So now I'm old. Last Friday, the 29th, was my on-line birthday, making me 40, as one particularly astute correspondent pointed out. So I'm old. Last Friday wasn't my real life birthday, which comes in October, making me Libra, balanced but judging. Which I try not to do - I want to understand and analyze and accept. If I look at the last ten years, I hope "analyze and accept" describes how I've developed.
I never thought about profiles showing my age changing, only about them showing my birthday, so I list February 29 as one more non-fact of anonymity. I assumed that any real person - as opposed to spam robot - who saw it would figure it was made up, just like the way I list my zip code sometimes as 90210. It's funny when I get spam saying "Hi I just moved to Beverly Hills and want to meet some cute single guys so it sounds like you fit the bill." Obviously spam (okay, obvious on a number of fronts). And no, I don't live on the set of an abandoned TV show, though sometimes I feel that way.
But these little deceptions don't get around the fact that time is passing and I am getting older and as I get older it is easier and easier to give up some things. I listened to an REM CD - nothing says "this is 1990" like a solid series of REM songs - including "Blame." I have given up my belief in Blame.
Blame, like Credit, expands as you share it. The more you keep for yourself, the less there is to go around. So I try to act accordingly.
I had a job once where Blame was our main focus. We had more workers than work and were all waiting to be axed in a seemingly endless series of lay-offs. We had little to do but to study Blame. Whenever a mistake was made, no matter how seldom, we would convene a team to form a policy to prevent its future occurrence. It didn't matter if our recommendations required far more work than simply fixing the occasional mistake when it occurred - we as a company were dedicated to the eradication of mistakes even at the "expense" of effort required, since we had excess people on hand.
The one good purpose of the Blame Game is to look at things you did wrong and want to swear never to do again. Maybe it makes you feel more secure hoping that you can keep a bad experience from ever recurring. We're all learning, aren't we?
Well, now I'm old - at least on-line and soon in real life. Maybe I've given up on learning. Maybe I'm starting to think "it's not what happens to you but how you recover that's important." I have already long thought that my mistakes were a reflection of my personality and accepted (after analysis) that I am actually pretty darn likely to make them again.
Cat is no longer here, after so intimately sharing every aspect of my life for so long - but I have nothing to point to and say "I'll never do that again." Probably not even that I'll try never to do that again. Did we make some mistakes? Yes, I'm sure we did and I did. Do I regret any of it? Only that we couldn't find a way to make it work. Did I, or we, give up too soon? No. We tried as hard as we could, we tried everything we could. Did I, or we, let it go too long? No. We wanted to keep trying, there's no blame in that. Should I, or we, have foreseen that it would turn out as it did? Maybe - but if we did I would have still taken the chance on it.
Maybe this means that at some point in the future I will be back to exactly where I am now, which is far from perfect. Maybe it means that I will enjoy several or many years of my life but not develop, not progress, not learn from my mistakes at all. I think I can accept that, which I suspect is a sign of getting old.
The company I worked for did manage to eliminate a lot of mistakes - but it didn't make them perfect. Maybe it didn't make them disappear, but it certainly didn't prevent it. I think for me, personally, I will rather go on making mistakes and trying to recover than being paralyzed with fear or suffocated with caution.
I never thought about profiles showing my age changing, only about them showing my birthday, so I list February 29 as one more non-fact of anonymity. I assumed that any real person - as opposed to spam robot - who saw it would figure it was made up, just like the way I list my zip code sometimes as 90210. It's funny when I get spam saying "Hi I just moved to Beverly Hills and want to meet some cute single guys so it sounds like you fit the bill." Obviously spam (okay, obvious on a number of fronts). And no, I don't live on the set of an abandoned TV show, though sometimes I feel that way.
But these little deceptions don't get around the fact that time is passing and I am getting older and as I get older it is easier and easier to give up some things. I listened to an REM CD - nothing says "this is 1990" like a solid series of REM songs - including "Blame." I have given up my belief in Blame.
Blame, like Credit, expands as you share it. The more you keep for yourself, the less there is to go around. So I try to act accordingly.
I had a job once where Blame was our main focus. We had more workers than work and were all waiting to be axed in a seemingly endless series of lay-offs. We had little to do but to study Blame. Whenever a mistake was made, no matter how seldom, we would convene a team to form a policy to prevent its future occurrence. It didn't matter if our recommendations required far more work than simply fixing the occasional mistake when it occurred - we as a company were dedicated to the eradication of mistakes even at the "expense" of effort required, since we had excess people on hand.
The one good purpose of the Blame Game is to look at things you did wrong and want to swear never to do again. Maybe it makes you feel more secure hoping that you can keep a bad experience from ever recurring. We're all learning, aren't we?
Well, now I'm old - at least on-line and soon in real life. Maybe I've given up on learning. Maybe I'm starting to think "it's not what happens to you but how you recover that's important." I have already long thought that my mistakes were a reflection of my personality and accepted (after analysis) that I am actually pretty darn likely to make them again.
