There was a moment five years ago where I walked into a fire and discovered the fire extinguisher I picked up was bone dry.
It wasn’t the sort of discovery that makes you jump with joy but it did make me shout…more than once. No one came running to help and though I didn’t expect anyone to I had hoped to be mistaken about it.
Maybe that is tied into why I don’t ever expect anyone to save me from the flames or maybe it goes back decades earlier.
Can’t say for certain but I put that particular question into the box of ‘doesn’t matter’ because unless and until proven different this is how I operate.
Save yourself or drown.
Cue new music as I ponder some other questions that are of more importance to me.
Can I Solve The Equation?
I wasn’t a particularly good math student not because I couldn’t understand what I was taught but because I didn’t see the purpose in it and in those days if I didn’t see purpose I wasn’t good about putting much effort in.
But since I was good at figuring out how to get by I did enough to pass and then promptly forgot most of it. A thousand years later when the kids ask how I did I tell them I got an A in Algebra and ‘C’s in every thing else.
I failed a bunch of the tests that came in the classes that followed and got a bunch of ‘A’s too which I suppose is why I passed. Put my back up against it and I usually figure out how to do more than get by.
This baffles my daughter who has been a straight A student who doesn’t like her father telling her it is ok if she doesn’t get an ‘A.’
I always tell her I am proud of her pushing herself to do well but also say I don’t want her health to suffer as a result of driving too hard.
“Baby girl, no one remembers if you got an ‘A’ or had a 4.0. In the real world it is important to do good work but it is almost more important to know how to get along with other people.”
Since she is better at making friends than I am it is possible that I ought to not say anything, but I am dad. She also has seen me tell other parents that I don’t care who is in the top reading group or who got a higher SAT score as I find little to no meaning in such things.
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The funny thing all these years later is I look back at some of the classes and think about how much better I could have done.
Sometimes I wonder if it is the benefit of life experience that makes me confident of my skills in those past courses and if maybe it has added confidence I didn’t have then.
Except in many ways I was far more confident and fearless then.
Still there are moments when I play around with taking a Calculus or some of other advanced math class to see how far I can push myself.
Can I solve the equation?
Probably.
But the bigger questions I ask are tied into other conversations in which I feel like I have gotten partial answers to important questions and face the issue of whether I want to press.
Press meaning confront the others and say I call bullshit on what I have or haven’t been told because I see the inconsistencies and partial truths.
Press meaning I spell out in no uncertain terms what has angered me and how I felt mistreated.
The funny part of that is in most cases I have let go of those people because I don’t have time to hang onto people who don’t treat me the way I want to be treated.
So I suppose if you are among the very few who don’t immediately get axed you ought to recognize you’re part of a select crew. 🙂
The ghosts have been visiting again and I haven’t tried to chase them away.
Instead I have welcomed them and offered them reign and room to rattle their chains and moan. I may be a fighter by nature and trade but at the moment I don’t have much extra bandwidth.
So let the surf race towards the shore and wipe out the footprints of the past year. Let go of what doesn’t serve and what doesn’t help us anymore.
Take these chains off and let freedom ring, I can figure out the equation if I just put my mind to it. I just know it, I can solve for X.
