If I told you it started with I am Looking For Answers some of you might read through and wonder what the hell I was talking about and I wouldn’t blame you.
Hell, I thought about tripping a mangy professor and shaking him for bad behavior and mistreatment of others.
You couldn’t possibly know who, what or why and might ask for more details and I would say you are reading a mind dump and ask if you really want to know.
I already told you I am an agnostic and not an atheist because I have come to believe that when one soul recognizes another there is a lifelong connection.
The trick is those souls don’t know if they’ll meet at 5, 17, 33 or 55 so you can’t depend on it actually happening. All that you can guarantee is when they do they’ll know.
And then the question is whether they’ll acknowledge what happened and investigate it further.
I can tell you it is pristine, painful and of infinite interest.
Kind of reminds me of what it is like to have a dislocated part of your body put back into its correct place and position
The Will To Act
Been deep in thought about a variety of things because I have been extra ornery and irritable as of late.
Thought about how it has manifested itself this week and a couple of moments today in which I felt flames begin to shoot from my nostrils.
There are multiple reasons to be a little more stressed out and reason to extend some grace to ourselves and each other.
Flashback to a moment in high school in which another boy started to mess with me. Over the course of several days he put his hands upon me in a variety of ways and ignored my protests.
Another boy told me not to do anything because he said it would get worse and that this other boy’s friends would join in and that I would be stuck.
I don’t remember worrying about the friends but whether a few days of not having responded with more a few words and slapping his hands off of me would make him think I lacked the will to act.
That hasn’t been an issue, if anything it has been a willingness to leap before looking and the idea I’d deal with the consequences afterwards.
Sometimes it came because of impatience and sometimes because of passion.
In this case I was an enraged 16 year-old and determined to make sure I got a couple of clean shots on this other boy.
Not going to make this a long story or into something it’s not, but I’ll say I remember the satisfaction I felt when my fist made contact.
It was almost as good as the look on his face when he was on his back and scared I would give him what he earned.
He didn’t get a full dose because teachers pulled me off of him and a thousand years ago I know he must have irked them too.
They didn’t send me to the office or do anything other than pull me off and tell me to go home…so I did.
****
I still don’t know how I got the black eye. Can’t say if he hit me or if during the scramble on the ground I kissed the cement.
Grandpa Wilner told me to think about bringing a roll of quarters with me or maybe a roll of dimes. “If he comes back for another round make sure you break his nose.”
Dad told me to avoid going another round but said not to be afraid to protect myself. “Let him take the first swing and make sure you take the last. Your eye will heal.”
****
Two years or so since the lock down we are still running into people we haven’t seen in what feels like an eternity.
I still look in the mirror surprised at the face I see looking back and me but slowly becoming more pleased with the overall picture because the time pushing and pulling iron is yielding dividends.
But it doesn’t wipe out the impact of a time spent filling in for Atlas and the assorted other tasks of Hercules completed and or remaining to be done.
Sometimes I think I am too damn tired, too damn old and too damn something or other to do some of them.
Could be easier to just walk away and do nothing but the fire burns and the will to act isn’t a problem or the problem.
Fact is there isn’t anything insurmountable, there is just general fatigue and some unexpected complications alongside unexpected opportunities.
Since changes come no matter what we do we ought to listen to Al and accept that sometimes we have to submit so that we can move into and onto the next chapter.
I am expecting it to be a rough week and blame anticipation for what may come as being tied to part of my irritability.
Josh 101 lists that he does better when he doesn’t give himself too much time to think and worry. More often than not the anticipation of what could be is worse than what is.
After all you can’t adapt, adjust and or pivot until you know “whatever” that “what” is. So here is to getting through to the what so that we can figure out the next part.
And here is to hoping that we have a person and or persons who are willing to walk through the fire with us.
There will be a new dawn and dry land.
