An Angry Hum

I’ve not written lately, nor posted anything in a very long time. I’m trying to get back in the habit. So please, bear with me.

There’ve been a few reasons why. Laziness for sure, but also a lack of things to say. I’ve been a goldfish swimming around in it’s tiny COVID fishbowl. I’ve also been angry, and troubled. And here’s the problem with that; it’s a diffuse anger. I’ve got no real target. I mean sure, there are tangible, concrete things that make me angry, but there’s no real solution I can control or execute. Mostly it’s just a quiet, impotent malaise.

I’m a cheerful person by nature. Optimistic to the point of gullibility. In others, all the humans that surround me every day, I assume either positive intentions or ignorance. In my experience, real ill-will is rare. I’m not naive, but I think more often than not what looks like malice is just people not knowing or understanding. I think for most of us, being shitty is just too much work.

Lately though, I’ve found that cheerfulness has had to become a mantra, something I have to remind myself of. Like putting on the same comfortable sweater every day, instead of it being the skin you wake up in.

I think, though I’m not sure, that I’ve always been pretty cheerful. But I also have to acknowledge that I’ve always had a pretty wicked temper. I can say mean things, I can lash out irresponsibly. I spent years working on it, and for the most part, have been successful. In 2006, when I resigned my last staff job and became a freelancer and had the time and space to reflect, I gained a measure of wisdom and self-awareness. My temper, my unpredictability, faded. My personality became much lighter baggage to carry. I was happier.

So now I find myself in this new world, and can feel my personality getting heavier again.

I’m pretty sure this is a temporary condition. I hope that’s not gullibility. Nah, I’m sure it’s not.

I suspect most of us these days haul around an unseen, maybe ill-defined unease. Like we’re not sure what’s around the corner. I’ve always believed in some meta-physical, quantum-level balance. Good things and bad things happen all the time, in roughly equal amounts. That’s always comforted me. Sometimes though, scale gets in the way. I love the theory when it works at eye-level. I go to a new restaurant and it blows. Ok, that increases the odds the next one will be wonderful (I know that’s not how odds work…but maybe it is.) Where my theory becomes darker is from 30,000 feet. I have a great marriage, so does that mean some other poor person doesn’t, and won’t? Maybe, and now I feel a little guilty. Of course, I have diabetes, so maybe that guy with the crappy marriage is healthy? Balance. I don’t know anything really, other than it’s an idea I had in my adolescence that seems to have become part of my programming. And that, in some odd way, gives me comfort and hope.

I don’t know where we are on the waveform of good/bad right now, but I think we’re all a little nervous about it. And it makes me anxious and testy. So do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to grab a couple drinks and my cribbage board and go find my wife.