An extraordinary resiliency

These are hard times we live in. 10 percent unemployment, two wars, a exploding national deficit, a faltering economy, oil spills, earthquakes,serial killers...this is the most troubled time since...last year.

Does the world ever really change? The earliest written sources indicate that persons who lived eons ago experienced much the same as we--a world full of tumult and at times, seemingly tilting towards chaos. Yet, this bountiful sphere's inhabitants continue on.

Through the earth shattering, dinosaur-destroying cataclysmic asteroid to the Black Death that nearly wiped out Europe to the man made holocaust we call World War II, life on this planet has managed to survive it all.

At times it has been a close run thing, but still life has preservered.Life is refuses to go silently into the night. It clings obstinately to existence.

Oh, we humans have tried to squash live. Wars, murders, environmental degradation, unrestrained hunting..we have striven to end life with the alacrity of a child in an easter egg hunt.

But inspite of our finest efforts, we have failed to eliminate that which is most precious--and resilient--life. But still Life marches on, plagued by people and things that threaten it, it resolutely refuses to surrender its physical being in this world.

How extraordinary resilient this life is.

Perspective

I have expended many a word on this blog complaining about what is wrong with my life. My unsatisfying job, lack of girlfriend, loneliness... basically, I have spent much time wallowing in my misery.

But sometimes there are moments in our lives that give someone as self absorbed as I, cause to think about what is truly tragic. Today had one of those moments.

I stock supply rooms on the 4th floor of the University of Michigan Hospital. On one of the 4 subunits(A,B,C, and D) there works a young Nurse's Aid who cannot be much older than 20. I had not seen this young lady in a long time until today.

When I first saw her I did not immediately recognize her for she had one of the cancer turbans chemotherapy patients wear. I was simultaneously shocked and sadden when I realized that I knew her.

Though I have no clue as to her name and have spoken but a few words to her, she has always worked with a sunny disposition and treated co-workers and patients with kindness.

It may seem peculiar that I am touched by a singular personal tragedy when I work in a building full of them, but the familiarity is what makes this one poignant. One can become inured to the individual calamities that surround you when you are around them everyday. But when the same thing happens to a person you work next too, it is as if you were stricken by a bolt of lightning.

How can such a thing happen to someone so young, vibrant, and sweet natured? How?Life can be so cruel.

But the cruelty of life is not why I am writing this entry.The reason for my writing this is to remind myself and whomever reads this, that life is challenging for us all. Many are faced with even greater trials than we have before us. The situation in this entry highlights that fact.

Few people in this world have it easy.The vast majority of humanity is dealing with troubles of some kind. But some are worse off than most. We should never forget when we are pondering our own difficulties.

Falling is hard on your knees

It is typical of the luck I have with women. After months of sorting through my feelings for a co -worker, I decided to make an effort to insinuate myself into her life so I could better my chances to have the opportunity to date her. With impeccable timing, she announces her intent to move to Las Vegas once she finds a job as a dental assistant.

Poof! In an instance, my hopes are smashed into a million smithereens. Gone are the dreams of me cradling her in my arms watching some B movie or us sharing a ice cream cone at Dairy Queen. Forbidden are the hopes of staring deeply into her azure eyes ,gently caressing her soft skin, with our lips locked in a loving embrace.

Heartbroken is not an appropriate label for how I feel,for I had not even reached the stage of close friend. My current position is analogous to that of a pledge to a fraternity. I am in the midst of applying to be a member of her club.

Disappointment would be a more accurate description of my current mental state. I was just getting into her and now this. Typical

It has happened with every girl I have liked.Boy meets girl;boy becomes infatuated with girl; boy says nothing to girl for months; boy then overcomes his trepidation and starts slow paced pursuit of girl; by then girl has either met someone else or has dissipated from boy's life.

I deserve no sympathy. I have earned my "available" status with my passive and frankly,wimpy approach to women. I am a coward when it comes to garnering the affections of a woman.My timidity is owed to a lack of confidence and experience with the humans who bear the XX chromosome.

But that is not a legitimate excuse for my cravenly conduct.It is of no use to explain why I have not done something because it does not alter the fact that I am a coward.

There are and will be other women--the delectable brunette nurse on the 4th floor for one example--but the neophyte dental assistant has caught my fancy. A fancy I shall not lose very easily.A fancy I know I will have to purge from my mind so as to avoid the crushing sense of disappointment I will feel when she leaves for the City of The Meadows.

But feelings of regret, sadness, and disgust will remain as they always have after the conclusion of every infatuation/ non-relationship I have experienced since puberty.Regret for never having actually undertaken a determined pursuit through the years I have known her; Sadness at the elimination of the potential happiness I could have experienced;Disgust for my inability to overcome my neuroses.

I wish I could say that next time will be different.That next time I will be more aggressive in my pursuit;that I will pull out all the stops;that I will become more Superman than Clark Kent.

But I can't.That is why I will always be the meek, bespectacled guy who makes all laugh, yet who has no one to laugh with.

Interminable loneliness

I sit. I sit alone in mind, body, and soul in this world. I have no lover, no best friend, no soul mate.I sit alone.

