i must be the robot.
so i had another meaningful conversation with my friend Ed Naghtreehoe. So the evening started out in rare form and i have to admit that i was intentionally looking to see what i was intended to learn about the nights overall events. learn i did. Now Ed had given me insight that everything we deal with is brought to us because we can bear that burden. something that he then further elaborated on as i was becoming to fully realize the meaning of that statement is that something things happen to us because they are ways of forcing or allowing, depending on how you want to look at it, us to learn how to cope with similar or larger matters.
Now being a man about town and having tried many a trade and craft in addition to other other worldly pursuits, he brought it into context for me. I could tell that his long pause was needed to find an adequate example to really cement the idea of what he wanted to say. Finally he recalled a previous story of mine from doing a remodel project recently for work. So he looks me in the eye and he asks me, "your working on the remodel project, did you ever have to blindly put your arm into a hole in the wall not knowing if anything was behind it?" I thought back to the instance he was referring too and remembered that i had only after my coworker did first because i was scared of live wires, hot water pipes, and who knows what crawling inside there. He laughed a bit because he knew of the fears that i had and then continued to tell me about how that fear is the thing that protects us but also makes sure that when we conquer it that we feel a rush. being avid hockey fans, he present to me story about himself and the first time he went to play hockey. that fear is universal, everyone feels it and it takes a strong person to accept and overcome that fear. So i came to start my lesson for the evening. Now i am no slouch and i am a bit more observant than most, so i applied this and thought that if i am truly going to evolve as a person i must spend as much time learning as i can. no better time like the present.
so the first thing that happened was that i noticed i was on a high. something about my demeanor and the way i walked was just on fire. i felt charismatic. the cause of this was doing just what he had told me i needed to do which was face that fear, that negative emotional pool sitting in my chest because i knew the right thing had to be done and it was not the easy thing and as such was going to be a challenge. so after my ordeal with my ex, i knew that after two days of searching over the information presented and weighing my options i knew i needed to cut it clean and fast. this caused me great turmoil because i am realizing that i really am a nice guy and that all the people who have seen that in me have seen what perhaps is the real me. i digress. the particular barrel i was staring down was having to be cold and detached from telling her that its not healthy for me to continue speaking to hear. her state of mind is a poison to me and that i can not and will not put myself in a position to be near those sorts of people. so i called. now being a nice guy as i am, i had to ask Ed how i can change my thought pattern and get into the mode of making sure that i dont get emotionally invested in the conversation. so he turns to me and says, "does a robot have feelings?" now how much better of a context for a techie geek guy can you possibly get.
that is the point of this little rambling, i must be a robot. now to link the stories, he then asked me, "does a robot have fear of putting his hand in a hole in the wall? does a robot have fear that he is going to screw up his job?" does a robot have fear that he is going to hurt someone by telling them what he is programmed to do?" i sat in silence. the simplicity of those statements jarred me. there are things you only realize when they are pointed out to you and this is one of them. i knew then that i must be cold and robotic when handling things of this nature because that is what was best. i had my first taste of it with that conversation. i couldnt help but get caught a little bit but i managed it with the constant reminder that my pillar of strength was watching over me. that night, i had to face reality and use the lesson i learned from that test.
now from the restaurant we had all agreed to go to a nice little hole in the wall bar that is in a nice secluded part of the city so it only really gets regulars and word of mouth traffic. they try to keep it low key for a reason. now whilst waiting for everyone to arrive, i stayed in the parking lot for the stragglers. now with me was a woman i have known for a short while. Ed Naghtreehoe is an excellent judge of character and he told me to watch out for that one, she is a real firecracker. so whilst waiting we carry pleasantries and she asks me to pause to cal her husband. then she tells me, she is bothered by the restrictions of marriage and hates lieing about going out but she wants to have a good time. observe and learn, this mantra was in the back of my head. later i saw this woman scampering away followed closely by another fellow who i do not believe was her husband. i asked Ed about it later, sort of a hindsight review. he told me that he expected no less then that from her because of the way she is. you cant change a person by saying i do. i had asked for a moment to reply the events with her in my mind. observe and learn. i started thinking about how me and my ex were different people and that status for saying she was married was her motivation for it. i looked to Ed and i asked him, do you see something wrong with the character of a person for this lack of real motivation beyond status? He looked me square in the eyes, i could tell that the words following were going to be sincere. "you know i have extreme respect for you but i have to tell you this to make you understand. your ex may have seemed great at the start but you must know that while you were blinded to seeing and accepting certain things about her she does have her flaws. something that i see is important to you is that your not after status like she was, getting married to tell her friends at work she has a husband and show off her ring is no reason to get married."
