Dear Blog,
There is a perspective making phenomenon, or meme, or trend. It is a common response to people potentially being overly invested in some argument or grudge or inconvenience. So the perspective making goes, in the scheme of things, nations rising and falling, species evolving and going extinct, the universe expanding and galaxies of billions of years fading to darkness -- your hurts, your anger, your quibbles are so small. So, sure, but why is that the correct vantage? From the frame of reference of you, yourself, a human, an animal, a thinking social being interacting for finite time with other thinking, social beings, should we be predominantly preoccupied with the events at the scale of our existence? Our work, our relationships, our commutes and food prep. If your meal is burned, that's at scale of your life, in the moment, the most important thing in the whole universe to you. Don't make insignificant what is real to you, now. Exist, feel things as they are.
Since I had this one up in draft for some time, it came across, the above view, in conversation over Christmas dinner with an older boomer. She essentially rejected it out of hand, recounting a story of losing all of her teeth and telling herself to quit bitching because her next door neighbor had no legs. It occurs to me that this is how people of any amount of privilege end up denying the validity of their own trauma (big T or little t as it may be). Once you deny your own trauma, that's when it stays there and festers. This affluent woman lost all of her teeth. That's horrifying. No one wants to exist with only dentures, have to worry over every bite, worry about cleaning them, worry about their appearance. And though she may persevere for her remaining years, it's even more likely, I think, that she will have hidden horror eating her from the inside about it, because her neighbor has no legs. Well, that's horrifying too, and as I've said many times, the existence of Jupiter does not mean that the earth is not large.
(Purportedly unrelated)
I'm dating again. Or rather, I have been on the apps, a select handful of them, making steady but slow progress in accumulating the often silent 'no thanks' of mid-late thirties women in the south west of Ohio. I had adjusted my expectations significantly from the last go around, in 2019 -- I prepared myself in much better ways, ensuring adequate self-care abilities, social network foundation for support in and out of possible relationships and ends thereof. I made a list of things to do before and crossed all the items off of it.
(It goes well, only from a vantage that is designed for it to look well. If you look at a broken table deeply, with thought to its art, its being, its history, what it can uniquely state in space-time, touch it, feel its smoothness, you can be in awe. But you still need a new table.)
The reality is that I carry limited appeal. I'm decent looking and a great singer, but I'm intense and complicated -- I can't hide it and I don't really want to anyway. I have a kid and won't facilitate more, and honestly that's the biggest barrier. It seems less a barrier now that I'm a little older, more of the target demographic of het femme cis gendered folks are ok with the prospect of not having kids or more kids now than 4+ years ago. More - not all; if I weren't sterile, I'd still have a bigger pool to draw from.
The reality of the region is that it's a predominantly pretty boring area. People watch sporting events and drink beer and chat about idle bull en masse -- this is not inherently bad, but to me it's fundamentally uninteresting. The out-there artists and professors and musicians are thin on the ground here, unlike a bigger city or a coastal town. And just as the region probably wouldn't really care to hear my opinions of their flaccid appeal, so too am I tiring of being presented with daily evidence that I'm not a hot item on market.
(Anywhat)
My life is pretty much prime. I'm saving money, looking to buy a new car next year, I eat whatever I want, work flexible hours. I'm making music for my community and they are enjoying it, being fulfilled by it - this is like approximately nothing I've ever experienced before. I have so much luxury, time to drive off to woods in five different directions for a hike over lunch, sometimes with my kid, and she rambles about her BS and we look at the mushrooms and bent pieces of wood and explore together. I'm sober, damn near 9 months, and it's the best way I've been in my whole life.
But dating sucks. It's kind of unhealthy, and I'm having trouble balancing it out, turning it off when I should be doing other things. Just because my life is amazing, doesn't mean that being rejected quietly for long periods isn't it's own kind of hell. I acknowledge this little hell, and I place it now on the outside, so that it doesn't eat me from the inside.
(In other news)
I've been fostering a cat. He belongs to a church and chorus member who had a stroke and had to go to hospital and rehab for nearly 3 weeks. I am considering fostering cats rather than procuring my own. I'm also considering procuring my own.
The church voted to list the campus for sale. I get to be the treasurer during the congregation's greatest financial struggle. This is also its own precious little hell.
People are dying in wars abroad. Lots of them.
2023 was the hottest year on record.
The sun is shining, therefore, it's possible to have some hope. I prayed today, and I'll pray again. Not for peace, just for the strength to carry on myself. Peace will only happen if we do something to make it happen, to heal the wounds and set aside our pride and our hurts, as a species.
Your Obedient,
Ian Hogan, PhD
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