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Friday, September 20, 2002

The Land of Mysanthropia

I'm curious.  You've been putting a lot of your activities in your 
journal over the past few months, but very little of what's going on 
inside.

Actually, I've been writing tons about it, but it's all so dark you just can't see it against the black background.

In my head is this model of the world... where I see and feel the progress of time, experience the ongoing lives of all those who have touched mine, as if I were a thousand flies on a thousand walls all at once. I see RG meeting her new classmates in Scotland, and learning to drink beer. I see Amanda*'s PDA beeping, the sound of a context switch in her multitasking life. I see Andrew* spending time with his latest girlfriend who is visiting him from the east coast, engaging her in his unique way. I see Garrett* sitting in his chair behind his computer, flirting with the world while dreaming of sea and snow. I see Agatha taking notes in her classes, reading, baking, and occasionally deeply questioning things she may not want answered. I see Reichart* conducting his metaphorical orchestra, Elle gracing it with her voice; Catherine giving talks on network security by day, playing in her garage band by night; Richard driving over the hill to Megacorp every day, to stir the stew that is never done; Michelle evolving into art-student/stripper; Aaron trying to balance playboy and profit; Tom playing his violin while designing scary power medical tools; Teresa lecturing physics in Japan; Julie playing Set; Sally rewarding herself by abusing herself; Tara living the life she imagines; Laura cuddling with the ex-ex; Martin socializing, and flying the trapeze; Doug working on his animations; Jack* making friends in languages he barely speaks; Peter getting ready to reinvent himself...

And I see this all now, and I see what it will (may) be in the future, so much of it staying exactly the same, but some getting better and some worse...

I see everything but me, at least when I look out to the world. My own image has mostly faded from it, and now exists only in a separate universe which contains only me, on my grassy hill, hair and clothes tossing restlessly in the warm, gusty wind, with nothing else beyond, as far as the mind can reach.

Sometimes the two universes float near, a seemingly familiar soul floats by, I reach out, they take my hand and smile, and then they let go and fall back into their world, the other universe, the one that has no place for me, nor any that I want. It might be poetic if this were a transitional state, but I sense it is the end state, and my life a Shakespearian tragedy, written to elicit tears from its stoic audience and cast of one; and then the curtains fall, and there is just silence.

I hear the voices yelling "everybody feels this way", but they don't know--they can only imagine what is within their reach. To be sure, there are others, but those who know what I'm saying also know better than to write it off as common.

In more concrete terms, I have almost completely lost whatever semblance of connection or respect I had for the human race. Even counting myself as a sample, that I could ever have been so optimistic in the first place is just another mark against the human machine. I once wrote, proudly, that despite their many walks of life, there are no soap operas amongst my friends. I cannot say that any more, but worse they are the same people, and so I was just blind, if not to their behavior than to their potential.

Tara has made it clear that she is not my friend any more. I don't know who or what she is; I did not recognize her soul when I saw her Saturday. Sally was similarly lost, to the grips of the medical industry who had her on so many pills she was no longer Sally. Her body and mind were both failing; she felt she would die soon. So she asked me for help, and I have been struggling for the last couple of months to provide for her the good advice the medical industry is too impersonal to purvey, and the will power she does not want to have, the hardest part of which is that as she is getting better--and she is much much better than when she first asked for my help--she gets too comfortable and rewards herself by falling back into the same habits which we worked so hard to get her out of. I am reminded of my father who once said he really wants to clean up so he can feel the rush again. And Garrett*... I have alluded to my issues with Garrett* many times in the past, but still the depth of it eluded me. In all of the above cases, I feel duped, having believed at one time, at one level or another, that these people cared for me, in the way that I know caring; and what I have learned is that they just wanted to borrow my eyes, to put them on just when they needed them, and to leave them off the rest of the time because the last thing they could bear is to live the world through my eyes; and the last thing they could do is to imagine how to care for someone trapped behind them.

And it is not deception on their part, just foolish optimism on mine. Perhaps not foolish--necessary, because if I truly trusted my intuitions, I would probably never speak to another human.

Speaking of which, researching for my earlier entry today has me reconsidering the home-swapping deal. I should stick to people who I have some chain of references to; while I might still get a schmuck or two, at least the odds would be significantly lower that my body would end up floating down a Prague canal. I'd feel better about it if I could pack a 9mm, but now more than ever the police are but historians for a world they render helpless.

Ah well. Back to my life, such as it is. I want to start over, from scratch. Shed this life and walk naked into a new world. But alas, there is no new world, so I'd just end up walking naked into this one and I've already been through that and here is where I ended up. Still, it seemed better when it was fresh, less laden with baggage, so perhaps there is a wisdom to shedding one's skin periodically, and just keeping the core. I'm looking... for a direction to go. Something different; something new. It's time for a new category--the old ones are tired. Perhaps one day I shall just vanish. Anyone care to join me? Now taking applications for a companion: hardened, but not brittle; young, but ageless; dark, but inspired; playful, but not stagnant.

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