Vision

I’ve said many times in the past that wanting the world to change, wanting something different, isn’t good enough. We can spend all day talking about what’s wrong, what needs to happen, what’s broken, blah blah blah. That’s easy. What’s more difficult is describing what things look like when they’re fixed, when the world is perfect. No matter how fantastic, how improbable, how impossible. Sometimes you’re very big, and sometimes you’re very small. Imagine the right is wrong and the wrong is right. Imagine that black and white make green. What if everybody had high speed internet and a working computer? What if there was high-speed rail running parallel to the interstate highway system, so that going from Miami to New York was as simple as going from 5th Avenue to the Bronx? When there is poverty of the mind, of the imagination, the first thing to go is dreams, imagination, the “what if” questions. To sleep, and perchance to dream….

A part of the world I dream is really pretty selfish, I suppose…but I really want a world where people tell me the truth, are kind to me, gentle with me, and see me for who I am and not what I look like or what I can do for them. I understand that people like pretty things, like useful things. I am not pretty, and useful only some of the time. I am not a mannequin or a machine, so I have my limitations. Sometimes, after running up the down escalator, I get to the next level. Tiring, but it’s a totally different perspective and is more challenging than simply following the usual prescription for the journey. What is a journey without challenge, without at least a change of scenery? I would assume this is why our bodies have muscle mass – to serve us well during the journey.

I know a few things about myself, like I don’t handle rejection well, or say the right things at the right time, like my mouth is frequently uncontrollable. Sometimes I use the wrong fork at dinner, or abandon utensils entirely and eat with my hands (thin fried catfish is simply unwieldy under the confines of a fork). I have been told I am a good friend, that i listen well, that I give comfort well. People generally understand that I give a damn about them, sometimes to the point of overkill. It perplexes me that I am constantly giving on a particular level of loving kindness, or whatever the buzz phrase of the month is, but do not receive love or kindness in return on that same level. It feels as though I am playing a 3-dimensional game of chess, and so moves are made and countered on different levels, and require a great deal of coordination. A move could be made and countered appropriately, but not at the same level, and never the twain shall meet in traditional geometry. Perhaps that is the answer I’m looking for…to play 3-dimensional chess, a player must widen their scope of vision, be able to see a bigger picture, be able to visualize a more complex strategy. The problem, however, is that I’m really not trying to play a game. I looking to navigate my world with as much grace and dignity as I can, if that love stuff didn’t throw me off course so often.

Relationships on a 3-dimensional playing field. That’s an interesting concept, actually, and I suppose my only resistance to it (aside from the afore-mentioned denial of game playing) is a) everyone is not able to make the leap from one dimension to three, and b) why the EFF does it have to be that complicated? I’ve been working on mapping some internal mechanisms lately, and the question of love consistently arises…do I know what love really is, am I capable of it, how does that actually feel? When I felt that I was in love, it maybe it was merely infatuation, or strong (incredibly strong) liking. It’s always obsessive, and very fast, and I am simply giddy with excitement. The sex part gets all screwed up in there somehow…I have this weird notion that whether or not I want to have sex with someone that I am liking, if it’s not an open option the relationship feels incomplete and I have been summarily rejected. What the FUCK is that all about? Where did I get that? How can I get rid of that?

I want my brain to be able to receive and purge data dumps on demand, much like my smart phone or my laptop. Here user – your upgrade is ready…download…install. The programming will take care of deleting the old version and installing the new one, and it will clean up after itself by removing duplicated and unwanted bits of data that would cause operational problems, or are simply not needed. The user doesn’t really have to fool with much of it, just initiate the process and it runs. It’ll let you know when it’s done, and from then on you can use the device with all of its new bells and whistles and just drive on.

Unfortunately, a smart phone is a dumb electronic device…it can’t talk back, it doesn’t have conditional memory, it doesn’t tire of repetition. People, however, are dumb organic devices…they not only talk back, they have conditional operations in general, and they are easily fatigued by lack of variety, lack of refreshment. They are fickle and inconsistent, but they have opposable digits that seem to set them apart from all else. Pains in the arse, these humans. We like to be in control of things, so how do I know that download is not doing something I don’t want it to do? How do I know what it’s doing at all? Wait, that sounds like Q-Anon stuff. Have I been assimilated? I’m told resistance is futile…no, wait…that’s the Borg on Star Trek. Hang on – I may need to reboot to clear all this detritus from my mine field.

Hold on, this is a mostly disconnected thought process this morning, but coming up…I have always wished for someone that I loved with wild abandon, childish exuberance, recklessness. They would love me the same way in return, fearlessly. They would not be frightened off by my weirdness, illogic, seeming moodiness, neediness, anxiety that leads to irritability. And I would return that in like fashion. Or would I? I have always thought it takes some guts to love me the way I want, or need, to be loved. Do I have the guts to love someone else like that, or do I expect perfection, only to fade away when the thrill of newness is gone? Sometimes I wonder about that. Maybe that’s the question I need to answer before I start asking why I’ve never found the love I dream of, or whatever I think that is. Judging by the relative incompetence of my attempts to explain all of this, I suppose I haven’t got a clue.