A Permanence Problem

I have a problem with permanence. Actually, if you want to split hairs, I have a problem with what seems to be an overall lack of permanence.

I'm not here to tout the virtues of all things permanent. Hell, I think a great chunk of life shouldn't be permanent. In many ways, permanence breeds complacency and laziness and a general withering of one's desire to seek out the new and exciting. If not exciting, at least just different for different's sake. That being said, I think there are a few areas of this life we're born tethered to that are best served by a little permanence.

I guess my problem primarily lies in a lack of permanence in regards to people. Relationships. Loves. Friends. Family. I guess my problem is that I labor under a childish, naive idea that some relationships are so strong that time cannot cast them asunder. The idea that you can depend on people. Even as I write this sentence, I realize the sheer stupidity of my thought process in this regard.

The old saying goes something like, "you can't pick your family, you can't pick who you fall in love with - the only thing you can pick are your friends."

I don't have a lot of real, true, "call them to help me bury a body" friends. I have a lot of "casual" friends, and I don't intend to belittle them. But I think everyone knows what I mean when I talk about those true friends. I think their value rises as you age, because time has the nasty tendency to strip away friends like brittle, dying leaves in an October wind. You have those deep friendships, simply put, because of that "stripping away". The friends you have when you're older are the friends who have stood the test. Weathered the storms. It's friendship by attrition, and sometimes you just have to sit back and say, "God damn, I'm glad I picked that guy/girl." In the realm of the friend, it's easy to dismiss the losses and the friends that fell by the wayside because those constants are always there. Even in the face of a failed friendship, you're still anchored by those people that have been there for you time and time again. Failure doesn't look so bad when it's placed in the immense shadow of success.

Family is another beast. Ask a random sampling, and get them to answer honestly, and I'll bet at least half would say what I say about a large portion of my family - "If I wasn't related to them, I'd want nothing to do with them." I'm sure judging has begun. For some reason, a large portion of the populace is deeply troubled when they hear you don't get along with your family. Somehow that's a poor reflection on you. Honestly? I think most of these people despise their family - they just don't have the balls to admit it. Don't get me wrong, I have some family members that I love. However, there's a big chunk of them that are selfish, unthinking, uncaring and self-centered. I've been lashed out at, shunned, judged and just plain shit on by these people regularly and often over the years. I guess the philosophy I've adopted is that I don't care if we share blood. The bottom line is, an asshole is an asshole is an asshole. I'm not giving any more free passes just because someone shares my last name. This bothers me, make no mistake. I have romantic notions of family, and I get downright wistful during movies where large families full of quirky characters gather for Holidays or weddings. I want that. Thing is, I don't have it. The best I can do is keep the amazing relationship I have with my daughter and go from there. She'll probably get married some day, and I might eventually find someone who sticks around - so there's hope we can build something big and fun and funky down the road.

I guess the area that hits me the hardest is love. It hits me much harder than disappearing friends and self-absorbed family. I think this is the case because these people get into our lives so deeply. In order for love to work, you have to let them in...all the way in. I don't need to tell you how dangerous that game is. They get in there and they get comfortable and then you get comfortable. Next thing you know they're rampaging around in there like the running of the bulls and then they're just...gone. They're gone, and they leave this huge hole behind. This is where I have the proble, really. I'm not just talking about that temporary hole that everyone gets post-relationship-collapse. I'm talking about the one that stays. The one that years later makes me sit and think, "This person was ingrained in my life for years. Now? Just gone." This lack of permanence depresses me, even if on damn near every other level I know that this person being ancient history is the best thing for me.

I need therapy.

So what of permanence? There are things in life that I'll probably always enjoy and, on the flip-side, not enjoy. There are things in life that are fluid, and will constantly shift and change. This is as it should be. New horizons. Change is good, my friends. Shake the shit out of those doldrums. I get that, and I embrace it. I still can't shake that feeling of deep sadness when someone slips out of your life after being in there long enough to have left their mark.

Pennsyl-Bama

I live in South/Central Pennsylvania. Yeah...you thought you had it rough.

Democratic strategist James Carville aptly summed up Pennsylvania with the following quote: "It's Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in the middle."

Trust me when I say that Mr. Carville hit that nail squarely on the head.

I live in a fairly blue-collar neighborhood, consisting of mostly small, ranch-style homes. When I walk my dog, I'm astounded by the number of McCain/Palin signs I see. Back during the 2004 election there were only two houses in the neighborhood with Kerry/Edwards yard signs - mine and the house belonging to the 70-something gay hairdresser up the street. This election? More of the same. But don't take my neighborhood for it. Drive anywhere around here (with the exception of the Harrisburg city limits) and you'll see more of the same. This great swath of PA between the state's two biggest cities is truly neo-con country.

Barack Obama got himself into a bit-o-the-trouble a ways back when he remarked about a certain cross-section of the American populace clinging to "religion and guns". This quote caused an uproar amongst the McCain-ites. Those of us with a more liberal mind set simply shrugged and said, "Yeah...and your point is?"

The only part of that quote I really take umbrage with is the word "clinging". I don't know that "clinging" is really the best way to describe the mind-set of these folks. For this sample of the population, guns and religion are a deeply-woven part of the fabric of daily life. I don't think they "cling" as much as they simply put undue emphasis on these things. I think about the people I know and debate politics with, and i've never heard guns come up. Note that some of these people are Republicans, and some of them hunters. The bottom line is they know that if Obama is elected, he's not going to send the liberal secret police out to collect their deer rifles. They know that Obama isn't going to burn down churches the day he's sworn in and make Islam the national religion. Thinking people know this.

