Tweeting Is A Loaded Gun

When you grow up in a small town, your entire childhood is public knowledge and will remain on a billboard, somewhere in that town, for the rest of your life _ in that town.

Because everybody does stupid, or shameful things.  In particular when we are unaware that certain things are stupid, or shameful.  (Things that our communities, our social orders, believe are shameful.)

As kids, what do any of us know about just about anything _ especially things that are shameful.  We used to joke about our “Permanent Records” when I was in school in the 50’s and 60’s.  It was a Joke.  We kind of believed the teachers and adults were keeping an actual written record of all our misdeeds, etc..  But, most of us (the brighter kids, maybe) drew the conclusion that that would be impossible.  It would be just too much stuff.  Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.

A written permanent record of all children’s “bad behavior”?  I screwed up 20 times a day!  I knew it!  Half those times, I knew I got away with it.  Plus being in an American Armed Forces Family, I changed schools every year _ quite literally.  Somehow I wound up in a new school every single year.  It would have been a semi-trailer truck full of “stupid behaviour” following me around.

Today, and for the last ten years or so, if you (everyone) isn’t posting a dozen or more pictures of yourself doing stuff, some CCT camera has got you.  Or, if you’re a child, your parents, or some family member, is posting pictures of you. Somebody you know, friend or foe, is commenting on something you did (or maybe didn’t, or maybe just a rumor) on some Social Media website.

Now, there is a “Permanent Record” of your life!  And, it’s out there forever AND anyone with a little tech savvy  can pull it up and will know every fuckin’ thing you have ever done!  It will never go away!  It is not written on paper, stuffed in hundreds of boxes; it is a speck of sand on the beach of the World Wide Web available and open to the world.  Using a simple algorithm  that single speck of sand can be sifted out in a nano-second.

There is no longer any real freedom.  “Time will not heal all wounds.”  Time means nothing today.  We are all chained to our pasts with chains that are massive, unbreakable and connected to anchor after anchor like Marley’s sins.   And, we continue to believe we are free. That those massive chains are invisible. “Let he who is without sin cast the first Tweet.”  

You Can’t Return from Crazy.

The Return from Crazy Is Impossible

I don’t know anything about heroin or hard street drugs.  I do know about crazy. I have cursory research knowledge and general exposure to social media, so I sort of know that people do return from self-ascribed trips.  It is possible to overcome or learn to deal with addiction.  

Crazy is not an addiction or a street drug and once you’ve gone on a crazy trip, you don’t ever get to come back.  My father got malaria serving in the Philippines in WW II.  He would get chills even in merely chilly weather. He hated it.  As soon as he could, he retired to Phoenix, Arizona. He loved the heat.  He absolutely loved the searing head-pounding heat of that desert.  The only real cure he found for a condition that, it would seem, for which he could not find a cure, was to force expose himself to a condition as extreme in the reverse as the symptoms he despised.

The chills from the malaria would come in unpredictable waves.  The chills from the malaria were physical and my father found physical  means of living with them. Crazy, in my experience, can also occur in waves unpredictably.  And, means can be found to live with crazy.

(I hate snow and I hate winter.  Trees all naked like old people in the fitness center locker room.  Just looks unnatural to me. Conifers at least have the good sense to leave their clothes on.)

(Grey sky.  Dirty lint laden blanket overhead.  Squashing all sense of emotional flight.  Can’t get my spirit to lift off the ground to discover, to play along the wind currents.  Find the warm updrafts and soar a hundred feet straight up and glisté in sweeping curves to giddiness.  Giggly baby giddiness. Squirming away from the tickle monster. That’s all gone under dirty skies. No sense of morning, of noon time.  It’s 7 p.m. all day. Until after sunset when the sun rises somewhere else.)

(January through March, a tunnel.  A long mold covered tunnel. With the smell of mold soaking into every pore.  Skin feeling like it’s covered in algae. It’s wet underwear. No matter how many dry clothes you try to put over it, it stays damp and clingy, massively uncomfortable.)

(But right now, it’s February.  Nearly the end of February. Which isn’t so bad because it’s a very short month.  And then, it’s March; which is my very least favorite, and March is the longest month.  March just goes on forever, but March slams shut. March is not a gentle month. March hates you coming in the door, it sits like a pile of wet dirty laundry in the middle of the living room and glowers at you from breakfast to dinner.  Then one morning you come downstairs and March is gone. It’s just gone like it was never there.)

(April is the time of questions.  April is very strong and blots out most memory of March.  April is a liar, however. One morning there is a warm breeze and a faint smell of green and yellow and pink and that afternoon it turns to ice and snows.  The first cup of tea the next morning and it’s winter again until noon. At noon it’s Spring again and the day feels as long as a rope, a very long rope. The day after that May pulls in the long gravel road like the FedEx truck and delivers a gift of Spring daffodils everywhere.)

(But, in April, don’t step off the gravel in the road or you’ll sink to your knees in mud.)

(I have decided to move to a country on the Equator where everyday is the same length.  No Solstices. No short days and long days. Every day is just the same amount of daylight and nighttime.  The only difference between January and July is that it rains everyday in January. Only every other day in July.  And it’s windy in January. With fewer spiders.)

Today, Tomorow; There Is No Yesterday

Today, tomorrow; There Is No Yesterday

It is snowing quite heavily.  Visibility is maybe twenty feet.  And, I find myself going into full-on panic mode.  

I attempt to override, damp down this heavily rising anxiety.

I find I can think about tomorrow and stay pretty much stable and on-task with what I am doing today.  I make a valiant effort not to think, or plan, beyond tomorrow.  And, I find I have to limit any ambitions beyond what I must do today and I what I might do tomorrow.  “Might do tomorrow” is the best I can tolerate today.

This method, or maybe “concept” (philosophy) seems to bring my heart rate down and ease my panicky breathing.  When the mind starts to deteriorate, or succumb to a previous trauma occurring to the brain, for me, at least, I must take over.  Consciously, I must take steps to bring the whole thing under control.

And, that means within what is happening, or going on, right now, today, is NOT a forever thing.  Just because something triggers my panic anxiety mode right now, does not mean it will not go away.  I find there are two things that affect my life quality in the moment.  The first, and most damning and damaging, is to dwell on the past.  To allow all of my many big life mistakes to start looping through my mind; big big big mistake.  I have to force my thinking to just put a block on that.  The past is a ghost. It is gone.  It is fable. There is no yesterday.

There is only today and a vagueness on the horizon that might become tomorrow.  This not to say that goals for good, better or improvement, which will possibly require some work, some hard focused effort, are not possible.  They just have to be set and worked toward incrementally.  

“I need to get to a place (whatever achievement).  And, first I need to get this thing done.  Then, that thing done.  And so on, until I get my desired goal accomplished.”

“I can move any obstacle in my path.  First I find a fulcrum, then I find a lever and with concentrated effort, I can move that obstacle out of my path.”

The many things that have been said by many great and mindful minds, are mostly true and good.  “Day by day.” “One foot in front of the other.” “Love yourself.” They just need to put into practice, become a mantra and held like a beloved child.

So here is some other stuff.
Author’s Page. I have several books published, I believe you will like.