling of isolation. I parked my car and shut it down, turning the key so I could listen to the radio. KNBR out of San Francisco. AM radio was great overnight. The signals would skip on the atmosphere and you could listen to stations from hundreds of miles away. I sat on the hood of my car, reclining on the windshield as I did just that. I let my mind wander and just sat there.

There is something magical to me in a sunrise. More so than a sunset. First, there are typically few people about. Second, it is the time that the one day passes the torch to a new day, and all the newborn possibilities and power that goes with that.

Giraffe Hill was located on the east side of the valley, which meant that with the steep mountains around the valley, the sun would come up and light the west side of the valley long before it would touch me. I remember being amused as I watched the sunlight slide down the Wellsville Mountains and across the valley. It certainly was not instant, but it happened a lot more quickly than I thought it would. About the time it did reach me, I got back in my car and drove home. I wondered whether N would be waiting there for me, but that was not the case this time. 

Things ended shortly after that and another page turned. New chapter. N went on to her new guy, and they ended up getting married. A mutual friend told me years later that they were married, then separated, then reunited, then separated again. I do not know what their status is currently. It has been decades since this happened. They have their own stories. 

Something Happened Along The Way

I tend to default to thinking that it is my fault, but the reverse of that coin is that it is usually the case.

But what I think does not signify.

I get tired of being wrong. I get tired of being wrong when I am right. And yet, I am still wrong.

So, in the end I will distract myself with words belonging to others who most surely tell no lies, or music which will tell only truths. At times there will be the loudness of one while consuming the silence of the other. There is no fear of the dark, but merely the ominous presence of the silence of the world allowing the workings of the mind to gather steam and forge ahead into the abyss once more.

Digging up bones, ghosts, and empties. Nothing like sitting with the ghosts of the past drinking the spirits they bring to the game, while gnawing on the bones of past decisions and actions. And while the past no longer exists, you feel every scar that the past left on you. The sympathy you feel for others who were victims to your deeds, and the pity for yourself knowing the selfishness you exhibited in your hubris. 

I had always hoped I was not that person, but as I said: It is my own fault.

And when I Die... 02052024

 

I'm not scared of dying

And I don't really care

If it's peace you find in dying

Well, then let the time be near

• Blood, Sweat, and Tears 1977

Death was never far away as a child. Not like in a “It is the plague, bring out your dead” kind of way, just that it was there. I remember older relatives dying, and then in later years it was just something that happened. I remember feeling kind of ambivalent about it, but I could not have explained it back then. I am still ambivalent, but I now know why.

I have my reasons, but you do not want to hear them. 

Dad died first. He had gone in for a serious, but routine surgery and his body had just had enough. The surgical team tried for hours and nothing they tried could save him. I think mom knew when they went in for the surgery, but did not say anything. I can still remember the look on her face as she talked with him just prior to his funeral services. She expressed so much love and compassion for him. Dad did not care what happened to him after he died, but mom had a fear of being buried alive. They had already discussed things, and she expressed her desire to be cremated. As dad did not have a preference, he was cremated after he died.

We joked with mom that after she was cremated, we would combine their ashes and place them in shaker bottles and give each of us kids one with their ashes so that whenever we were cooking one of their recipes, we could shake a little bit of them in the food in remembrance. It was a little morbid, but mom laughed out loud with the humor of it.

My sister Sam died next. It was a brutal death, a homicide. She did not deserve to die the way she did. She was always so caring and giving, and ultimately that is what brought about her death. Sam died on the anniversary of dad’s death, and I always wondered about the significance of that. I believe he was there for her to help her across. Sam, too, was cremated. I do not know whether she had any great desires for what happened to her after she died. 

My sister Chris died after many, many years of alcohol and drug abuse. The consumption of all that alcohol caught up with her and her body just started shutting down. She had problems with her heart, her liver, and her kidneys. She was another one that really was very creative and caring, as long as she was not under the influence of alcohol. Chris was also cremated, and I wonder whether she was following Sam’s example, or if it was representative of the transient life she had led. 

Mom died in 2009. She was just weeks away from her 81st birthday. Mom had lived with an aortic aneurysm for a long time. And then she died from it. It was a sudden death, as deaths go, but she still fought it in the end. Mom had always been told that if/when the aneurysm ruptured, she would feel a warm rush in her chest and would be dead within minutes. She managed to survive for the ambulance ride to the helipad for the air ambulance which transported her to the hospital. There were attempts at surgery to try and save her, and she still did not die for a few days, but in the end, she succumbed. 

