Cut Wide and Deep

I have this sense that there is a change coming. I can't put my finger on it, but I don't think it's a good change. I sense people are withdrawing deeper inside themselves (a bad place to be, but truly the only safe place). I feel like the storm that was supposed to rock the Northcoast actually found sanctuary in some people I know instead. It remains there, brewing. Building. Festering like a pus-filled wound.

The Dead Kennedys have a song called "Cesspools in Eden." There's a line that says (and I'm paraphrasing ... maybe), "Come lick the pus from my open sores." I've always found that to be an image that is equal parts disgusting and erotic.

As a species, we share fluids to reproduce. We spread disease the same way. You got to wonder if maybe those things are one in the same.

While at work today I dealt with three decidedly insane people. Like drooling insane (there's the fluids again). I started to wonder how fine a line there was between "us" and "them." I think it is a lot thinner than any of us will admit to. When it comes to my friends, I think some of them are at a breaking point. It worries me. I don't want to end up running with the black dog, so to speak.

People have different ways of dealing with all this. Some withdraw deeper inside themselves. Others lash out. It takes a truly touched and special individual to be able to ignore all the insanity around them. Most of us try to get through our day without letting it touch us, without taking in any of the fluids. We know it doesn't always work, but we try. We know some gets in, but we try. We just do our best to make sure the levels don't get too high. We try to stop before we hit the pus, so to speak.

But what can we do?

To be human is, quite simply, to suffer. We learn very early on that life is a series of disappointments offset by occasional bursts of joy. Most times we just hope to be content. We hope for a moment's peace and ask nothing more from it lest we jinx it. The realist knows that we are surrounded by fools, and that can't be ignored.

If you ever wondered about our sanity ... we live in a world where Medicare recipients demand that government get its hands out of health care. We live in a world when men with cameras follow around Paris Hilton, thus ensuring that more men with cameras have to follow her around so that nobody is scooped. We live in a world where people who get their drugs ripped off call the police to report a robbery. We live in a world that is more content with watching people "surviving" on a island somewhere than it is with actually knowing the members of the Supreme Court.

If you aren't crazy now, you aren't paying attention

I worry if I'm doing enough for my friends. I worry about what I can say. What I can do. I know, however, that I can't do much of anything when someone is drowing in a flood of misery. But even I could do something, I wonder if they would want it done.

Misery doesn't love company ... but it's not picky when it comes to its friends. I hope you guys are okay (and you know if this refers to you). If not, I'm willing to listen. Just don't expect me to suckle at your sores.