I was properly angry for the first time in months last night. What was it you ask? Was it some massive injustice that caused you to lose your rag? Some Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker duel of wits and fates? No, of course not don’t be ridiculous: it was my friends having a Netflix watch-along group and had omitted to tell me. Incredible isn’t it? I do not feat my own death nor do I fear the loss of my home and all my treasures yet this is what upset me, this is what I allowed to upset me.
Perhaps it was the hypocrisy of it all, being told to try more with them while at the same time being excluded from an area of expertise that would have allowed me to have a good time with them – a degree in media helps with film recommendations. Or perhaps I was allowing myself to self-destruct to protect myself further from minor slights.
When we spend our time in our philosophies dismissing the big things like death and loss and pure hatred of circumstance, the little things slip through the cracks. It’s like a land slide: little droplets of water accumulate in the mountainside until one day they little droplets become force to topple the mountain. It was in Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds that the technologically superior and almost all powerful alien invaders were defeated by the common cold. Perhaps it’s hubris not to assume that nature would do as nature does if left unattended – if I left my own circumstance unattended, and if I left my own emotions to them unattended.
I reflect now, what other minor things have been bothering that I’m allowing to build up under the surface in the shifting soil? Each passive aggressive slight, each mosquito bite, each stubbed toe. What things are in my power to regain control over? Not the slights, they are actions of another; the bites can be cured by closing my window at night and some spray; the stubbed toes can be avoided by being more careful with the bathroom door late at night.
What of the tribe? What of my lack of faith in the tribe? I cannot control what they do only my perceptions of them and I perceive little mutual respect, my cup flowing over to receive dust in return. Perhaps I’ve missed the point of friendship if I expect something, anything back at all even the sanctity of trust and transparency. I cut myself from them, finding myself to be lonely in their company, now I am alone – bar one individual. They asked me why, why I could not bring myself to eject from them too. The truth is and was that they are my best friend, the one I thought and perhaps think I can be raw and honest with in the truest way possible to my own nature.
“The Doctor: You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything I ever stood for. You let me down!
Clara: Then why are you helping me?
The Doctor: Why? Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?” – “Dark Water”, Doctor Who
Perhaps in the end, we all rely on people more than we like to admit to ourselves. The contented man is happy within himself true, but when we taste that sweet fruit of truest company, nothing compares. Yet like all fruit, it turns sour. Its time comes and there is a time to accept and throw it away. There will be more fruit: unripe, ripening, ready to be harvested and savoured. We are farmers in our own way. I keep finding myself coming back to the same tree for the same fruit.
My intent now is to ensure the soils around this tree – the entire orchard – never shift and slide down the mountain again.
As a man once said: “It ain’t much but it’s honest work.”