I have other distant family who have passed that I am unaware of what their choices were for their final rest, and still others who are living, but none of them like me enough to share their preferences either. They have closer family ties than me. They do not owe me. Truth be told, I doubt that they ever even think of me.

I guess I might be next here. I am not planning on it any time soon, but then again, none of the rest of my family was either. Between the car crashes and motorcycle accidents and various close calls, I am sometimes surprised that I am still alive. Maybe God has just forgotten about me and left me behind.

I believe I take after dad with my desires in that I do not care what happens to me after I die. I am partly driven by my wallet in that I do not want the expensive and expansive coffin and services. Save your money. I do not even want to be embalmed, but that feeling stems from the years that I have had to put so many chemicals in my body to stay alive. I joke (only partly) that I think I will make my own coffin out of plywood, nicely enough finished, to save the cost of a coffin. I do not care whether, or even if, I am buried. In actuality, I would love nothing more than to be left on a mountain, in my mountains, under a tree, and left to go back to the earth. My body will be empty of me, but the thought of being able to watch mountain sunrises for eternity brings me peace.

So I Just Stopped

 Everybody knows the old saw: “Opinions are like assholes - everybody has one and they all stink.” I do not know whether they all stink, but everybody has, or rather should have their own opinion. My only strong feeling on opinions is that they should be fact-based and it should be understood that just because another person has an opinion different from yours, it is every bit as valid as yours.

It is a given that your opinion will reflect your values. It is also recognized that people’s values differ. And, just because values differ, does not necessarily make them wrong. Wrong comes in when the opinion goes against facts, or is harmful to another person. Not that your opinion is that their opinion is wrong, but that their opinion is based on false information or unable to be substantiated by facts. Facts, rather than emotions.

My first example is that Pedofiles or “Minor Attracted People” are not harming children and “young children are mature enough to make their own decision regarding sex.” And yet there are so many anti-drug and anti-alcohol programs and campaigns instructing parents to start teaching their kids about the harm of these substances as early as nine years old. “A child’s brain is still developing,” and “Using alcohol and drugs while their brain is still developing instills addictive behavior.” The correlation is that since a child is not mature enough to handle decisions regarding the safe use of alcohol and drugs, they probably are not mature enough to make decisions regarding sexual intercourse or life-altering body modifications. They need to be mature enough to make those decisions.

My next example is alcohol use in general. Approximately 88,000 Americans die from alcohol-attributed causes each year, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. An estimated 2.1 million people ages 12 or older had an opioid use disorder, and nearly 30 percent of those who use marijuana may have some degree of marijuana use disorder. By comparison, guns are far less dangerous. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reports less than 33,000 people die each year from gun violence, and of those, nearly 20,000 are suicides. That means alcohol is more than twice as deadly as guns in the United States and 650 percent more deadly if suicides are excluded from the comparison. 

Looking at these facts, would it not be more productive to combat the use of alcohol instead of guns? Would it not make a bigger difference to align prevention efforts towards something that is so much more deadly, that has such a larger detrimental impact on society? Some say the reason these alcohol regulations don’t exist is because only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of people who have consumed alcohol in the United States have actually broken other laws while doing so, but that claim isn’t consistent either; even fewer of the 80 million gun-owning Americans have committed crimes linked to using guns.

Now, I chose those two examples because I wanted examples that people seem to have a very strong opinion regarding them. Very few people do not have an opinion on these topics. However, many of these opinions are based on emotions rather than facts. Look at facts on which to base your opinions.

This is an awfully long and roundabout way to get to the topic at hand. Everybody has opinions and is free to express them. I can say whatever I want and as long as it is true (fact-based) and not harmful or criminal, it is valid whether or not you agree. 

The past several years, opinions have been shared by everybody, and the hardest part to accept with them is one of “if your opinion is different from mine, you are automatically wrong and have no right to say what you did.” This belief is sometimes imposed with vehemence and even violence. “We need to get everybody to agree with us, even if we have to destroy cities, even if we have to burn things to the ground!” (This from a very prominent Democratic politician.) 

There are several people that believe their opinions are better than yours for various spurious reasons:

• They are an actor or musician

• They are a sports figure

• They are of any specific race

• By the way, you are NOT automatically racist just because you are white

• They are offended by:

• The way someone speaks

• The color of someone’s hair

• They have been divorced

• They are religious or belong to a certain faith

Now, to the meat and potatoes. I used to post on social media quite frequently. I had accounts on several platforms, and had interactions with people from all sides of the political spectrum, people from all over this country and others, and both sexes. My sense of humor is not for everybody, but I cannot think of a time that someone was deeply offended by a humorous post I made.