Maybe I'm being simplistic or, god forbid, "elitist", but I think education plays a crucial role in these mind-sets. More to the point, a lack of education. When I say education, I don't necessarily mean schooling. Just because you have a college degree doesn't mean you're necessarily educated. I went to college with plenty of folks who could barely tie their own shoes, yet they breezed through with a 2.5 and graduated. When I say "educated" I mean educated on the issues. Reading multiple news sources (note I said reading, not watching) to get multiple takes on an issue and then forming an opinion based on the knowledge you gather. Researching an issue to get to why it's happening, rather than just taking a sound bite at face value. Mitigating factors. Historical context. Basically, looking at what lies beneath an issue to get a complete understanding.

Case in point is someone I know who shall remain nameless. He's a staunch Republican who believes everything he receives in his email in-box. You know the endless chain emails to which I refer. Truth be told, I get tired of sending him links to Snopes and Fact-Check to debunk this ridiculous garbage. I do it, though, because I desperately want him to think before he swallows something hook, line and sinker with nary a thought. Occasionally he'll try to dazzle me with a "legitimate" news piece detailing Obama's plans to burn America to the ground. Every one of them are opinion pieces from a right-wing talking head. I lower my head, pound it against my desk and sob quietly to myself. There's no thought, research or reason behind his political leanings. He swallows propoganda and then pulls the "Republican" lever in the voting booth. Case closed.

There's an ad running in Pennsylvania for John McCain. In this ad, a young guy in a camo ball cap sits with his girlfriend next to his pickup truck, gun rack clearly visible in the window. An American flag flaps from the porch. He goes on to tell us that Barack Obama is going to take away his guns and, with them, his freedoms. This is all baseless, as simple research will tell you. However, to the uneducated individual, this sound bite instills the all important kernel of fear.

What about religion, you say? Quite honestly, I could write a book about that. Let's just sum it up by saying that there's a loud segment of the American populace who would vote for Stalin if he was the anti-abortion candidate. That's their one and only issue, and to argue against it is pointless. (For the record, I always use "anti-abortion", never "pro-life". The majority of these no abortion folks support capital punishment, which is hardly a "pro-life" stance in my book.) This segment of the population thinks Anne Coulter is the bees knees and almost craves war in the Middle East, as this just gets us one step closer to Christ's return. What else can I say? They're free to think and believe as they choose, but I'd be lying if I said these people and their single-minded fanaticism didn't scare the shit out of me.

Please know that in this little area in which I live there are lots of educated, decent and free-thinking people of all political stripes. I by no means mean to paint an entire region with a broad brush. But they're out there...the judgmental non-thinkers. Out there in droves.

This is Pennsyl-Bama, ya'll.

The Shot Heard 'Round the...Blog...Thingy.

I'm a lazy writer.

I'm going to repeat that, because I think it bears repeating.

I'm a lazy writer.

Ok. I've admitted it. Only eleven more steps to go, right? Is admitting something even the first step? There are twelve steps, are there not? I'm pretty sure about that. Don't I have to concede a higher power at some point? Yikes. This is getting dicey. You know what? Let's forget I ever mentioned the twelve steps.

My point is I need to get myself to write more.

I love to write. Always have. When I was a wee lad, I used to write books in my bedroom. I remember that almost all of them were about lost dogs embroiled in high adventure. You know; raging rivers to cross, wolves to battle, evil dog-catchers to thwart. Standard lost dog stuff. I would write them on notebook paper, leaving space for the illustrations I would add later. It's fair to say that these carefully rendered pictures would not cause even a mediocre illustrator to lose any sleep over perceived competition coming from my end. They weren't stick figures, but they were amorphic blobs that, depending on the day, may or may not have resembled an actual dog.

After I wove my verbal tapestry, then cheapened it with my "art", I would bind my book with about 36 staples. Nine times out of ten, you could barely open it. (This was probably best, because it spared you the full brunt of the pictures.) After I sodered that sucker shut, I then gave it to my Mom to enjoy.

My Mom never saved any of these opuses. Why I'll never know. I think that's something for my therapist and I to mull over. I'd think she'd have saved at least one in case I ever mentioned going to art school. She could whip that sucker out, pry off twelve or thirteen staples, and show me a handful of reasons why that idea was probably right up there with parachute pants and lite beer.

These days, I stick to the written word. I have forsaken any and all forms of visual expression. You're welcome.

My goal with this blog is to force myself to write more often. That and to share my bountiful pool of knowledge and endless opinions with anyone foolhardy enough to look at this and say, "Hey! Look at that! I am definitely reading this!" If you read this you'll learn that I think I know something about damn near everything. You'll learn that not only do I have an opinion on everything, but my opinion is always right. If you think it isn't right, then it's your opinion that's wrong. Please remember that. It'll save so much confusion, tears and use of language that would make Jesus cry. You'll learn that when you had to make that decision between watching "Roadhouse" on TNT and reading this blog, you made the wrong decision. I mean, have you seen Swayze's hair and chic yet rugged and casual wardrobe in that movie? It's like Adonis and Duran Duran had a baby. What the hell were you thinking when you opted out of that viewing experience?

Well, that's my plan. Enjoy my opinions, my overwrought ideas and my inane ramblings. Oh, and please try not to make Jesus cry.