Insignificance.

Is there anything worse than knowing that you are one of six billion people on this planet? I suppose next year, when it's seven billion, of course.

The one thing, the universal, that everyone wants, is to be significant. We live in a world where we are increasingly aware of our personal insignificance at every turn. To remain sane is to acknowledge it and accept it, but even hyper-individualistic Americans know this: none of us really matters all that much. The Donald Trumps, the Dubyas, the stupid-ass celebrities, the mundane-ass neighbors, our friends, our enemies, our families, our heroes...it all has its place, and its meaning, but sometime's it's just a lot of noise.

That's how it is to me lately, anyway.

Overlaying all this is this feeling of personal success coupled with a complete lack of caring. I'm doing fine. I don't really give a shit. It's probably why I'm doing fine, because when I do give a shit, I generally tend to fuck up in seriously major ways. This holds true with jobs (especially jobs) relationships (especially those, too), family (just put "especially" in front of everything I list, okay?), friends, money, and personal possessions, even.

So lately I'm insomniac as all hell, mainly when I'm in Wilkesboro. I lie in my bed in my hotel room in the Hampton Inn or the Holiday Inn Express and I can't shut down, even though I'm so tired I have circles under my eyes. I sleep for maybe three or four hours, and exist during the day purely by the good graces of caffeine. I return to DC on the weekends, and I just crash. Fridays I usually sleep until noon. Things seem brighter when I wake up, and the world is normal. I feel coherent, and I know that the feeling will only last until Sunday evening, when I leave again.

Christ, it's only been two months since I started this. And I'm actually happy with the work and the coworkers and the projects! I don't want it to end. I want it to be easier.

So here I am. Feeling rather insignificant, and kind of irritable, and also very very sleep-deprived, and thus kind of delirious.

Something's gotta give, right?

Did I Do Right?

This is the question that concerns me most frequently, lately. Did I do right? Was that right? As I get older, I seem to take more and more time contemplating any action to see if I can understand all the repercussions, all the potential fallout, and judge whether the end result will be...good.

I'm getting very good at predicting the end results. I'm also generally trying to strike some kind of balance between what I deem "right action" and how I anticipate other people will react emotionally.

It's not fun.

In other news: I am back in DC, bitches. Y'all ready for this? New place, new car, new job. New life? Or old one?

Time will tell, and when it does, I will tell it again here.

Ow.

I have not been blogging...really blogging...about anything important to me in a great long while. The few of you who read this tiny corner of the Internet know this.

But let me commit this to hypertext: I am so...so...so fucking tired. Not tired because I've been working so hard, or because my life is so hectic. Quite the opposite. I don't get tired when I'm busy or things are hectic. Well, I do. That is, my body does. But my brain catches fire, and so it doesn't matter.

Here and now, though...well. Life's been fairly terrible lately. So rather than heave up some impersonal political rant, or talk about social justice, or think about how cruddy the big picture is getting, I'm going to focus in a bit. Mainly on me. And how I feel, and what I think.

First, I am unhappy. I am mildly unhappy with San Francisco and living in the Bay area. Those of you who know me are not surprised. It's no secret. This city is more foreign to me than the most remote corner of Siberia could ever be. It's foreign because it's so goddamn close to what I want, but it misses so hugely on the things I need. It's like running into your second cousin after 20 years, and finding out that the kid you grew up with is actually a total asshole. He's well-dressed, he does well with the ladies, he has a nice car, and people love him. But the first thing you notice is his stink: his spirit is up to no good.

That's this city to me.

It's so odd because a few of my friends moved to SF from DC at around the same time I did, and their experiences here are so different from mine. They're all off to wonderful fresh starts, and seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. I, on the other hand, got off to a good start--and then that shit promptly ended a few weeks ago. Work, personal life: totally in the shitter.

So yeah, I'm tired.

Then there's this other feeling. This one is hard to describe. I actually let someone matter to me, and didn't even know it. I realized it after she treated me as abyssmally as any person has ever treated me, and I totally wrote her off. It was easy; I've developed that much self-respect that I could walk away and not look back. Well...for a fewweeks. And then I realized I missed her. Because apparently I'm a total wuss. I've stayed away from her, I rationally do not want any contact with her, and I am far far better off without her. But tell that to the part that hurts.

Not that I will ever contact her again. I just don't need that kind of crazy in my life.

The older I get, the more I am able to control how I act. And the more important it is for me that the person I am with be able to control how she acts. But it seems fairly certain that my ability to control how I feel is still...very...very...weak.

And between my work and my personal life, I am doubting myself constantly. The confidence I felt a year ago in my own abilities, in my skills in IT, with people, with my judgement--that's been shaken. I've had worse things happen to me, but somehow, that all this happened in my thirties just makes it so much worse. As if I'm standing still, and the rest of the world is plunging ahead, accomplishing the things it needs to do.

I'm treading water.

And I am very...very...tired.

I'm taking it back.

It's time for me to make blogging personal again.

For the life of me, I can't seem to think of anything worthwhile to group-blog about on BI. But there's plenty enough going on in my own personal world that I think it's time I built an outlet. I'm not sure how interested I really am that anyone I know actually reads this thing, since I can already see that I'm going to be venting a lot, and maybe embarassing myself in the process. Whatever--this is for my sanity. Dear reader, your entertainment is very very secondary.



You remember that movie with Michael Douglas, "Falling Down?" It's about this average joe, mildly angry to begin with, and he has this terrible horrible absolutely-no-good day. So he goes on a rampage and in the process winds up wreaking all kinds of havoc on LA and his family. Spoiler: he dies at the end, and maybe the world's not a better place for it, but it sure is quieter.

The reason I bring this up is because this is the world we live in. As Americans we tend not to be able to conceptualize much that could be different; it's just how it is. We're really just not that imaginative. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Al Quaeda hijackers of 9/11 had a lot in common with Michael Douglas' character, and any number of home-grown morons.

See, America is under attack. But not (just) by Al Quaeda. Not by Islam. No, America is under attack by idiots. From within, and from without. We have idiots fighting idiots, and the people who know better are caught in the crossfire, too horrified to react, or maybe too scared, too shocked, too disbelieving. Because, you know...maybe it'll all blow over. Maybe all the idiots will kill each other, and then the rest of us can live in peace, right?

Yeah, good luck with that, friend. The thing about idiots is they don't really much care who they hit. If I were to be completely truthful, I'd 'fess up and say that lately, this has applied to me as much as anyone else, and hey--that might just mean I'm being an idiot.

Well, far be it from me to avoid introspection. What's done is done, but what's done can be undone, or atoned for, or amended. And this is what I seek, personally. I will donate a pound of flesh for the ounces of others'.