What offended some people was when I had an opinion. My opinion was different from theirs. And in truth, there were only a couple of people who made a negative comment. There were times when I had discussions with others regarding my posts, but if you can support your opinion with facts, it may be coming from an emotional topic, but not based on emotions. 

I had an opinion.

I heard “Oh, come on!” and “You can’t seriously believe that crap!” and “Maybe you should just back down a little.” I guess if someone does not like your opinion and does not want to hear you speak it, it is invalid as well.

So I stopped posting. I am still present on these platforms, lurking, but I no longer have an opinion. I no longer have a valid opinion. I was offensive. I was saying things they did not like, so I must stop.

Just another statue torn down, another book burned, another name changed. Another voice silenced. 

I just stopped.

A Little Bit Of Kindness

This time of year is usually filled with plans and goals people set for themselves for the new year, a time of change, a new beginning. I was never one to make a lot of resolutions. Mine were always just how I planned on trying to be better. The past few years, some of the bloggers I follow have gone the route of selecting a word for their next year. For example, a few of them who were going through some hard times chose resilience. Some chose resistance. One I know chose information/education. They were planning on learning more about their own life and owning the progress they wanted to make. A couple chose compassion. One chose empathy. Another chose love.

I have already written about my efforts to be kinder so I decided that my word for the new year is going to be “Kindness.” I am going to make a conscious effort each day to be kinder. Not just kinder to those I know, but kinder to strangers, kinder to others I come across each day. I want to find ways to show kindness without the grandeur of “Look what I did!” and focus more on quietly, anonymously if at all possible, doing kindness for others.

My challenge to myself is to see how much and how often I can be kind without others noticing. I am doing this for my own benefit. I will not be keeping a score sheet, neither will this turn into an obligation so that I have to force myself to be kind or not make some arbitrary goal.

I just want to be better by being kinder.

How are you going to be kind?

What word are you choosing for this year?

I Am Trying

I am trying, really trying to be kinder. This time of year is slightly liminal for me. There are several weeks this time each year that just feel in flux. I realize a lot of the reasons, but none of them make any real sense to anybody except myself. I have a lot of very good memories of this time of year throughout my life, but they are tempered with as many less-than good memories from the same timeframe.

Most of this lives in my own head, nothing really that is owned by another, just myself. Sadly, I have seen moments when I let the atmosphere inside my head dictate what the outside does or says. Nothing horrible, and genuinely just venting for the most part.Thoughts that turn into verbal vomit. And mostly when I start to do this, I realize what I am going through at that moment and school my tongue. It may be harder to quiet my thoughts, but I attempt to leash my words. There is no other person that needs or deserves to hear my thoughts. 

However, as much I squelch these thoughts, the inside of my head seems to be broadcasting like a pirate radio station. One of the million watt stations from just across the Mexican border. And I have determined that it is an AM radio station because the signal is amplified by the clear skies of late-night airwaves devoid of the interference of the brightness of the sunlit day. 

I wonder if anybody else remembers when AM radio was more prevalent than FM or digital broadcasts, and after dusk the stations would start coming in from the ether. KNBR out of San Francisco, KFI out of Los Angeles, as well as stations out of Washington and Calgary, Alberta. Music, talk radio, and once in a while one would broadcast old radio shows that were popular prior to TV. There were nights I would scan the AM dial looking for and listening to these stations until the encroaching sunrise would degrade the signals to white noise static.

Now, late at night, I spend a lot of time scanning the dial in my head looking for “something else” to listen to. Sometimes I can focus on a story or music that is more pleasing or relaxing. Sometimes it is just static. Sometimes, it is not as pleasant. 

I will get over it.

I am trying to be kinder to others, and I think a lot of that means that I should try to be kinder to my own self. While I am not a terrible person, I freely admit that I can be, and have been, unkind. I care more about being unkind to others than myself. But when I am unkind to others, or remembering when I was unkind, it makes me feel less than charitable to myself. And inside my head it does not matter whether it was something I did or said yesterday or decades ago.

Liminal.

I have, and do try to apologize to others for my actions or words. I will not apologize for others, for I have no control over that. I would hope that I would be afforded that same consideration, but I have learned by my own experiences that there are many others who would either blame me, or at least lay the cost of the actions of others at my feet. I have enough of my own debts to cover to feel the need to pay someone else’s

As far as past events in my head, they live there. I do not know how to purge them from my thoughts. I like the quote: “The past is a place to learn from, not to live in.” Kind of a dust in the wind thing. But the inside of my head gets pretty dusty sometimes. 

I am trying.