Real Life

"As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more. "
--Neil Young

I have been uncharacteristically disinclined to engage in excessive navel-gazing lately, for a variety of reasons, which means, among other things, that I haven't found time to post on this here blog even one time in twenty-aught-ten. I haven't found time to do much in the way of proactive creativity lately, in point of fact. Instead it feels like my task right now is to take it all as it comes, try to assess the impact of the objects hurtling toward me, brace accordingly, and then rest up and repeat the cycle all over again. Real life, in other words. And I'm not complaining (I seem to find the need to write that phrase a lot for some reason). I'm happy for the privilege to live my life, I know it's a good life, and I am grateful for my blessings.

One of my challenges when it comes to real life is is finding a way to be "realistic", which is not a quality I generally admire or aspire to but one which I believe is necessary, increasingly, as I get older and strive to be useful to those I care about. Realism, for me, seems to quickly devolve into cynicism, which quickly devolves into defeatism, which quickly devolves into bitterness. And then I'm just another asshole with a chip on my shoulder, growling and grumbling and patting myself on the back because I'm so much smarter than everyone else.

And that's not the guy I want to be. It's not the guy I am, at heart. I'm an optimist by nature, truth be told, but an optimist with a temperamental aversion to cheerfulness, a highly volatile temper, full blown anxiety disorder and more than a touch of depressive tendencies. To quote the de facto poet laureate of my native land--"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."

So I am large, as anyone who's met me would attest, but like Neil Young (a poet laureate in his own right), I'm also getting smaller these days, and not because my diet is working (though it kind of is, in fits and starts, but that's a story for another day). The world outside imposes itself, in all it's infinite complexity, and if you listen closely enough you'll hear a cacophony of suffering, desperation, joy, love, terror and beauty distilled into the rhythm of a hospital breathing machine or the splat of a raindrop at any given moment, and you will feel very, very small.

One of the accompanying feelings smallness can inspire is something akin to powerlessness, which can be another slippery slope down the road to bitterness. In my experience, nothing creates a sense of powerlessness more than watching someone you love suffer as you sit by and do nothing more than bear witness or help pass the time. I have spent a fair amount of time as a bedside visitor lately and it ain't any better than I remembered it. My 85 year old father has been in the hospital for over a week, battling what appears to be pneumonia through some touch-and-go moments. He is one tough motherfucker and is now well on the way to recovery, an act he's perfected through a lifetime of slings and arrows, but this one clearly hit him particularly hard. And looking it at now from what is hopefully the other side of the struggle (the best way out is through) I feel smaller than ever, but with a wider perspective and a better and truer compass. I even feel a tiny bit of his reflected strength underneath my layers of blubber. I am cut from from some hard stuff, so bring it on, real life. You can't keep a good man down.