Sunday 21 January 2001

Pic of the day: Is that my frozen tears? Uh, not exactly.

Beside the average

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Leonard Cohen, Bird on a wire, from the CD The best of Leonard Cohen.

***

I'm sooo not normal! Not like I'm particularly queer or BDSM or anything ... at least this time I'm thinking more general. I'm not the bloke the ads were made for, that's for certain, seeing them fly by at a far distance. Tonight I've been really looking for ads that were clickable, something vaguely relevant. I found one that looked interesting (it was very general) and it crashed two browsers. *sigh*

I guess I am tempted to think that being different from the norm must mean being better. Others who are more normal will probably think that being different is lower. But what if it's just parallel? I thought about it, today, how things could be better and yet they could be worse. In fact, I think for most people matters are worse. And not just in Zimbabwe and Congo-Kinshasa. I mean in places with comparable standard of living.

For starters, once one has food and clothes, the next most important thing in a human life must be love, I think. OK, perhaps it beats clothes, but let's just move on here. If you look at how much energy people spend on "finding love", it must be pretty important. And once you're out of the gravity well of your parental family, finding love means finding a partner (usually of the opposite sex) that you can share your life with. Given the priority of this, I guess y'all must really pity me for living alone now for 20+ years.

Well, go right ahead. Pity me, because I'm not going to do it myself. There are many marriages that are better than nothing, sure. And there are many that are not. People who stay together for the sake of the children, or because they need someone to help pay the bills, or they are just scared of being alone. Loving someone who is a friend sure beats living with someone who is an enemy.

People keep asking for so much ... chasing the dream as portrayed by books, movies, TV shows. The perfect Other, the ultimate source of happiness. The one that can fill all your needs. Return to the teat. I think those who ask for less are those who most likely will get what they're asking for...

***

So I don't have lots of money, by Scandinavian standards. I don't have a car, a house of my own, TV and video and DVD. I don't have vacations abroad, or a cabin in the mountains, like so many here. Then again, I guess I have more computers than your average bear, and the digicam, and a dedicated phone line for Internet. Which most people on my income don't have. I guess it depends on what one sees as important. I do not ask for so much - and at the same time, I ask for more.

People may pity me for the stuff I don't have, and the next day they may envy me for being able to spend half my day just having fun. But the two are connected. If I were to have more stuff, I would have more stress. It's a sad state indeed that so many people need to use chemicals to be happy a couple nights each week, instead of having the time to do something fun every day.

I've met a few other geeks online who share some of my interests. Discussing with them on message boards is not exactly like partying, but then again the hangover is correspondingly less. I guess once again I'm sort of middle of the road - only it's a road less travelled. Sort of. And it beats listening to people who you have nothing in common with, except your workplace or street name.

(No offense to the people I work with, many of who are perfectly nice despite a stressful job. But when it comes to discussing the deeper meanings of shapeshifting, or the autonomy of literary creations ... well, I just don't go there.)

Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be ... free.

Leonard Cohen, Bird on a wire.