More electromagnetic waves across space
It's necessary for people to feel like their life matters in the grand scheme of things...or even just within a specific context.
I've been grappling with this sort of thing since I graduated from high school. I remember the floor falling out from under me when I realized that I had no idea what to do. I've plodded along more whimsically than not since then.
Tonight I witnessed just another act of craziness within this season of cabin-fever madness. This was my friend though. Somewhat estranged for a while due to his particular problems of late, but now these problems are getting violently out of control.
Some people should never drink.
While I can dismiss the litany of crazy people who brush though Epoch and stir up a few days worth of gossip with their personal cataclysm, I cannot stand to watch a close friend go through the same.
People are not heartless, though it sometimes seemed that way to me when I had problems and felt that my acquaintances would let me drop to the bottom without lending a hand. In fact, this friend of mine was a voice that literally called me back on a particularly bad night when I was driving aimlessly through Llano, my sense of direction being inadequate to find my way to California that night. Just a voicemail out of the blue that demonstrated that at least someone thought about me sometimes.
People are quite the opposite of heartless...they simply have only so much capacity to endure sorrow and witness sorrow. Surely a few are just lazy and adept at rationalizing away others, but most simply have to close the floodgates on the overwhelming amount of small and large, rational and irrational tragedies around them. Those who try to take responsibility for the whole world quickly burn out and either become cold or fall apart themselves.
Epoch has some sort of quality that attracts the dispossessed. As a general rule, those who become regulars are black sheep of some sort, though some hide this more than others. Many seem fairly sane and balanced...until you get to know them. Being surrounded by so many invisible closets with resident skeletons may very well be what attracts the truly lost, who also regularly appear at Epoch and proceed to flip the fuck out. And we must necessarily dismiss those lost ones, because we are simply not equipped to help, even if that subconscious well of lost and foundness gives the lost ones a sense of being among their own kind. Everyone has a white knuckled grip on that sense of solidarity and sanity lately. In fact, more so than usual Epoch seems dull, like it's collectively faking normalcy too hard.
So I know well that I can't get too wrapped up in my friend's dilemma, because at a certain point the in-group must be shunned to the out-group as part of the social immune system. Some equilibrium must be maintained. But I must bend whatever rational efforts I can summon to helping my friend even as I watch him slipping over the edge. I need to try to reciprocate that voice that called me back one terrible night, because even though I would have driven back to Austin of my own accord soon enough, the reassurance that someone cares can be immeasurably valuable at certain times.
I don't know how to help him find purpose in his life, because I haven't figured that one out myself yet. But I can recognize what it might be and how important and vitalizing it is.
Much of the tragedy of humanity stems simply from this lack.
Writing in the second person is usually distasteful, but just this once...this particular page of mine does not have many readers, but if you're reading this, I'm thinking about you. Human relations are often tenuous, but at some point I have met you and respected you for a unique quality. Just another satellite of humanity transmitting a feeble signal of reciprocity in the dark.
I've been grappling with this sort of thing since I graduated from high school. I remember the floor falling out from under me when I realized that I had no idea what to do. I've plodded along more whimsically than not since then.
Tonight I witnessed just another act of craziness within this season of cabin-fever madness. This was my friend though. Somewhat estranged for a while due to his particular problems of late, but now these problems are getting violently out of control.
Some people should never drink.
While I can dismiss the litany of crazy people who brush though Epoch and stir up a few days worth of gossip with their personal cataclysm, I cannot stand to watch a close friend go through the same.
People are not heartless, though it sometimes seemed that way to me when I had problems and felt that my acquaintances would let me drop to the bottom without lending a hand. In fact, this friend of mine was a voice that literally called me back on a particularly bad night when I was driving aimlessly through Llano, my sense of direction being inadequate to find my way to California that night. Just a voicemail out of the blue that demonstrated that at least someone thought about me sometimes.
People are quite the opposite of heartless...they simply have only so much capacity to endure sorrow and witness sorrow. Surely a few are just lazy and adept at rationalizing away others, but most simply have to close the floodgates on the overwhelming amount of small and large, rational and irrational tragedies around them. Those who try to take responsibility for the whole world quickly burn out and either become cold or fall apart themselves.
Epoch has some sort of quality that attracts the dispossessed. As a general rule, those who become regulars are black sheep of some sort, though some hide this more than others. Many seem fairly sane and balanced...until you get to know them. Being surrounded by so many invisible closets with resident skeletons may very well be what attracts the truly lost, who also regularly appear at Epoch and proceed to flip the fuck out. And we must necessarily dismiss those lost ones, because we are simply not equipped to help, even if that subconscious well of lost and foundness gives the lost ones a sense of being among their own kind. Everyone has a white knuckled grip on that sense of solidarity and sanity lately. In fact, more so than usual Epoch seems dull, like it's collectively faking normalcy too hard.
So I know well that I can't get too wrapped up in my friend's dilemma, because at a certain point the in-group must be shunned to the out-group as part of the social immune system. Some equilibrium must be maintained. But I must bend whatever rational efforts I can summon to helping my friend even as I watch him slipping over the edge. I need to try to reciprocate that voice that called me back one terrible night, because even though I would have driven back to Austin of my own accord soon enough, the reassurance that someone cares can be immeasurably valuable at certain times.
I don't know how to help him find purpose in his life, because I haven't figured that one out myself yet. But I can recognize what it might be and how important and vitalizing it is.
Much of the tragedy of humanity stems simply from this lack.
Writing in the second person is usually distasteful, but just this once...this particular page of mine does not have many readers, but if you're reading this, I'm thinking about you. Human relations are often tenuous, but at some point I have met you and respected you for a unique quality. Just another satellite of humanity transmitting a feeble signal of reciprocity in the dark.