TACTICAL
Among some of the the thoughts that linger in my mind is the FACT that I am disabled and I am managing to live on my own. Personally, I do not feel that my days and nights (or the nights of my days) are any more or any less challenging than another person’s, and this is something that I have believed about life’s challenges and stormy seas for as long as I have been able to think. I feel that no one can say that their concerns is any greater than another just as no one can assume that their burden is any heavier than anyone else’s. “Walk in my shoes... you’ll stumble in my footsteps”, is universal and only the most incredibly arrogant can think that their problems is any greater a burden than another.
“That is the stuff that happens to OTHER people but not to Mark Johnson..” This is an ideal that I have held in my mind since I was an adolescent. It was not because I thought I was better than anyone but that I acknowledged the gravity of whatever situation I was in, then I would assess my state of being, and then would use whatever at my disposal to make the best of what was left. I thought this recently as I fell riding my bike in the middle of Leavenworth Street after making a sharp turn east off of Park Avenue on my way to work. While I had the light when I made the turn, it would change as I skidded to the pavement. It was mid-to-late afternoon traffic, so there were a line of cars heading east.
In other big cities, certainly in the major ones, it is very likely that I would have drawn some derisive comments as I laid momentarily on the ground, preventing traffic from moving so that people can get on with their lives in the urgency of doing nothing more than being stressed out from believing that they have something of priority to do. But this is Omaha, and as I got it together, I saw a cat getting out of his car to see if I needed help. Other than road rash, I was fine, and no, I did not bump my head. On a scale of 1-to-5, with 5 being something resulting in a critical injury and hospitalization, this was a “2”. Remounting London and aiming her in the direction of the fitness club where I work, I was off again.
Vertigo is not that unique a condition but it is one part of the condition complex of my injury. Having CTBI is more like the surprise in a box of Cracker Jacks in how it has effect on my life daily, only this particular box contains only surprises and not a peanut or carmel is to be found! It is also another thing in the list of things that “I get” when I do find Princess and/or Nebraska crossing my mind, and because I do get it, I don’t dwell on what “isn’t going to happen” and I turn back to more directly pressing things in my life, such as school. I haven’t heard from Metro Community College yet, and with having to rely on the ever-efficient DPS to handle the transfer of my transcript, I feel that my concern is reasonable.
I have the utmost confidence in my prioritizing of what matters to me and in the varied interactions I have with the universe. This was a critical reason for my desire to live alone as well as to “live the dream” here in Omaha. Speaking of which...
CONTACT!
I recieved a text message from Princess this weekend. It was not very notable other to say that she messaged me. I was left unfazed by it and that was that with that. Nebraska and I had a flare-up began over an innocuous “how are you doing?” message that she sent. It is not that I dislike her or anything, but I am super-surprised that she expects ME to be different than I have been with her. I am not deliberately being difficult with her... it is not that the needle moves on my “a**hole-o-meter when I hear and reply to her. But I have never hidden that I enjoy my solitude, and to be a part of my life’s circle, a person would have to “take another step” in order to convince me to allow them into my intimate life.
WHAT MAKES UP THE RULES OF THE VERY SMALL IN LIFE?
“Mark, you think too much.” I have heard that one more than once. I never think that I am “thinking too much”, because I can only parrot the things that appeal to me in the writings of men who actually were deep and profound thinkers. And this is why I was astonished with the weekend’s communications.
Princess... well, who KNOWS her motivation. That is a small issue to me because the lines between us are clear and distinct. Does she have a new boyfriend? Does she miss me?? Does anyone reading this THINK that I care about either the answer to either question??? The “positive balance” left in her account is not enough to cover those transactions, sorry.
Nebraska has also all but exhausted the account she had with me. As to why I remain bellicose toward her, it really comes down to this - there is a way you behave when you want someone in your life and a way that you behave when you don’t. And in between the two extremes is the default, which means if you aren’t acting like you like and want someone in your life, then you don’t want them around at all. Indecision, other priorities, I am sure she had good and sensible reasons for keeping me at arms length. Problem is, I would rather be alone than to try to complicate my life with someone who doesn’t know what they want regarding “us”. The most surprising thing to me is not that we never got out of the hole we dug for ourselves, but I do feel that when we tried to climb out, a mountain was dumped on top of us. At no time did I think that she shared the same kind of urgency to mend our relationship. If things worked the way that she envisioned it, then fine. But anything less than that, anything outside of her realm of expectations, she was not willing to make necessary adjustments. Additionally, I thought that with the things that she knows about me, the things that BLOG READERS know about me, she continues with the same failed approach. At some point, however, I do believe we will have normalized relations between one another, and truly become friends. But right now, we have to “find our formula” to be regular features in one another’s life.
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I am not familiar enough with the physics of “the Brian’s”(Cox and Greene) and the stuff of quantum dynamics, but I once held a decent comprehension of the physics of Einstein, and so if the quantum physics of now will lead us to different galaxies, then social application of Einstein’s physics is what gave reality the possibility to the relationship space age. But while one way of thinking about reality supplants the other, as Einstein did with Newton’s physics, the new does not ERASE the old, rather, it builds upon and goes further, as though it was carrying a torch to pass to the next fundamental breakthrough, the advancement now relegated to the background but still a truth and a way to explore.