Whilst these spring from my fingers, I see young couples in mutual thrall to the demands of romance, mothers cooing to their swaddled infants, and families taking in the climactic pleasures of a warm August day in the mitten.They are a flock of birds together, I a solitary crow flying solo across this land.

This loneliness is insufferable. It suffocates my soul, it permeates my being. It fouls my moods, threatening to tear asunder my spirit.It is the rain on a wedding day, it is a warm blanket turned wet.

What to do, what to do about this ferocious beast that shreds my spirit, that murders my happiness? What to do about the shadow of the monster that blackens my day? What shall I do?

Shall I venture to the local watering holes to satiate my thirst for female companionship? Shall the drinking of libations transform this meek scribe into a fearless gladiator who conquers the mighty lioness?Or will I be just another drunken fool foiled in his attempt to find carnal pleasures at a cheap rate?

Maybe dating websites are the the place to meet members of the fairer gender.Shall I venture into the mysterious realm of Internet dating?A world inhabited by the lonely, desperate, and those seeking to take advantage of them?

Perhaps work place romances are the way to go? Is it the dark haired Irish girl in the office the one? Or is it the pouty lipped brunette nurse? Perhaps it is a face yet discovered.

But with certainty I know this: the savage creature must be slayed.Unending, relentless, loneliness must be replaced by the unending, relentless, love of a Juliet.

An Angry Man

I am angry. Angry at the world, at my dead mother, at my boss, at my co-workers. I am angry at the world that I live in.

But the above are not the source of my discontent.Rather they are easy targets. It is much easier to direct my ire at the surrounding impersonal world, than to point the finger at who really is the cause of my unhappiness.

Who exactly is the culprit? Who is the person who is to blame for my misery? For my loneliness? For my anger?

To quote De La Soul, "It's just me, myself, and I". That is the infamous criminal who has stolen the smiles from my life, who has tortured my soul, who has maliciously snuffed out the joy in my life. It is I who is responsible for this personal tragedy.

What is a life without laughter, without joy, without happiness? One that hasn't the value of a single piece of Pez.

How shall I vanquish this terrible foe? How shall I slay the emotional dragon that terrorizes my soul?

I am Arthur seeking Excalibur. I am in a quest to seek the weapon that can smite that which oppresses my soul. I am Angryman no more.

Nowhere Man

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his Nowhere Land
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody. ---Nowhere Man, The Beatles

Nowhere:adjective(informal);being or leading nowhere;pointless;futile:to be stuck in a nowhere job.(courtesy of Dictionary.com)

I am the Nowhere Man. I am sitting in my Nowhere Land making my Nowhere Plans for Nobody.

At 33 years of age I find myself working a menial job, living in my best friend's house , with little prospect of a better job or a girlfriend on the horizon.

Meanwhile, my kid brother is making $60,000 two years out of school. I have several friends who make twice what I do with the same level of education as I do.

How did I, a college educated man equipped with an above average IQ, get to this place? How did I get myself stuck in a deeply unsatisfying job? More importantly, how do I get out of it?

Frankly, I know how I got here. Low self confidence, laziness, and a lack of direction are the three causes of my discontent. I am the Helmsman responsible for guiding my ship into the iceberg.

The issue now is how this Nowhere Man becomes a Somewhere Man. How do I achieve my goal of working an emotionally and financially satisfying job?

One option is going back to school to acquire a Master's Degree so I can teach. I love history and a Master's degree would give me more options than just a Teaching Certificate. I could teach at the high school and community college level or even become an archivist.

A second option is to continue to develop my writing skills and/or take some skill development classes UofM so I could find a better opportunity at UofM.This would be the cheaper of the two options I have before me.

Either way, I am confident I can find a better job if I actually put effort into it and believe in myself.

The end of Nowhere Man provides an good finish to this article and more importantly, wise words to remember in time of doubt:

Nowhere Man please listen
you don't know what you're missing
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

Thinking aloud to myself and the world

Boy, does she have beautiful blue eyes. And the dark hair. Ooh lala! Delicious is she.

But should he pursue her? Should he rid myself of the psychological restraints that have binded him since he was a youth? She is pretty and available after all.

5'3", black hair, and blue eyes. Gosh, what a combination! She isn't a dago, but that hardly matters. She is pretty and available after all.

She works in the same department as he. They are in contact almost everyday. He even friended her on Facebook. The opportunity for an amorous relationship lay in front of he.She is pretty and available after all.

Shall he undertake the chase? The chase that every heterosexual male has been genetically programmed to do.The chase that results as often in failure as it does success. The chase that can as easily smash a man's self esteem as it can send his confidence soaring. All this dependent on the decision of the arbitor--She.

How odd and cruel a chase this can be.

Those sensuous lips, those thinly coiffed eye brows...oh, how scrumptious of a morsel is she.

But is she right for he?.

This bird flies at a different altitude then most. His flight pattern in life has left him wounded in heart and soul. A bird borne of an egg, but hath no mother.A bird seeking to soar, but weighed down by the sore of yester-yore.

Can such an Eagle love a Swan? Can he take her under his wing and give her all that she needs?Can he be what she wants him to be? Can he be all that he wants himself to be?

He isn't certain of the answers, but this he knows: She is pretty and available after all.