oddly enough those words did not hit me like a hammer. what did was that i was starting to see that he was right. i started to cement in my mind that to move and progress with this evolution of myself, i must remove the doubt, confusion and sources of those things. she was a source of both.
now the next event of the evening really happened in two parts. the first part was a simple revelation. to give you the back story, Ed Naghtreehoe, some friends and myself were at a party. now this type of party was not the calm and relaxing evening that everyone wanted but it was definitely exciting. to spare details and time as this is already a lengthy musing, a fight erupted and one guy went down. Ed having spent time doing rescue work for injured folks in ice covered lands, his instincts kicked in to aid a fellow man downed. unfortunately, Ed for concentrating on the fellow unconscious failed to notice that a mob was forming. Luckily, in one of the few times i could truly say i aided Ed, i pulled him away from the scene to make sure we were not caught up in the monstrosity of chaos that ensued. two women out smoking on the back patio were getting into a heated argument, body language was telling me that something could potentially erupt if tension continued. now being honest, one of the two women is attractive to my tastes and as i had come to know her a tad as a regular of the same bar, there was a sense of wanting to pursue her. I began to invest emotion into something that did not involve myself beyond the attraction to a party involved. something within me felt the need to get in there an break it up. later, discussing this with Ed and he related this to that previous party fight and how i had to help him get out of the situation. "sometimes you can get caught up in the emotional whirlwind of the moment but you have to remember and teach yourself to take a step back, breathe a few times and examine if you are truly involved or have anything invested in the situation." looking back in the midst of conversation concerning this i realized that i could have easily not turned around to see the arguing and been more content with the evening.
now to the second part of this event, i am sad to say it was an example of how when you are jaded and done fighting your fears ... you end up similar to this man. now apparently the argument between the two ladies started over a man. but not as you may think, perverts, because it was about his drinking. this man is a tennessee boy, raised on moonshine and rye whiskey. drinking practically comes second nature. so one had talked to the other about maybe a systemic rise to his drinking and helping him cut down or move towards stopping. words are not enough for a woman who is off her rocker so she started threats against the other for her job. i was unaware that unstable people make friends with the owners of the bars they frequent, go figure. he has been dealing with this sort of unstable reactions for the last six months so he had enough, he cant wait for her to go and shut down. his frustration at this unstable woman had come to climax and this caused him to just want to drink further, something that just now occurred to me.
sorry, starting the barrel down again. its lovely to work through issues on the phone.
now then. it greatly saddened me to see this complacency in him but i understand where it comes from as he has succumbed to the pressure and fear of taking action. i was once like that but hopefully i will change.
ill follow up with chapter 3 of the Ed Naghtreehoe chronicals.
Now being a man about town and having tried many a trade and craft in addition to other other worldly pursuits, he brought it into context for me. I could tell that his long pause was needed to find an adequate example to really cement the idea of what he wanted to say. Finally he recalled a previous story of mine from doing a remodel project recently for work. So he looks me in the eye and he asks me, "your working on the remodel project, did you ever have to blindly put your arm into a hole in the wall not knowing if anything was behind it?" I thought back to the instance he was referring too and remembered that i had only after my coworker did first because i was scared of live wires, hot water pipes, and who knows what crawling inside there. He laughed a bit because he knew of the fears that i had and then continued to tell me about how that fear is the thing that protects us but also makes sure that when we conquer it that we feel a rush. being avid hockey fans, he present to me story about himself and the first time he went to play hockey. that fear is universal, everyone feels it and it takes a strong person to accept and overcome that fear. So i came to start my lesson for the evening. Now i am no slouch and i am a bit more observant than most, so i applied this and thought that if i am truly going to evolve as a person i must spend as much time learning as i can. no better time like the present.
so the first thing that happened was that i noticed i was on a high. something about my demeanor and the way i walked was just on fire. i felt charismatic. the cause of this was doing just what he had told me i needed to do which was face that fear, that negative emotional pool sitting in my chest because i knew the right thing had to be done and it was not the easy thing and as such was going to be a challenge. so after my ordeal with my ex, i knew that after two days of searching over the information presented and weighing my options i knew i needed to cut it clean and fast. this caused me great turmoil because i am realizing that i really am a nice guy and that all the people who have seen that in me have seen what perhaps is the real me. i digress. the particular barrel i was staring down was having to be cold and detached from telling her that its not healthy for me to continue speaking to hear. her state of mind is a poison to me and that i can not and will not put myself in a position to be near those sorts of people. so i called. now being a nice guy as i am, i had to ask Ed how i can change my thought pattern and get into the mode of making sure that i dont get emotionally invested in the conversation. so he turns to me and says, "does a robot have feelings?" now how much better of a context for a techie geek guy can you possibly get.
