Of Success and Failure

Success and Failure are relative terms, a negotiation of an internal mind with an external reality. It would seem that because of their relative nature, they are meaningless, but are they? If by one set of standards you could be considered a success, say from those that would like to be in a similar position, and from another perspective a failure as from those that pity or loathe the same condition, does that make you any less a success or failure? In other words, does it help the man in the pan that the man in the fire envies him?

Can success and failure even exist without an external judgment?

God must think my misery is hilarious

I hate my life.

Not really, but sometimes I get the feeling that something is out to make things just that much more difficult for me. I think about the idea of self sabotage, of self fulfilling prophesy and negative attitudes and creating my own reality. I even came up with a scientific version that translates it into probability fields that we generate based on quantum mechanics and the observed reality in relation to the observer, we being probability generators that change the substance of reality by holding beliefs that limit a parameter of possible outcomes and in essence being responsible and accountable for the end results. But sometimes shit just don't work.

I seriously just spent a good couple of hours trying to fix something and going through all the steps that I knew to fix it, and when that didn't work I set aside pride and looked up instructions that I followed to a tee. When that didn't work, I asked a co worker to walk me through it and I listened patiently as he described the same steps that I had taken. When that didn't work, I asked someone else to do it while I watched. And I watched the same steps. I saw the same thinking. I observed the same patterns of behavior and watched as a different outcome presented itself.

It was fixed. I was thankful that it was fixed. I didn't care that it was me that fixed it.

Really.

Then I turned it off, took it from the work bench and put back where it belonged, maybe twenty feet away, turned it back on, and it was broken. Again.

I quashed the rising frustration and set to fixing it. I ran through the steps patiently, did everything I had just seen, just watched, thinking that I must've missed something the first time I tried and now, with it fresh in my mind, I could fix it.

Still nothing.

The person that had fixed it came over, glanced at it, plugged it back in and it worked just fine.

If insanity is repeating the same steps over and over again and expecting different results, then this is crazy. And if this is crazy, what the hell am I?

Clean start to a new year

So I just got back from my buddy's birthday party. I had made plans to get out of work a couple of hours early so I could head down there and be social for a spell, not too many chances of that these days, and I was really looking forward to it. Things didn't quite work out as planned and I got swamped at the job leaving late rather than early. I show up just as things are winding down, and everybody is in the slow haze of a good evening just past, the drunken conversations not making as much sense as they did earlier but a helluva lot funnier. I have a beer as a few more people filter out and even the birthday boy calls it quits while people are still packing it up. Stuff is everywhere and the few of us left start a meandering pick up but interest quickly peters out.

Eventually I find myself alone, surrounded by the aftermath of a party that I essentially missed.

I didn't mind though. I kept picking up and it reminded me of the holidays and the times I wanted to do something nice for my Mom but couldn't afford anything fancy. So I would clean the house while she was asleep, she being a very tidy and fastidious kind of lady. She loved that kind of thing. It meant a lot to her that I did that, and she would gush about what a nice job I had done. I think my friend is the kind of person that would also appreciate that kind of thing.

While I was reminiscing, picking up this and that, bringing things inside, tidying up here and there, I found that I had completely cleaned his kitchen. I'm not sure if he's gonna be weirded out or not, I'm not sure if I'd be weirded out, but I'm not sure if it matters.

Hair apparent

I got a haircut the other day. While seemingly mundane, this is a big deal for me. I hate hair cuts. I don't like thinking about my hair, what it looks like, what it looks like to other people, or what's fashionable or stylish, or god forbid, what the difference is between the two. Not to say that these topics are of no interest to me, it's that I end up not liking the resulting thoughts that follow. I would love to have a good haircut, be stylish -and- fashionable, and look good to others and myself.

This is not how I feel. Usually, I feel cheated.

Not only do I feel ridiculous with a haircut that is too short/too floppy/uneven/unflattering, but I have to shell out some cash to have it look that way. I've resorted recently to cutting my own hair, with an electric razor, a mirror, some bravado and a little whiskey. I am not trained in such things, so my results vary. At least I don't have to pay for the surprise, and you gotta love hats.

