For most of my life, I have been blessed weight-wise. I have been able to eat anything and everything, as much or as little, and I would not suffer from any negative ramifications. Food hasn’t really been a big ‘thing’ in my life-it’s not my friend, I don’t eat when I’m sad or happy, to celebrate or to battle depression. I have plenty of pharmaceuticals that achieve those things. So what I eat and my activity level have not been much of an issue.
I got into an interesting conversation with a friend recently, he’s very ‘conversive’ when talking about Tibet, a topic of which I know little. I wrote back, talking about the near impossibility of finding any sort of truly objective information, for the simple fact is we are all incluenced in one way or another by our surroundings; hence, no single interpretation of what whatever event is going on can be truly objective.
But then that led me down an interesting lane…
Really, there’s little objectivity in anyone’s life. Every day we are alive, every thing we do in that day-from the most mundane of tasks to important decisions-has an effect, perhaps one ever so slight, on us-who we are, what our beliefs are, how we see and respond to the world around us. The only way another person could even come close to understanding your view for that particular day would be if s/he were around you for that entire time, and even then, your interpretations would be likely to differ.
I think that this is why the number of friends a person has tends to dwindle over time. The people you thought would be with you forever turn out not to be because you (or they) have taken a different trajectory, and when your paths again cross, all you share are those moments from the past. Of course, it’s fun to reminisce about the ‘good ole’ days,’ but realistically, how long is that going to last? A few minutes? An hour?
That’s when I thought about the possibility of being able to test whether or not a friendship is a real and lasting one, or just a passing whim. I have two childhood friends with whom I grew up. One lives in Seattle, and one lives in Hawaii, but in Maui. Last year, we visited my friend in Seattle. I had not seen her in 3 years. Our lives now are completely different, and they have been for about the last 20 years. The experiences that we do we share are only about things that happened when we were little. However, when meeting with this person, it is if 20 years were only 20 minutes ago. Only a little attention is paid to the goofy things we used to do when we were growing up. The rest starts where it does and takes off. It’s always been that way. I know that years may pass before our paths cross again, but when they do, it will seem like nothing. It’s like that with my friend on Maui as well. Our friendship stands time’s testing.
I think about all of the people I’ve met and all the people who I really thought I would be friends with forever and ever, and how much it hurt when they went away and I felt abandoned. Yet in this light, I can understand that was meant to be that way. Though there was a group with whom I spent years of traveling and new them all extremely well, those days are long gone. It would be cool to see them in a reunion type gathering for a day, but really, all we share is a specified amount of time in our past. For a friendship to survive, there has to be more; it can’t be described, it’s a sort of substance of timelessness. Ive realized that though my handfuls of friends have whittled down to one hand (with room), these are the people who will always be there for me. No, though they probably probably don’t understand me, and it’s likely we have very different tastes in everything from food to books, I know that these are the ones who are there for me, and I for them, until the very end. It’s like we share a spiritual bond rather than a superficial one, something that is greater than can be understood, and to know and feel that brings great comfort to me.
OK, two things happened in January that were just so wrong I was just stunned; they were that far beyond my comprehension.
First, in Kailua, a woman’s boyfriend beats her to death in broad daylight with people watching. The people watching are excused because the guy had a gun and so there was really nothing they could do. I can imagine this scene if I were in it and being all heroic like and running up and kicking the guy in the balls or something, but with gun in his hand, that’s a serious increase of the likelihood of dying in the process. And this is a total stranger. I think if it were a relative or close friend, my confidence wouldn’t wane so quickly at the sight of the gun and the prospect of being killed, and I bet the same for the people who saw this. But the fact that the guy did it in the day? Outside? In public? It’s not as though everyone had their eyes closed so they wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup. By committing this heinous act, he’s sealing his own fate.
And he’s REALLY sealing it. It turns out that the girl he just took the life from is from a big family here. A REALLY big, well known family here. A family who isn’t just going to take the killing of their sister/cousin/aunt lightly. And the boyfriend KNOWS this, hence further sealing his fate. Was this in his head (if I kill this girl, what is the relative likelihood of receiving repercussions from the family?)? Obviously not. I don’t understand how someone can get so mad that they’d be inclined to go kick,hit.strangle, the living hell out of someone to the point of killing them.
Now here’s the second story: A family lives in an apartment. In the apartment, there is an 18 month old boy. The boy’s father is there, and so is the mother’s current boyfriend. Needless to say, people were around. In this complex another guy occupies an apartment. The family has never had trouble with him; in fact, he has even babysat the 18 month old before.
The guy from the other apartment takes the kid (who was playing outside or something), holds on to him, and then throws him from the pedestrian overpass into the freeway traffic below.
No, this is no joke. The highway was closed for 5 hours. This is the one I don’t understand. Even if the guy didn’t particularly like the kid, can’t you see that ’if I throw this toddler over this overpass, he will die?’ I heard in places in CA they had to wire over the pedestrian overpasses because of the number of people who were jumping and opting to end their life that way, and the likelihood is that all of our overpasses will be caged over now too. I can understand people committing suicide this way. I can understand people wanting to throw things over overpasses. I can understand the desire to do some tagging on an overpass. But nonchalantly throwing another human being over? A short time later, the guy even came back to see the effect of what he had done.
This one is entirely beyond my realm of understanding. And even worse, what about the two cars that he landed upon? In a single instant, one person changed the course of many lives. Even though it had nothing to do with those two cars, that ‘what if?’ is going to linger with them for a long time.