that is the point of this little rambling, i must be a robot. now to link the stories, he then asked me, "does a robot have fear of putting his hand in a hole in the wall? does a robot have fear that he is going to screw up his job?" does a robot have fear that he is going to hurt someone by telling them what he is programmed to do?" i sat in silence. the simplicity of those statements jarred me. there are things you only realize when they are pointed out to you and this is one of them. i knew then that i must be cold and robotic when handling things of this nature because that is what was best. i had my first taste of it with that conversation. i couldnt help but get caught a little bit but i managed it with the constant reminder that my pillar of strength was watching over me. that night, i had to face reality and use the lesson i learned from that test.
now from the restaurant we had all agreed to go to a nice little hole in the wall bar that is in a nice secluded part of the city so it only really gets regulars and word of mouth traffic. they try to keep it low key for a reason. now whilst waiting for everyone to arrive, i stayed in the parking lot for the stragglers. now with me was a woman i have known for a short while. Ed Naghtreehoe is an excellent judge of character and he told me to watch out for that one, she is a real firecracker. so whilst waiting we carry pleasantries and she asks me to pause to cal her husband. then she tells me, she is bothered by the restrictions of marriage and hates lieing about going out but she wants to have a good time. observe and learn, this mantra was in the back of my head. later i saw this woman scampering away followed closely by another fellow who i do not believe was her husband. i asked Ed about it later, sort of a hindsight review. he told me that he expected no less then that from her because of the way she is. you cant change a person by saying i do. i had asked for a moment to reply the events with her in my mind. observe and learn. i started thinking about how me and my ex were different people and that status for saying she was married was her motivation for it. i looked to Ed and i asked him, do you see something wrong with the character of a person for this lack of real motivation beyond status? He looked me square in the eyes, i could tell that the words following were going to be sincere. "you know i have extreme respect for you but i have to tell you this to make you understand. your ex may have seemed great at the start but you must know that while you were blinded to seeing and accepting certain things about her she does have her flaws. something that i see is important to you is that your not after status like she was, getting married to tell her friends at work she has a husband and show off her ring is no reason to get married."
oddly enough those words did not hit me like a hammer. what did was that i was starting to see that he was right. i started to cement in my mind that to move and progress with this evolution of myself, i must remove the doubt, confusion and sources of those things. she was a source of both.
now the next event of the evening really happened in two parts. the first part was a simple revelation. to give you the back story, Ed Naghtreehoe, some friends and myself were at a party. now this type of party was not the calm and relaxing evening that everyone wanted but it was definitely exciting. to spare details and time as this is already a lengthy musing, a fight erupted and one guy went down. Ed having spent time doing rescue work for injured folks in ice covered lands, his instincts kicked in to aid a fellow man downed. unfortunately, Ed for concentrating on the fellow unconscious failed to notice that a mob was forming. Luckily, in one of the few times i could truly say i aided Ed, i pulled him away from the scene to make sure we were not caught up in the monstrosity of chaos that ensued. two women out smoking on the back patio were getting into a heated argument, body language was telling me that something could potentially erupt if tension continued. now being honest, one of the two women is attractive to my tastes and as i had come to know her a tad as a regular of the same bar, there was a sense of wanting to pursue her. I began to invest emotion into something that did not involve myself beyond the attraction to a party involved. something within me felt the need to get in there an break it up. later, discussing this with Ed and he related this to that previous party fight and how i had to help him get out of the situation. "sometimes you can get caught up in the emotional whirlwind of the moment but you have to remember and teach yourself to take a step back, breathe a few times and examine if you are truly involved or have anything invested in the situation." looking back in the midst of conversation concerning this i realized that i could have easily not turned around to see the arguing and been more content with the evening.
now to the second part of this event, i am sad to say it was an example of how when you are jaded and done fighting your fears ... you end up similar to this man. now apparently the argument between the two ladies started over a man. but not as you may think, perverts, because it was about his drinking. this man is a tennessee boy, raised on moonshine and rye whiskey. drinking practically comes second nature. so one had talked to the other about maybe a systemic rise to his drinking and helping him cut down or move towards stopping. words are not enough for a woman who is off her rocker so she started threats against the other for her job. i was unaware that unstable people make friends with the owners of the bars they frequent, go figure. he has been dealing with this sort of unstable reactions for the last six months so he had enough, he cant wait for her to go and shut down. his frustration at this unstable woman had come to climax and this caused him to just want to drink further, something that just now occurred to me.
sorry, starting the barrel down again. its lovely to work through issues on the phone.
now then. it greatly saddened me to see this complacency in him but i understand where it comes from as he has succumbed to the pressure and fear of taking action. i was once like that but hopefully i will change.
ill follow up with chapter 3 of the Ed Naghtreehoe chronicals.