Thursday, February 13, 2014
Yesterday evolved in a way I did not foresee. Due to a mistake I made I have been effectively evicted from my home. This is the second time this has happened in the last three months. Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in some sort of sick game show in which the rug keeps getting pulled out from underneath me the moment I start to fully relax and breathe deeply.
Other events occurred yesterday which compounded my upset. I learned a woman I was looking forward to meeting today was in a serious accident. Her husband replied to my email when I wrote to confirm our plan to meet today. This is not the first time someone has disappeared from my life whom I was looking forward to seeing. Indeed, I already feel I have had more than my fair share of those sorts of sudden losses. But then again that is only my opinion. Perhaps there is some reason for such incidents whose contest is impossible for me to discern. I don't know. I just would like the pain to stop. But the only sure way to never feel pain is to never be alive. And I won't contemplate that as an option.
So I find myself once again without a permanent home. It is unsettling to say the least. I recently read some essays from a book entitled Leather Folk. These essays as well as the breadth of my life experience have helped me to develop what I believe is some significant insight into the phenomenon of homelessness. Simply put, I believe one important factor in homelessness is the despair that can grow when a person becomes so disenchanted by the meanness and cold edge of human society as we currently live it that he decides it would be better to live under a bridge. Such an explanation might sound unconvincing but I cannot help but think of one type of population group in particular that I believe feels this way. I am talking about veterans of war.
Being in a war zone is inherently disconcerting...to put it lightly. To risk your life for an ideal espoused by your nation is no small commitment. And surviving such experience is also no small thing. I think seeing death and destruction ever day must make it difficult for returning veterans to witness the most venal of human behavior. And my venal I mean to describe the most petty of human behavior. You have probably witnessed such behavior. Venality transcends all types of people. Pettiness is on display when people look for the smallest of things to complain about. Pettiness is begrudging a person the shower he took because he left the towel on the floor. Pettiness is withholding food from the hungry when they cannot afford to pay for their own food. Pettiness is insulting people who have been much less fortunate than you. Pettiness is made visible when compassion, kindness, tenderness and the like are absent or very sorely lacking.
Some people endure such horrific pain in their lives that disconnecting from the human species at large just makes sense. When you have been disappointed again and again and again and again and again it's only natural that you might start to jealously guard your heart. Human beings can only take so much pain before the pain begins to result in serious illness. Excessive sleep deprivation can lead to psychosis. A unhealed broken heart can lay the foundation for bitterness, obsessive rumination and cynicism. We are all members of a human family. But when we lose that sense of true belonging we will find ourselves at risk of illness or worse.
Yesterday evolved in a way I did not foresee. Due to a mistake I made I have been effectively evicted from my home. This is the second time this has happened in the last three months. Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in some sort of sick game show in which the rug keeps getting pulled out from underneath me the moment I start to fully relax and breathe deeply.
Other events occurred yesterday which compounded my upset. I learned a woman I was looking forward to meeting today was in a serious accident. Her husband replied to my email when I wrote to confirm our plan to meet today. This is not the first time someone has disappeared from my life whom I was looking forward to seeing. Indeed, I already feel I have had more than my fair share of those sorts of sudden losses. But then again that is only my opinion. Perhaps there is some reason for such incidents whose contest is impossible for me to discern. I don't know. I just would like the pain to stop. But the only sure way to never feel pain is to never be alive. And I won't contemplate that as an option.
So I find myself once again without a permanent home. It is unsettling to say the least. I recently read some essays from a book entitled Leather Folk. These essays as well as the breadth of my life experience have helped me to develop what I believe is some significant insight into the phenomenon of homelessness. Simply put, I believe one important factor in homelessness is the despair that can grow when a person becomes so disenchanted by the meanness and cold edge of human society as we currently live it that he decides it would be better to live under a bridge. Such an explanation might sound unconvincing but I cannot help but think of one type of population group in particular that I believe feels this way. I am talking about veterans of war.
Being in a war zone is inherently disconcerting...to put it lightly. To risk your life for an ideal espoused by your nation is no small commitment. And surviving such experience is also no small thing. I think seeing death and destruction ever day must make it difficult for returning veterans to witness the most venal of human behavior. And my venal I mean to describe the most petty of human behavior. You have probably witnessed such behavior. Venality transcends all types of people. Pettiness is on display when people look for the smallest of things to complain about. Pettiness is begrudging a person the shower he took because he left the towel on the floor. Pettiness is withholding food from the hungry when they cannot afford to pay for their own food. Pettiness is insulting people who have been much less fortunate than you. Pettiness is made visible when compassion, kindness, tenderness and the like are absent or very sorely lacking.
Some people endure such horrific pain in their lives that disconnecting from the human species at large just makes sense. When you have been disappointed again and again and again and again and again it's only natural that you might start to jealously guard your heart. Human beings can only take so much pain before the pain begins to result in serious illness. Excessive sleep deprivation can lead to psychosis. A unhealed broken heart can lay the foundation for bitterness, obsessive rumination and cynicism. We are all members of a human family. But when we lose that sense of true belonging we will find ourselves at risk of illness or worse.
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I invite you to accompany me as I document my own journey of healing. My blog is designed to offer inspiration and solace to others. If you find it of value I welcome you to share it with others. Aloha!