So, the other day I got a haircut. By a friend of my roommate, who -is- trained in such things, who is gay, and who is a drag queen. While a strange list of accolades, they usually spell out good chances when it comes to cosmotology. He did it for a little bit of weed, some beer, and leftovers and got to work with his really expensive set of scissors and some flare.

I hate it.

I usually wait about three days to pass judgement on things like this, but it seriously looks like he got bored after finishing the right side of my head and then just made snipping sounds with his scissors next to my left ear for a little while. Just a tip: when finishing something of this nature, so personal and semi-permanent, do -not- describe the look as "fun." That just sounds like you're not even trying.

It looks like I'm going to finish it off myself and get my hat ready. Oh, well. At least I didn't pay for it.

Dreams of my father

I had this weird dream where I was sitting with my dad outside of this cave that had a fire burning inside of it. I was telling him how I had created a replica of a rodent's nest from the kindling and how it had turned out so well. We were laughing and he asked me about adventures and fun things. The wind was blowing a great amount of smoke away and it was swirling and billowing in front of us and he kept jumping up and laughing and making as though he were chasing the smoke away with this silly roar. It was funny. Then he said it was time to go and he got up and started walking towards a house in the distance, silhouetted by the fading light of a sunset already below the horizon. I got up to follow him but turned to look at the fire in the cave which was still hot and I was afraid it might be dangerous. He said "C'mon" and waved in the quick short way that made things funny, "It's okay, it'll burn out, Let's go." And we walked across a field, under a tree and towards the house together. It was getting dark and I was having trouble seeing him in front of me. I woke up missing my Dad very much.

He's still alive, just talked to him, and working on erradicating corruption in the Philippines. The man is amazing.

Poems at the bottom of my shoe

I found this tucked away in my shoe one day:

Starlings in Winter
by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noise,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

*****

Thanks Tri. I needed that.

The turning of leaves and vows

My brother is getting a divorce. It's a tough thing to go through, at least I would imagine it would be having never been a divorcee myself, holding only a magnification of my knowledge of breakups and that being nothing short of excruciating. But he sounded okay, if a little drunk, on the phone. It seemed more an intellectual affair with an emotional wake than any sort of maelstrom of rage and sorrow that I'd probably have it be. She's figuring herself out, he supports that and is somewhat relieved of the burden of her depression, the two having gone through a major move, a miscarriage, a success and a lingering failure. It was neither surprising nor suspected, but rather a natural consequence of the nature of relationships, that they either last forever or end.

We're complicated creatures that's for sure. I got hints of sadness but excitement, an unexpected future born of a surprising conclusion to an assumed past. I felt like I was tasting his trauma like a wine, searching for a nutty flavor or a touch of oak, or maybe a sense of desperation under a layer of currant. It had a strong bouquet, but over all it tasted weak. I got a feeling of rehearsal and a tinge of fraudulence. He's not sure how he feels about it, but I suspect that he's been feeling like leaving too, which would explain the civility between them, a sort of understanding of motive, complicit even in the act of sabotage.

I don't feel sad about this turn of events, which isn't to say I feel any gladness for it either. They seem fine, or at least not a danger, and that's really the best you could hope for in a situation like this. She's working on a novel, the first such inspiration she's had in a long time, which I imagine is exciting for her and a star she'd be willing to follow to the ends of the earth now that she's spotted it in a sky she fears too close to dawn. I think he's tired of denying her lamenting and self deprecation, he has a thirsty ambition that I think he's been holding back. But they may find that the driving force for the negative may be the thing that sparks the dreams they end up chasing. His creativity and ambition, her selflessness and compassion. From another, older and more tired, perspective those can be turned into self-centeredness and weakness respectively. But who's to say what judgements our minds will pass when the summer leaves for a cold and bitter winter?

I wouldn't dare to assume.