Tuesday 5 August 2008

An Ode To Little Rhody

We went to a wedding in Newport, my home for nearly ten years, this past weekend. Like pretty much everywhere else, it's got its good and bad points.

Some good:
1. Real water, heck an ocean even. And a nice one at that.
2. Reliable wind.
3. The stars at night are unbelievable - little light pollution.
4. Customhouse Coffee.
5. Scenic beauty. Indian Avenue has to be one of the top 10 nicest places anywhere.
6. The architecture is awesome.

Some bad:
1. Try to get a cab at closing time. No sale.
2. Lack of good jobs.
3. Popular provincial mindset.
4. Regularly invaded by mooks from Boston hell bent on making complete asses of themselves all weekend long.
5. The beaches get this skanky red tide thing happening too often.

Exceedingly weird moment yesterday when I decided that I could walk without a limp and then did it. Since replicated a few times, I am still petrified that I am going to attempt this and fall over on step three. Also, why exactly I was inspired to do this and why it was successful are complete mysteries. I'm pretty convinced that my aggressive working out schedule has accelerated the rehab process, but the walk happened after four days of no spinning bike. I was in the water pretty much all weekend, maybe that was it?

Perhaps it won't be too long until I am riding a bike outside again? I am major motivated to be able to ride the first weekend of October, when we are once again headed to the Lost River Barn.

We got my brother wicked drunk on Sunday night. He may have been in a little trouble with my sister in law yesterday. Hope not.

I've decided to quit ranting about stuff that pisses me off about the world at large. Until the political class can have the frank discussion with the American populace of just how excruciatingly fucked our entire system of living is, and how badly we need to recalibrate our lifestyles and consumption habits, the whole thing is useless anyway. Instead, I'm channeling all of my energy into making my life what I want it to be. The time spent at home with nothing to do and no ability to move resulted in my going way deeper into my psyche and will than I ever have. Try sitting in bed for two weeks some time. It's like going into the Navajo steam tent with your spirit guide. The honesty that gets unearthed is pretty startling and scary. The good news is that the important stuff - mostly family - is just ducky. There are some other important things that have to change. I feel fortunate to have discovered these issues, but am now pretty antsy to get on with dealing with them.

2 comments:

Jim said...

Instead, I'm channeling all of my energy into making my life what I want it to be

Thank f***in' goodness you figured that out.

I quit being really unhappy about politics several years ago. I realized politics is basically meatpacking, and most of the stuff we get fed is sausage. Tasty or atrocious, it's best not to examine sausage too closely. My life is a lot better since I quite being a Person Who Cares. A lot of my friends who are People Who Care seem enraged by my diffidence. Doesn't bother me in the least.

The real failing of the neo-marxist 60's radicals is in making the personal the political, they also made politics personal, brought the war and the environment and every other damn thing home, as it were, no matter how trivial.

So now People Who Care are really just People Who Are Constantly Pissed Off, because life, being a basically human endeavor, is doomed to imperfection. It will always suck and if you're seeking perfection, or even expecting things to work right because of the system (rather than in spite of it) you're going to be an unhappy camper.

The next step in your journey is to realize that government is not capable of perfecting people and their habits. Every time it's been tried, it's failed. Perfection, or at least a good life, generally comes from individual decisions like your own to focus on your corner of the world. Spontaneous organization by self-interested people, with a dollop of community-centeredness, creates really nice places to live. Key to that is a sense of forgiveness of your neighbors' imperfections, and a sense of worry that they might be as forgiving of yours. That makes you happy as well, I've found.

That just my 2c though. YMMV.

Chuck Wagon said...

Jesus, that sentence does make me sound like the perfect hybrid of an overindulged 16 year old and an overindulged soccer mom, doesn't it? Maybe taking off the mask of the angry white man has allowed my true colors to shine through. With all apologies to Cyndi Lauper, of course.