the long goodbye

Every one of us has examples of people in or around our lives that have been disappointing or turned out to be someone other than who we thought they were. This was a rare thing back in the day when I was growing up but not anymore. Before there was this connection to the entire world through the internet there were friends we actually knew and didn't want to hurt or disappoint. Back then you would have to pick up a telephone and dial a number you knew by heart to have a conversation with someone you would actually see and talk to in person at some point making civil behavior important. Not having a portal to the world kept most of us from knowing just how many levels of human scum there actually are and their names we would never know. 

With the onset of the internet, people can shout and scream about things they barely have scant knowledge of from sources with zero credibility and they can spew that ignorance to other people who they do not know and never will making the entire exercise of social media one of the most embarrassing wastes of time for all who participate including, by the way, me and this blog post.         

It was something, maybe a moment surrounded by a bad mistake I'd made, an epiphany, it was forty some odd years ago maybe during one of those rare unmedicated weekends that I discovered at least half of all people in this world actually suck. We didn't have headlines to inflame the rhetoric written by fake journalists or internet mobs. Anarchy and rioting only happened in 3rd world countries and would never have been tolerated even by a liberal political party here in the US. That's all changed now and there is no shame for those taking part in it here.   

I began this blog sometime after finding out that my father who I had only met a couple of times decades ago, had passed away. To this day after much research, I still do not know where he was laid to rest nor do I know the names of my half brothers and sisters that I would love to meet one day. But the information in cases like this often results in the same never-ending circles leading back to where I started. My intention was to give someone who is important to me but clearly doesn't realize it, a way to know more about me in the event of my passing than I know about my own father. While the exercise may well fall short of my goal, it's here just in case and I sure wish I had a way like this to "get to know," who my father was, the things he thought about and were important to him, just some stuff like that. 

One thing I DO know about my father and it's ironic I suppose is that he was a no-nonsense kind of guy. According to some of his shipmates on the USS Coral Sea where he served the country in Vietnam, he had a giant heart of gold, was the greatest friend, and would seriously get on your ass for being or doing something stupid that got you in a jam. He did not suffer fools well and when his crew on the ship got into trouble he would back them up to ten thousand percent, then take them aside and ream them out if they deserved it. One said you didn't want to get on his bad side.. Point is, my father would not have tolerated this newfound internet life most people fill their time with today. This all sounds very familiar to me and we could have had some pretty lively talks about it had we spent time together before he passed. But we'll see each other again one day and maybe we'll talk then. But I digress..        

I've deleted Twitter, stopped posting on Instagram, and the last to go is going to be Facebook where I have 5,000 "friends," and don't actually know even 1 of them. The back and forths some time ago on FB forced me into realizing even the people I had actually met and knew personally, I really didn't know much about at all.  I think there is such a thing as knowing too much about someone because the more I saw the more disappointed I became. So I deleted about 900 names on my FB "friend," list, then repopulated the list with those with similar interests only in photography, art, and the visual stuff that used to keep me upbeat and looking forward to brighter days before my mom passed away in November. I thought I could trick myself into finding those passions again that I used to have and maybe even find a new one but it hasn't really happened like that and Facebook will be the next and final "un-sociable media," platform to go when I'm certain my connection to other people in general just isn't in the cards for me. 

The quality of people's character cannot be assessed from a computer screen or the internet, and the likelihood of me ending up annoyed or pissed off increases exponentially with whatever time I spend on one. My conclusion is that in order to regain any meaningful connection to people in general, I'm going to have to find a way to go way back in time when folks actually met and knew each other on a personal level without a cell phone or constant connection to the internet. My definition of a friend comes from a time before the internet was ever thought about and the fact I can count my real friends on one hand assures me that those old traditional character requirements are still in place exactly where they should be. I'm in a place now where mistakes hardly even get close and I can attribute that to the fine art limiting my exposure to folks in general and realizing just how extremely short life actually is not wanting to waste any more of my time. 

