It's late and this is the time of day when my mind usually seems to spin in overdrive so forgive me for the seemingly randomness of parts of this post. Somehow they connect in my own mind.
My mind seems to be more so in overdrive tonight with the recent news that one of histories most notorious terrorists has come to the end of his life. Is this the end of a chapter for America? Is it the beginning of another? What is in store for us tomorrow?
I don't really know if this news is cause for us to breathe a collective sigh of relief, or to be all the more watchful.
With reflection on the past ten years, I not only think about what our country has gone through, but I also think about the things I have gone through. There have been several different chapters in my life that seem to conflict with each other. Decisions that I have made run opposite to who I really am. I am a good person, but have made some horrible choices. At this moment, I feel like a man who is incomplete. It is as if I am a puzzle with missing pieces. Maybe I am a collection of puzzles and I have been going through the futile act of trying to put them all together at once.
I know this probably doesn't make sense to anyone reading this. It hardly makes sense to me. It just feels like at some point everything should make sense, and try as hard as I might, things just get crazier.
Have you ever had moments where you walk down the street or through the grocery store and you just look at faces? Has it ever felt that the faces are extremely surreal...like you realize they have a perception of the world that is completely different of your own perception? I think this is part of empathy, putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It's an exercise I perform pretty often lately. I hear their conversations and I try to imagine what is really going on in their minds. If they looked at me, how would they perceive who I am?
This past week I have felt on a couple of occasions that I might be living someone's screen play. On one hand, most screen plays follow a pretty standard format. The protagonist starts at "Point A", and in the process of getting to "Point B" they experience different struggles. There is growth in that journey. We as the audience can see that journey, that growth, but the protagonist has no awareness of their progression. At the end of the story all the pieces have come together and everything makes perfect sense, why we have seen all the elements of the story. On the other hand, a good screen play is not so transparent. Why can't I put together all the elements of my own story? The faces I see in the grocery store are connected to my own life, yet they are so strange. (Cue a famous Doors song)
I live in a world that I don't feel is really my own. I feel out of synch. None of my friends are the same ones I had three years ago. My family is so nebulous that they begin to seem like strangers. I am unemployed, yet I have all these skills and talents and by all rights I should be extremely employable. But my life took a major turn, the economy turned south, I have experienced things that have forever changed me, and I simply feel like a stranger in my own flesh.
Like I said, it's late at night and my mind is in overdrive. So many thoughts and like the pieces of my life, I can't put them together. There is a picture there somewhere, but for now it evades me.
My mind seems to be more so in overdrive tonight with the recent news that one of histories most notorious terrorists has come to the end of his life. Is this the end of a chapter for America? Is it the beginning of another? What is in store for us tomorrow?
I don't really know if this news is cause for us to breathe a collective sigh of relief, or to be all the more watchful.
With reflection on the past ten years, I not only think about what our country has gone through, but I also think about the things I have gone through. There have been several different chapters in my life that seem to conflict with each other. Decisions that I have made run opposite to who I really am. I am a good person, but have made some horrible choices. At this moment, I feel like a man who is incomplete. It is as if I am a puzzle with missing pieces. Maybe I am a collection of puzzles and I have been going through the futile act of trying to put them all together at once.
I know this probably doesn't make sense to anyone reading this. It hardly makes sense to me. It just feels like at some point everything should make sense, and try as hard as I might, things just get crazier.
Have you ever had moments where you walk down the street or through the grocery store and you just look at faces? Has it ever felt that the faces are extremely surreal...like you realize they have a perception of the world that is completely different of your own perception? I think this is part of empathy, putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It's an exercise I perform pretty often lately. I hear their conversations and I try to imagine what is really going on in their minds. If they looked at me, how would they perceive who I am?
This past week I have felt on a couple of occasions that I might be living someone's screen play. On one hand, most screen plays follow a pretty standard format. The protagonist starts at "Point A", and in the process of getting to "Point B" they experience different struggles. There is growth in that journey. We as the audience can see that journey, that growth, but the protagonist has no awareness of their progression. At the end of the story all the pieces have come together and everything makes perfect sense, why we have seen all the elements of the story. On the other hand, a good screen play is not so transparent. Why can't I put together all the elements of my own story? The faces I see in the grocery store are connected to my own life, yet they are so strange. (Cue a famous Doors song)
I live in a world that I don't feel is really my own. I feel out of synch. None of my friends are the same ones I had three years ago. My family is so nebulous that they begin to seem like strangers. I am unemployed, yet I have all these skills and talents and by all rights I should be extremely employable. But my life took a major turn, the economy turned south, I have experienced things that have forever changed me, and I simply feel like a stranger in my own flesh.
Like I said, it's late at night and my mind is in overdrive. So many thoughts and like the pieces of my life, I can't put them together. There is a picture there somewhere, but for now it evades me.
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