Yesterday was a butz. There wasn’t much via constructive activity that went on; I did the bills, stayed around the house all day, did my daily list and called McNeely Park w/o getting an answer, napped, walked, watched a little football, practiced pool, worked x-word puzzles, and watched a movie with Carola. Today is shaping up in a similar manner. I am about to do my weekly plotting and scheming and then whatever.
As I ponder the situation I am focusing on a void in my life; i.e. meaningful contact with others. It is a Catch 22 for me. On the one hand I enjoy the company of others but on the other I am loathe to participate with another in any meaningful way. I am suspicious, cynical, and judgmental. I see the actions of others and think the worst. I relate to strangers easier than those I know. The more of a stranger the other is, the easier it is for me to approach them and start a conversation. The better I know someone, the more difficult it is for me to share myself with them, mainly because my suspicion that they really don’t care is often reinforced by experience.
And why should they? Well, they shouldn’t and don’t. There is no reason for them to care about me or my situation especially since I don’t have a handle on what I want/need/ would like. And when someone does try to help me, to understand me, I tend to clam up and avoid their help and intervention. I am dissolving into a complete misanthrope.
An objective third party observer: here is a man who seldom leaves his house except to run errands, go to school, meetings, golf, pool, walk, or do the LTM. He has almost no social contact.
Let’s take the outings one at a time:
1. Errands- to where-ever interacting only with the clerk who is paid to attend;
2. School- to class twice per week, a class that is almost meaningless to him. It is French Theater Practicum and his involvement in French culture and language is almost nil. So, he goes to class, participates, makes little conversations with the other students who are 20-year olds, and then goes to the SAC and plays a little pool with whoever wants a game. In fact he is out of his element in this University setting; he has no reason to be there and he’s not contributing anything to the betterment of society or himself.
3. Meetings- Rotary club where he participates for the time he is at the meeting and does little else except what is requested of him. He is like a toad sitting in the grass, gulping the occasional insect. Then there’s the French conversation meeting on Thursdays where he wastes his time sitting with others who can speak the language better than he. Then there’s the weekly meeting with his counselor which is more like an errand, interacting with someone paid to do so.
4. Golf- a solo event in his life. He goes to the course without a playing partner, takes up with one if convenient, otherwise not.
5. Pool- here is a socially oriented activity. It is one time per week at the Billiards Club of Louisville where he is on a team, knows others in the place and minimally participates beyond the game.
6. Walk- completely solo event, often he is lost in thought as he makes his 5 km round.
7. LTM- there is some social contact involved in this; it is in Evansville IN and involves phone calls from time to time.
The common thread among all of these is their compartmentalization. There is no continuity of contact beyond the event itself. Even when he was president of the Rotary Club, it became a routine that involved almost no contact beyond that of the meeting itself. When involved in a theatrical production, there is the rehearsal and performance where there is meaningful involvement beyond the occasional meeting. And yet, even in the theatrical production, there is a tendency to become increasingly insular and put up barriers that avoid familiarity beyond what is involved in the performance. In UTC, he was the man who wasn’t there until almost the end.
Others are seen to have this tendency to keep to themselves; this unwillingness to be seen as one thinks he is. It is as if they are promoting an image which is not consistent with what they think they really am. And there is another take on this, perhaps what they are convinced that they are how they would like others to see them and are so different that that they don’t want it to show. Yet, in truth, what one is, is so plainly obvious to others that they see one who is trying to be something he’s not. OTOH there have been occasions when one or another came out; these have been monsters in action. Sometimes barbarous, other times crude and unsavory, and then simply bothersome but always scorned by those with whom he would have a relationship. It is as if others buy into the “juste et bon” only to find later that he’s not.
Being unwilling to bend to the will of others, to do what others would have, has been a hallmark of my life. I disdain family and friends as being unworthy of me. There have been a few “genuine” people whose acquaintance I’ve made but these were usually less than exemplary of knightly virtues. I saw them as living a life of experiences in lieu of being harnessed as was I; but I pulled my plough with the occasional walk on the wild side. Now my fields are in, the harvest is over and I am free but like the Prisoner of Chillon:
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are: - even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh. –Byron
There are/were two sets of chains involved, one has been removed; that being responsibility for other people, kids, mother, and father. The other is still in place, the need to feel good about me; for approval/ acceptance/ respect/ adulation/accomplishment.
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