There are some good people out there I'm certain there are, just as I am certain the longer one spends on the internet the less likely they are to find them.. My preference is to be completely alone instead of having thousands of fake friends on a computer and to just forge ahead to "be right and to do right," as mom told me just before she went to heaven. 

So the "long goodbye" that has been in progress since November 16, 2019, continues and if by chance the 3 or 4 actual friends I do have remain till the very end, I will consider myself to be the lucky one. And for those who won't be there till the end, I'm even luckier still by your absence.

May God keep his hand on your shoulder and guide you through your journey.

Warsh your hands.

Wear a mask.                

the culture of fear

I don't remember what brought it on but a few days ago I was thinking about the subject of fear and the role it's played in my life especially for the past few years in relation to my mom's health before she passed away. In hindsight, I think fear played a significant role in my denial of what was happening. The depth of sadness I face now can also be directly attributed to the fear of losing her and that same fear kept me from accepting and dealing with what would become inevitable. 

There are countless quotes related to fear and they all seem particularly relevant to me. I've questioned if it was healthy for me in the past to look fear in the face and discount its value by shoving it aside like just another roadblock to getting around. In some cases less important to me today that reaction was one key to my success. In the case of the mortality of the single most important person ever in my life, I think fear needed to be given its due respect and dealt with when there was still time to make peace with it. 

In some of our talks, my mom and I went over the fear we both had that one day she wouldn't be here and I was always reluctant if not insistent we did not even go there. Now that she has gone I think perhaps maybe it would be easier in some ways if we had talked about it, cried about it, and sorted it out. The blame has to go to me for trying to bypass the pain of those conversations. My advice to others anywhere near this same level of meaning to their lives is not to avoid or ignore your greatest fears but to give them whatever level of respect they deserve and not one single level more than that and sort them out before it's too late and you're left sitting where I am today writing about not having done that. 

Ironically a dinner conversation came up recently where a friend/co-worker brought up the subject at the table of what everyone's greatest fears were. Since I had already experienced my greatest fear of losing my mom, my answer was a simple one, I no longer have any fear. The complicated background of being able to say that is just too personal and brings on far too much emotion for it to be appropriate in public. 

To be completely free of fear is not necessarily something you want to aspire to. For me, it was much easier to fear not having enough work to take my mind away from my mom's health decline. Whenever I would travel I would worry that something might happen like a fall or an illness with mom back here at home and that I might not get back in time. There were things like did I have her house filled with groceries, the things she liked and making sure she was actually eating and taking her meds in the right doses and at the right time and all the other things around a house like repairs and yardwork getting done. My own health issues that I put aside for years out of fear she would worry about me and not herself. All of my fears for the past very long time have been related to the one person in my life that ever meant anything to me and now she is no longer here to worry for.

I can honestly say and I did at the table that I no longer fear anything. My worst fears have all been realized and I can't think of a single thing in this world that could eclipse the fear I had of losing my mom. For now, I think I can say with some degree of perspective that although you can't let fear take an unnecessary high priority in your life, having some level of fear can be a good thing and having absolutely no fear in your life can be somewhat dangerous and unstabilizing. Having nothing to lose can be a bad neighborhood to live in and having healthy levels of fear and concerns can keep you from making really bad decisions like doing or saying things you wished you hadn't and worse.. 

This isn't a post about the virtues of fear but about balance. Worry can rule your life or give you a base for making and adhering to a list of priorities. Fear at unhealthy levels can make your life totally miserable or give you pause and perspective that no fear can destroy. My mom never wanted me to worry for her but I know she felt loved and cared for because I did. She worried and feared what would become of her only son if she were to pass away and I too felt loved and cared for because she did. 

My experience the past few years and especially the last several months has forced me to conclude that I felt more alive and well when I had some important things to worry over than when I lost all fear completely on November 16, 2019. 

So your question C. about fears were answered by me in the manner in which was appropriate at the time but in the back of my mind was the contents of this post. Although I had already had these thoughts in my head from a few days before you asked, it was good to go back and touch on how important it is to have something in life worth worrying about..