But what about the guy? There was talk of his mental instability and whatnot. Regardless, sane or not, what kind of answer can a person expect to receive when asked “Why?” This was cold blooded, but it was also spur of the moment. Reports didn’t indicate he was a serious drug user, perhaps hallucinating that the toddler was Satan and he had to throw him for the sake of all mankind. What’s impossible to understand is also it’s simplicity. Guy gets up, guy gets a hold of a child that’s not his, guy throws child to his ultimate death. What makes this scary is that it seems to lack a motive.
Caroline Myss said that in this new age, many people deny the presence of evil. That there is no duality of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ anymore. She says she disagrees with it. These two occurences put me on her side. While most of the 6 billion or so people inhabiting this planet fall somewhere along the continuum of this duality, there are some, not many, barely half of a drop in the bucket when you think about the overall masses, but yes, there are people who are evil, and yes, they do exist.
Just wanted to let y’all know that everything isn’t always perfect here in ‘paradise.’
I am not entirely thrilled today. No, it’s not the traffic or the crowds or anything like that, it’s not even the gaudy decorations on some houses. That’s all well and good. Except for one thing.
The Christmas Cards
Ok, I get the idea of sending out christmas cards on a personal level to let people know you’re thinking about them and let them know you hope they’re doing well and all that. However, when dealing with these folded pieces of paper in an office setting, it’s just a mess.
First, the number. We send out 550 Christmas cards to people. That’s $225.50. A drop in the bucket for large corporations. However, the number of process required to get these things from receiving to sending, you’d think we’re making a John Deer combine there are so many steps.
The Christmas card list is the most important thing and must not be lost. It contains all of the names of the people to whom we’re going to send these items of joy. Labels must be made, and they must be neat, because if one of the managers doesn’t like how the label looks, you’re making another one. All of the cards then have to be stuffed into their envelopes, but half of the card must remain open and out of the envelope so they can be signed by specific people who worked with that company this year. We were really fortunate this year because two relatively important people had nothing to do one day, and rather than cruise their favorite websites, they asked if there was anything they could do. So with cards inside envelopes, the labels must be affixed upon them. THEY MUST REMAIN IN ORDER or the whole thing will fall apart and it’ll be anarchy out there.
Now we have the card in the envelope, the envelope addressed and they’re sorted. All that remains is signing them. This is the part about which I am not entirely thrilled because here at my lowly reception desk, I’ve learned that when these cards are received by the place they’re supposed to go to, the person who reads exactly WHO signed each card is one person-someone like me. And I don’t care. However, the managers have a VERY different opinion of this; this is an important task because some of these recipients are IMPORTANT and help keep us in business. The overall feeling is that this person is going to open this card him/herself and is going to scrutinize everyone who signed it, and if someone didn’t sign it, well such a blatant show of disrespect would prevent that recipient from EVER wanting conduct business with our company again.
The other element to this is that the people who are the most reticent about signing these silly cards are the managers, and they’re the ones who believe this whole ‘thing’ is so important. It seems to me like a sign to the office “I am so important, and what I do is so crucial to the existence of this office that no one’s going to tell me when I’m going to sign them. I’m faaaaaaarrrr too busy right now.
The deadline has passed, and all through the office, all that remains is to take the cards BACK OUT and put the WHOLE thing in, sealing them, and posting them. Fortunately our mail machine seals them while it takes $.41 out of our balance. I put a big box on the floor, ran them through, and when they started falling down, into the box they went, unordered, in chaos and anarchy so there would be no going back had a name suddenly come up. I finished, found the cost of our cards from out of the country, posted them, took the box downstairs, and AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, the mail guy was there with a PERFECT amount of space to hold my box of cards. They were on their way.
In the last week, about 30 have come back due to incorrect address. We get a lot of cards here today now from other places, but 90% of them aren’t addressed to anyone in particular like ours were. I’ve made a show of this by posting them all on this bulletin board in the kitchen, as if to say “SEE? You guys are wasting a ton of your (and MY) time, when the reality is that people JUST DON’T CARE when it comes to these stupid cards.” In fact, most of our cards come to people who don’t even work here anymore. Also, breakthroughs in science have made it possible that the cards arrive PRE-SIGNED in that person’s handwriting! It even looks pretty real.
What this all comes down to is this: I know, I am FIRMLY aware, believe me, that I am the lowest person on the totem pole that is this office. I know that half my job involves nothing more than appearing busy. And I’m fine with that. I’m fine with doing work with the higher people. I’d love to help out in whatever capacity (even though I just took and passed my exam to become a certified project manager which has brought little success in getting me off this desk). Because I know that trivial as it may seem, sitting here doing nothing IS contributing a SMALL (oh so tiny) part in the betterment of society. I help give them the room to get their more important work done so they have one less thing to think about. However, these stupid cards have NO purpose, they take up a TON of time, in the process you all treat me as if I’m useless, deaf, and mentally challenged, you’re rude, and a lot of times downright mean. And it’s over a fucking CARD for God’s sake! Even if most of what I do is pretty unimportant, I just can’t stand with doing something that’s downright USELESS. And that’s what this was.
Fortunately, time has passed, the cards have been dealt with, and I only have 2 1/2 days before vacation. Hells yeah.
Touching from a Distance by Ian Curtis
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Heat: An Amateur\’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Q by Bill Buford
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman
What If I Had Never Tried It: The Autobiography by Valentino Rossi
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