Sunday, January 20, 2013

WHEN YOU HAVE PROBLEMS THAT HAVE SOLUTIONS YOU DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS


TACTICAL


I am alright.  Other than budget issues, I got this!!  In fact, I think that is what this entry is going to be about, because I am going over my own “Rules To Live By” along with my own personal maxims.


Beth over at Nutwood made an impassioned plea for leniency and understanding regarding the Notre Dame football star, Manti Te’O and his apparent duping over his on-line girlfriend.  The incident brought out a vein of cynicism in me and I think that it showed in the comment I left on her journal.  Not being able to know the particulars, there seems to be too many crucial mistruths sprinkled throughout the story for me to accept that he was not “in” on the deception.

I want to have more empathy for Manti but I keep coming back to the friend who was the go-between Manti and “Lanay Kekua”, Roniaha Tuisospo.  He has indicators of a douche bag, and who is to say what is the extent of his douchebaggery?  But being on the outside and it not really mattering to me be makes it not worth any further introspection.  In fact, it does not even merit being a lesson of human behavior or any kind of reference point.  On this I do agree with Beth, that is this kind of thing happens more often than many realize and it happens to people that you would never expect to fall for this kind of set up.  I know when I was young, this kind of thing happened via party lines and with pen pals... the things that made the incidents of the past a reality has not changed much with technological advances.  If anything, the media presence in our lives have only brought more attention to these kinds of deceptions.  I mean, I am surprised no one mentioned how vulnerable I was with my affections for Nebraska back when I launched my journey in October of 2007.  That is where I softened my perception of what has taken place with Manti Te’O.  

Beth was pretty forthcoming with a similar incident in her life and she is someone that I respect as a person.  She is intelligent and experienced, and her admission was a sign of her maturation.  In fact, because of when “what happened” occurred in her life, maybe there is more to the story, and Te’O is that naive.  And that my brief “cup o’ coffee” with notoriety and the fringe edges of the famous was different because of the experiences of being from a big city.


WHEN YOU ARE DEALING WITH PROBLEMS THAT HAVE SOLUTIONS YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY PROBLEMS

When I had begun to ponder the next stage of my life and with this, I am reaching back before my diagnosis and when I was still employed in the Auto Industry.  This is a time immediately post-Tee Jay, when I was considering not dating and simply enjoying life and pursuing what makes me happy.  If there was anything that was left on my agenda after I had let another “perfect” woman slip out of my life, it was to make sure that I was happy... I had done a great job up to that point and I wanted to think about solidifying my happiness for the future.

When I began to chart my course, I originally had decided that I would not be pressed by finding a partner for my voyage.  The thinking behind my “staking that claim” in my future was that we mostly fall short of our high set goals but in shooting for the stars, landing on the moon is not a failure.  In saying that I did not want to have anyone special in my life, I figured that whoever I did end up with would REALLY be special, savvy?  And because of how I remained in touch with what it is like to be marginalized in groups, I was never afraid of growing old and being indeed alone in my life.

At crucial times in my journey here I have had to question whether or not I REALLY wanted to move here.  As I got things straightened out with the Friend of the Court, I could really see myself doing what I am in Omaha while in the Motor.  But even considering whether or not I should leave Detroit and come to Omaha, leaving always had the lead... for “what I left had less value than the things that I never knew”.  

In making my desires known to the world, and here we go back to my place of employment in the Motor, I told my then-BFF that I was not going to be concerned with the “fandango of love”.  It was in speaking with and debating her that I came up with a conceptual plan for my life that satisfied my emotion, rational, and spiritual needs.  Finding that there was a space in Michigan (because I do like the provincial town I once jogged ‘round, and Grand Rapids is a hidden gem) for me meant that I would really have to BELIEVE in what I felt and had said about my connection to Omaha.  And because I did, I am here!
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Having my condition means that there is nothing in my life that is ever going to come easily to me.  From cognitive thinking to simple motor reflexes, there is nothing about my mental or physical status that isn’t compromised in some way.  Not only that, I can look forward to the further progression of my physical and mental deterioration at a rate faster than that which comes with growing older.  My initial reaction to my diagnosis was “Que sera, sera... whatever will be, will be.”  As much as fate has a hand in our lives, the only thing that I know for sure about my fate is that it will not be that of one of a coward.  I am not meant to “go out like that” and that living a life of compromised is the stuff for other people to put up with.

This current trend is about why I am glad to be on my own and not having to whine about my daily spinnings.  I don’t need to catalogue how poorly I may have performed at getting from downtown to West Omaha, or how confused I was trying to find my way around Council Bluffs.  I am not going to spend time trying to recall the numerous times I am at work and forget why I am walking from “here to there”, nor am I going to spend time talking about how I write and keep a log of
what I am doing/need to do for the day.  All that and other things, are par for the course that I have to play and I know the environment I am in.

Having introduced the “First World Problems” meme in my journal, I can expand on why I believe that if you are dealing with problems that have solutions, then you don’t have problems as well as show how it behaves in my “Formula For Happiness”, as well as how this blog has become an extension of my belief system.  And I will be continuing on with this theme when I get back here next, in case anyone is interested..!

5 comments:

mrs.missalaineus said...

sometimes the voyages you need to take to find that other person have to start off as lone adventures into the unknown....


xxalainaxx

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I feel every day some of us start from scratch. Floating all our test balloons. And that is a good thing.

Unknown said...

Your "condition" gives you problems with cognition - cognitive thinking?

Man, you are one of the sharpest and deepest thinkers I know.

Beth said...

As I continue to read more about it (and Manti and his parents are going to be interviewed by Katie Couric tomorrow), I stand by my initial gut feeling about it. He was played. But I'll reiterate that if I am wrong, I'll be the first to admit it. L&R

Ken Riches said...

I am sure Beth appreciated your opening to this entry.

Hang in there, one day at a time is all any of us can do.