My approach to relationships may well be like the advancement of physics... not proven to be invalid, but perhaps not grand enough for how relationships are conducted now. I say this because I DO NOT CONDUCT CLOSE, INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS VIA TECHNOLOGY. Calling on my inner Terry Tate (You KNOW you need a cover sheet on your TPS reports Richard... that ain’t new baby!!), it isn’t anything that a regular reader of this screed wouldn’t have known about me, or that a person who had designs on a relationship with me would have NEEDED TO KNOW about a cat that I haven’t said in my journal. And I know that people are given to reinventing themselves on the internet, but for those who have met me... well, wait. NEBRASKA has met me and believes that I am creating a fiction out of who I am through blogging. And to that, my argument would first begin with a few words found on the Social Network by Jada Pinkett-Smith.
I HAD an epiphany today... people are really treating us based on who we are, but based on who they think we are... if someone is rejecting, taking you for granted or mistreating you in any way, remember... it’s not YOU they are mistreating, they are mistreating an idea of who they believe you are... but they have it twisted and it simply means it’s time to show folks who you truly are so there is a clear understanding that ill treatment of any kind is unacceptable.
-Jada Pinkett-Smith
This was not an epiphany that came to me today but one that I received while on the margins of relationships in high school. It was then, I made my “no do-over” policy formal and enacted as a policy for my interactions. As I thought to myself, I noticed how the dynamics worked in a “rebooted” relationships and why so many of them fail.
I have no confirming piece of evidence that Princess has another boyfriend or that she intended to be misleading in our relationship. Honestly, the conditions and terms always placed me under the greatest risk of loss. I took and accepted (we knew the environment) the offer and there you go. Again, what I appreciate the most is her candor and directness in letting me know “what’s what” once she made her decision. The contrast between her and Nebraska was a complete 180 degrees.
RIGHT NOW... WE HAVE TO FIND OUR FORMULA... AND OUR FORMULA IS...
… “A yes, a no, a straight line, a goal.” My formula has been the same since the emergence of my own self-awareness. I don’t apologize for it, the only regret I have since adopting it as the cornerstone of my thinking, if you want to call it “a regret”, is the lackadaisical enforcement of this formula as a rule.
Have I stated how absolutely flabbergasted that I am at being told that “I did not know you were like that?” by people? I don’t get that... it somehow feels uncomfortable repeating that I have only ALWAYS said that I don’t like or have a lot of people “in” my life. Social introvert... maybe I am more like a “social misanthrope”. It does not bother me that I am so untraceable as to be beyond stereotype. My kindness is not my bowing down as submissiveness, but as Hallie Selassie did with the rebellious General Balcha, a tool to draw out the overconfident and self-consumed, because their own prejudices often blind them to what is obvious to all (Where do you get YOUR delusion from?)
If this and quite possibly my next few entries run long, I apologize for it. This is a journal and is not meant for quick and easy digestion. When I began keeping my thoughts online, it was so that I could get rid of and express (or ‘download’) the thoughts and feelings that were clouding up my mind. Given the injury that I am suffering from, I would think that my reasoning would be sound. So there is that with that.
And this is why the accounts that are kept for Nebraska and Princess have the ledgers that they do. The clarity equation between Nebraska and myself remains unsolved, and though the surprise text from Princess notwithstanding, the “we knew the environment” idiom I use covers the past and future, if any, relationship communications between us.
THE CONSPIRACY OF NUMBERS
Believing in the story that you tell yourself and validating the perceived truths of that story is of the utmost importance in how you observe your place in the world. I think that this is where the line between delusion and reality is drawn.
Since I have used my interactions with females for the expression of so many emotions and ideals, why stop now? Because I don’t have a raging boner toward African-American women, but I do get my panties bunched when things that seem so obvious to me, for the good or bad, are willfully ignored or discounted.
The trending for a lot of things can be seen in numbers and much like the namesake television show, it is not that they lie but that it depends on what you are looking for. For instance, one could see where a lot of my approach to relationships was borne out of numbers. As far as my attractiveness and viability as a partner, The Simpson Paradox speaks to why I am as confident as I am with women. I am ‘studly’ or ‘drop-dead gorgeous’? No, I am ATTRACTIVE. Women, people in general, are drawn to me. Growing up that was the case and prolly led to my developing a functional abstraction in my rational thinking. Making sense of the non-linear and intangible, much like how physicists make sense of natural phenomena, has been always as I have purported to be on all levels of consciousness, and intellectual construct that is sovereign in my being. I had to first contrast the ostracism of adolescence with how I was observed by the world at large. Being able to understand and comprehend this policy is fundamental in why when I say or tell someone that “I don’t care/It doesn’t matter”, the consequence of those statements is severe. I mean that sh*t when I say it.
My social guide has been numbers. I observe the trending and then find the data to support the proof. When I walk around town and observe things as I do, the turnover of houses for sale and the opening of new businesses and expansion of existing ones, I look at those as signs of a robust and healthy climate for business. That would mean that there are jobs, and from there employment. I could go on but WHY. This is my milkshake and I could teach you, but yes, I would have to charge!
1 comment:
I liked the way you ended this post. :)
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