You never know for certain whether you lost your pepper pike or if you just ended up on an extended break or accidentally found yourself walking down parallel paths.
Sort of like being in one of those amusement park lines whose set up ensures that you cannot decipher just how close or far you are from boarding the ride.
Or at least it does so in the beginning.
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I keep hearing this play in my head and I have this feeling that something is coming but I am not entirely what.
Can’t say that it is good, bad or indifferent–I just know it feels a bit like the far off rumble of a train coming my direction.
If I turned my head to the left and looked backwards I am certain I would see a fog behind me and shapes moving within it.
Part of me wants to go backwards and start walking towards it because I would rather confront it on my terms than wait for whatever is coming to find me.
Don’t mistake that for fear because that is not what I feel now. It is more like I hear bells going off and I want to see if it is imagination or intuition pushing up from the depths of the dark hole inside my head.
I have been wrong about so many things and that makes me hesitant, but I have also been right and that makes me confident.
If it were only curiosity and confidence this particular formula would lead to a particular response but the reality is there is at least a double dose of caution pulling back upon the reins lest we get thrown from the horse…again.
Facebook Didn’t Make You Stupid
If you posted the picture above on Facebook and asked for people to tell you what is going you’d get a variety of answers.
Some would say she is holding onto the guy who is trying to protect her. Some would say she is fighting to get away from the man who won’t let her go and others would say it is some of sort of metaphor for how Republicans and Democrats view the world.
I know what I would say, but I am not going to share that right now.
Instead I’ll tell you that reading comments online often makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with people and that it usually comes with a silent “Facebook didn’t make you stupid” comment about people.
Because that is true.
Facebook didn’t make you stupid or smart, but it may have helped to illustrate you finer/worse traits for the world to see.
That is not to say I am not guilty of doing all of the above.
For quite some time now I have used my personal Facebook in a far more open and experimental way than I used to.
It has been a giant test lab in which I have floated different approaches and ideas to generating content and responses to content with the idea that I would use those to enhance things here.
Can’t say I have been particularly successful or that I haven’t because I haven’t focused implementing those ideas here very much.
It’s almost a cliche to say this song is playing on my headphones now and to say I have been thinking about these messages at length.
In a short time I’ll race for another plane back to Texas and do my best to settle into the ride and accept I have done all I could do…for now.
There will be more conversations with the kids about all of the family stuff and all the reasons we do as we do.
Some of it will be easier than past moments because they are old enough to have real conversations about exactly what is going on and why certain choices are being made.
And some of it will be harder because they will know immediately how little control we have and why sometimes the best explanation we have is “shit happens.”
That is not particularly satisfying or comforting but it is real and the older I get the blunter I become.
Music Break
The Book Of Love– Peter Gabriel
Reflections of My Life– The Marmalade
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother– The Hollies
You’ll Never Walk Alone– Gerry & The Pacemakers
We’ll Meet Again– Johnny Cash
In the Ghetto– Elvis Presley
Doctors and Statistics
I have listened to doctors and read the statistics doing my best to absorb and understand the material being stuffed inside my head.
When I apply myself I am very good at ingesting huge amounts of information but the reality is that Einstein is correct, information is not knowledge.
There is little real application for being able to recite the contents of the Worldbook encyclopedia without being to provide context for how and why the things you share are relevant and significant.
And so much of what one is trying to learn isn’t of the same sort as a simple equation of 2 +2 equaling four.
Because when it comes to medicine individuals can respond differently leading to situations where most of the time you might get four but sometimes you might end up with 3 or 6.5 too.
That makes it more challenging for someone with far greater expertise and understanding than I have, let alone me.
But it is also why I don’t automatically accept everything I am told as being truth either, sometimes it is not.
Humans are fallible and sometimes subject to looking at life in very specific and particular ways. Sometimes that helps and sometimes it leads to incorrect conclusions or missed opportunities.
It is a big part of why I make those cracks about Facebook didn’t make you stupid and probably the same reason why some people say the same about me.