Cat is no longer here, after so intimately sharing every aspect of my life for so long - but I have nothing to point to and say "I'll never do that again." Probably not even that I'll try never to do that again. Did we make some mistakes? Yes, I'm sure we did and I did. Do I regret any of it? Only that we couldn't find a way to make it work. Did I, or we, give up too soon? No. We tried as hard as we could, we tried everything we could. Did I, or we, let it go too long? No. We wanted to keep trying, there's no blame in that. Should I, or we, have foreseen that it would turn out as it did? Maybe - but if we did I would have still taken the chance on it.
Maybe this means that at some point in the future I will be back to exactly where I am now, which is far from perfect. Maybe it means that I will enjoy several or many years of my life but not develop, not progress, not learn from my mistakes at all. I think I can accept that, which I suspect is a sign of getting old.
The company I worked for did manage to eliminate a lot of mistakes - but it didn't make them perfect. Maybe it didn't make them disappear, but it certainly didn't prevent it. I think for me, personally, I will rather go on making mistakes and trying to recover than being paralyzed with fear or suffocated with caution.
7 comments:
Maybe the issue isn't so much one of 'blame' - as we are all guilty in some measure of something - as it is of accepting changes in life circumstances.
My advice: forget trying to analyze what you did right or wrong or could have done differently. Your final comment says it all: life would be worthless if you were to succumb to fear and feel paralyzed by caution as a result of your past experiences.
When we stop learning from life, we might as well die. There are no hard and fast rules, and some people learn more quickly than others. Personally, I am far from done with making mistakes in my life; but even the mistakes I've made (or the mistakes that others think I've made) have often been tremendous opportunities for learning. I would never forfeit that.
Yes, I have some regrets in life: usually it is for the things that I failed to do, rather than the things I did do. Occasionally, it is a combination of the two. Sometimes we hurt others (somewhat inadvertently) as we pursue the necessary paths of life and learning.
I do not know the reasons for the split between you and Cat. I'm sure that it's something that evolved over time and eventually became an untenable situation. That does not necessarily put either one of you at fault.
But I also do understand that such major life changes are extremely difficult, even for the most outgoing and brave of heart. When one has shared so many years of intimacy together, it cannot possibly be anything less than devastating to find that the relationship changes and cannot be sustained.
Hopefully, where there was once love, there will always be love. There will always be 'relationship' even if the two of you were never to communicate with one another again. That relationship remains in suspension, perpetually, whether one wishes it to be so or not.
Two people who were once so intensely involved cannot help but remain involved on an emotional level, even in the absence of direct communication.
Thank you for your insights-sometimes into your soul and sometimes into mine.
A blog question: How come when you make a blog response, it records the time but not the day? I've been curious about this for a while. Since I don't have a blog of my own, I imagine this must make following the trail of responses strangely timed, affiliated and disconcerting.
Sweetheart, you're not old -- yet. Haven't you heard? 40 is the new 30, which means more or less that you should just about be hitting your stride in terms of maturity and manhood.
But since you evidently have a different take on this, let's put it in another context: Birthday Spanks. As in, if you are going to celebrate two birthdays, half a year apart, that must mean that you should delight in the opportunity as you get older to receive more birthday spanks -- not once, but twice a year!
"Oh dear," I hear you sigh, "I'm a top. I don't receive, I give!"
Hmmm, obviously, some accommodation must be reached. Supposing your friends were to get together and formulate a plan... Like physically restraining you in some overtly vulnerable position and force-feeding you chocolate... all the while admiring the curves of your bottom and commenting on what a pleasure it would be to spank those cheeks.
Naturally, you would never know whether such a terrible fate would ever befall you... meanwhile, you would be unable to resist the sweet temptation of chocolate. :-)
Happy Birthday!
So, what? You never check your blog?
That's pretty lame, huh?
I know you're depressed, but hey, it's time to step out of it and ENGAGE!
Remember, I'm your friend!
Less than ten minutes this time... not too bad...
yes, birthday chocolate is the best, I guess in a leap year I should get it twice - though possibly on Feb. 29 it is only virtual chocolate!
White ghost, huh? Sounds like a situation needing remedy...
Gee... Thanks for finally getting back to me -- after 10 minutes!
Chocolate of choice? (I'm still assuming you don't want the swats).
Mmmm.... chocolate. There are so many kinds. What is your pleasure, my friend? I'll do my best to deliver....
The name "White Ghost" has an interesting, though coincidental, history. Apparently, someone in my family (in an attempt to be creative) came up with this name that he thought was original. It was not.
A friend of mine recently researched that name and came up with the ethnic/cultural nomenclature as well as the meaning. I was quite surprised that my name (actually, my middle name) meant "White Ghost" in the ----- language. Somehow, it seemed appropriate.
Of course, I've been known to use various names at various times. My given "first name," for example, is Greek for "rational."
That may come as a surprise to some people people who see me as highly emotional (and that is true); but I am also very much a rationalist, so the name is not a mismatch.
So, what kind of chocolate do you want?
Post a Comment