Subscribe to this blog's feedIt has been a stormy day. The winds have taken the stars. Our camp has decided to hoist tents for the duration.
The dogs are restless, perhaps seeing something, someone, that we do not.
I am trying to get drunk from the medical supplies, in a vain attempt to forget the obvious; that my party and myself are scoured from the group. We are in exile. We are forcibly removed because we dared to be smart and strong. Smarter, perhaps, and stronger than we deserved.
We, our group, still had much to contribute to the cause. We value science, to the last of us. We value honesty, to a fault. We want to make places safe, make them adult, make them affordable, emotionally, to those who need them.
But in our zeal, we overstepped. We acted in a public way, when perhaps we should have been circumspect. But acting behind the backs of others has never been my way. Watching the status quo has never been an easy thing for me. For any of us.
Science, hard science, is what the others and I cling to in times of need. It makes me feel as though I am serving the public when I do research and when I help others do the same. I never thought that, in my zeal for facts. I would be punished.
If others wish to publish statements when they are drunk, or otherwise impaired, that is solely at their own discretion. I treat their publications with the same critical eye that I would treat those of the sober, or sane. Because in this venue, all publications are treated with equality. And should be, as to do otherwise would indeed discriminate against the ill by giving them permission to behave badly without recourse.
I should have foreseen this, but I foolishly thought that personal loyalties were of some merit. They are apparently not. I thought that I would be the subject of discussion, perhaps, a warning, maybe. But treating another as an adult is apparently beyond the scope of those who would infantalize others in lieu of holding personal responsibility as a gold standard.
And because of this misstep, I am in the cold, alone, without my guides and my maps.
The wind is blowing harder now. I am most afraid for Wilson. Wilson sees his departed wife in dreams, and I am afraid he will soon forget the waking world for the sleeping one, and follow her ghostly apparition to the cold, white blindness outside. I am keeping an eye on him, but as with the dogs, my ability to impact the world at large seems constrained, as though it were I who was a ghost.
And perhaps I am, in this world of white snow and blind cold.
This is my first day of exile, and already I am feeling the lack of warmth.
You are not alone. Others are here in the cold with you, and these words have brought some much need warmth.
Amazing that you could light such a fire so quickly.
How's that done, man?
love ya,
tim
Jonathan,
This morning, I have quesitons.
I wonder sometimes how it is that so many of the membership of the AM site have such emotional connections to it? When things go ary, why is it that we feel a sense of loss and rejection? How is it that sitting in our respective homes all over the planet, we care so much what people think, in a virtual world wehere personalities have monikers that are fruits of the perverse immagination? How is it that we can allow a connection on our computers, described as a "website", to take of so much of our valuable time, yet in the end means nothing to the rest of the world? How is it that a small group of people, financially invested, can create such havoc in our lives, or should I ask why we allow them the power to do so? Are our lives so insignificant that they can be turned off by one stroke of the "enter" button to our "ISP"?
My confusion has existed now for several years, yet we keep returning, keep caring, keep donating of our rich resources, found deep in the recesses of our memories of this disease, and what it has done to us and our lives. In the end, does anyone care that we are sitting alone in the snow, shivvering, and hoping that someday we can return to the group that has ostrasized us, and pushed us out in the snow? I still don't know the magical hold that this has over our psyches. I cannot make sense of the confusion that follows when we participate in such a venue, yet have to sit and examine each and every word we create, to make sure that it doesn't disturb the "internet Gods" that seem to have such a grip on our mental exercises?
Surely we should and can find solace in other venues, yet this one seems to keep us warm at times. Seems to help us understand ourselves. Seems to allow us to help others in our drive to keep them from making the same mistakes we have made along this disease pathway. Seems to make our lives grind to a halt when we get too close to that magicaly indescribed line that pushes us away, and keeps us away until we are familiar with our transgressions. Trangressions that adults don't deal with well in reality. Transgressions which are the result of other's fleeting sense of morality.
No Jonathan, I still don't understand the power of the things that come over our screens and keep us intertwined with people we would ordinarily never allow to take a second of our valuable time. Maybe some day, I will come to an understanding, but then again, maybe not. Somehow, I guess in the end it really doesn't matter, because in the end, we do really have lives outside of the imitation world of the computer. It is with our own allowance that we "let" the comptuer and all the things which come rushing over the screen, impact us, either mentally or emotionally. We do need to make sure that the computer and it's world, don't become the center of our focus, because in time, someone will pull the plug, and sometimes without any forknowledge and without any sense of destruction. We cannot allow that to happen.