Interesting that it is such a puzzle, getting from your place to Carson City. How about paddling that 18 ft canoe of yours, down to the south end of the lake? You could camp overnight along the way. The whole adventure, and an explanation of the difficulties that led you to it, would make a great article for the local newspaper. It might even get picked up by the Associated Press, and you'd end up being a guest on David Letterman (I'm assuming David Letterman still has a show on TV) or Jay Leno, or whatever. Of course, you'd first have to round up some Mexicans to help you get the boat from your place down to the lake, but the story of that would just add more fascinatingness to the piece. Or is the canoe still sitting in Jane's garage? This is a brilliant idea but, no, you'll end up getting there in some not-newsworthy way.
Okay, so let's address this discomfort with people thing....
Well sure every stranger you meet is a potential rattlesnake. Or it could be like one of these insects that injects its eggs inside its prey so they can hatch in there, and then slowly devour the thing from the inside. I've definitely always felt wary of people, and on my guard, to the point where my face starts twitching and I can't look people in the eye. My dad did a great job of teaching me, and demonstrating, that people are scary and not to be trusted easily, and the world is a terrifying place. But everything is dangerous and unpredictable. That's what makes it life as we know it. Catastrophe can strike any time and anywhere, with or without people. Every decision or non-decision could be the one that kills you. And if you try to seal yourself off from all these dangers, bingo, you're dead already... you just have to wait for your heart to stop beating. Sure, the world is an unsafe place, and people can be rattlesnakes. I've always assumed that everyone has a dark, secret underbelly. All I have to do is look at myself honestly and I realize, okay, people are complicated, and a mixture of good and evil. I think everyone is, to a greater or lesser degree, a fraud. That's the human condition. I feel like I've got a fairly decent radar for when people are seriously being fake and trying to manipulate me and that sense gives me a certain amount of confidence, I guess, that every person I might encounter isn't a complete unknown scary question mark, with an equal, random chance of being a rattlesnake. Did you start out thinking that people are basically good and trustworthy? Have you always had this intense wariness and suspiciousness of people, or did it come over time from many repeated experiences where you misjudged or trusted someone, and they turned out to be a rattlesnake? If you can't generally tell the difference between a cherry bomb and a pebble, then all pebbles seem dangerous.
Jesus said this to his followers when he sent them out into the world to interact with people: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Be wise as serpents.... a very interesting thing for Mr. Son-of-God to say to his friends. He didn't tell them to just go out and be trusting fools.
At this point in my life, the rewards of trying to make connections with other people outweigh the dangers. It's like being on the second story of a burning house. It feels like the choice between a gamble and guaranteed emotional death. Sure, it's scary to jump out the window, but given the alternative... bring it on! That's a fairly new thing with me, this interest in getting emotionally intimate with other people. I am by nature a very, very solitary person, more so than almost anyone I've ever met. I love solitude. I love quiet. That will never change. It's only in the last four or five years, as I've stumbled through some pretty intense psychological and spiritual crises, that I've felt I need other people to somehow complete my destiny, for lack of a better way of putting it. But that's just me, my personal situation. For you, I guess the question is, can you be happy and fulfilled without other people? And that's not even the question, because you've got Jane and the others in your family, and you've got me, and who knows who else you've already got. If what you've got is sufficient, then there you go, there's no problem at all.
I attached one more cartoon from Dilbert, that comic strip you think is dumb and humorless and incomprehensible. Do you see any humor in this one?
I feel like an embarrassing dope after writing this e-mail, for some reason, but I'm sending it anyway. If you're not an embarrassing dope once in awhile, then you're not really living. That's my motto.
--edward
No comments:
Post a Comment