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All right, pumpkins, I am about to just bust, so fasten your seatbelts — it's going to be a bumpy article.
Let me first start with saying I have become bored with myself. This is a luxury that someone as self-absorbed as I am cannot afford.
I don't know when it all started, but I find myself moving farther away from self-interest and closer to being interested in others. Tragic, really — especially when you have a deep-rooted fear of intimacy on any level. I will be frank. I loathe cheap sentiment and find emotions to be messy and unreliable.
It has been my experience that people, in general, are frail creatures more concerned with their own egos than the general well-being of the community they live in. It sounds like a harsh judgement, and I admit that it is. But I am allowed to have personal judgement. I could do my best Julie Andrews and fill the world with sunshine and song surrounding the issues of friendship and love, but I am feeling a bit more Bette Davis, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't invite Rogers & Hammerstein to participate in this particular article.
I have been fortunate to have been blessed with some wonderful friends and an amazing life — I have said that repeatedly.
The flip side of that is that I have experienced some real buggers in my day: friends who aren't loyal, trusting, or genuine, and who would just as soon sell you to the black market for their personal gain as they would brunch with you; friends who are ruled by their own agendas to a degree that they lose sight of morality or common decency.
Don't get me wrong pumpkins, I don't presume to preach morality or common decency. I would rather merely allude to its existence to accentuate the point that some are so blinded by personal greed, in whatever form it manifests itself, that they lose sight of the concept, to say nothing of the practice. I am a strong believer in society's ability to produce warm, generous, and compassionate people. It is just that I think that, unless individuals have that inspiration en masse, most lose their initiative. They may enter your life all fire and music, but in the end they leave your life in flames and noise.
Is that too jaded? I suppose it may sound jaded, but I would argue that it is just truth without a pretty bow to distract you from its unpleasantness. People are both wonderful and venomous with everything in between, myself included. That is why I have always kept my distance from people. Always kept them at bay, never letting anyone get too close to me so that that venom would never effect me again. Yes, again, I was hurt as child, as we all were in one form or another. The wounds were deep, and they never fully healed. A child's pain is like a favorite toy. Even when you outgrow it, it is hard to throw away. I suppose that is why I kept my distance, so I could control the wonder and the venom.
Well now I realize that I never controlled that world, it controlled me. It kept me in a box and cultivated my fears and anxieties while it cast shadow over my dreams and goals. I no longer choose to live in that world, although I still visit from time to time. People can be venomous, frail sycophants content to destroy rather than construct, but people can also be compassionate, strong believers content to support rather than consume. People are beautiful and full of life and love if you let them share that with you; if you believe that they are capable of it, they will show it to you and you to them. It frightens me to open myself to that level of vulnerability, to invite people into that place that I have held private for so long. I have seen people feed off others' misfortunate or exploitation like starving vultures, but I have also have seen how protective and loyal they can be, how supportive and committed they are to building a better life for all of us.
As I said in the beginning, I'm beginning to be bored with myself. Well, maybe not with myself, but with the world I kept myself in. After all, I am like one of Life's little action figures (naturally, complete with grip action). There is always an adventure to be had.
The moral of this little rant you may ask? Well, never a moral, but just a smig of humble suggestion. Take a look at your world, a real strong look, and figure out if you bore of it or if it — the people, the places, and the adventures — works for you. Don't limit yourself to just a small piece of life. Firmly jump into the unknown with every confidence that there will be people waiting to help you land. Support your community, support your circle of family and friends, but mostly support yourself. Feel life's magic and energy go through you every moment of every day of your life. There is so much out there if we just let it into our worlds.
Damn, I guess a little Rogers & Hammerstein made it in after all.
