August 11th, 2006
Do you have a nemesis?
I mean, is there someone or something out there in the big bad world that you spend all of your days in a life-and-death battle with?
I was about to write, "of course you do ... everyone does!" but I'm not so sure about that. In fact, I'm not even sure that it's particularly common to spend you whole life locked in mortal combat with something.
But I do. And I planned to write about it today. Except, when it came right down to it, I had trouble defining who or what it is! Certainly, there is a preponderance of the evidence of a few hundred of these rants that I could probably make a list of them and get a really good idea about the general categories of things that bothered me ... and if I were really lucky I might even be able to narrow it down to a single statement, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.
Except, such tedious study reveals nothing easily definable. I cannot easily fill in the blank of this statement to myself and the world: "My nemesis is __________ ."
Why is that? And is it why I've spent my whole life desperately at war with a million-and-one people, events, things, policies, etc. and no clear Battle Plan? What I mean is this: Since I can't easily describe in one or two words what I am fighting, is that why I continue to fight it? Perhaps if I were to sit down one long lonely day when I had nothing to do and nowhere to be (and no one to be with) and worked out just what it is that I am fighting ... would my battle get more efficient and thus would I win the war more quickly?
Would I one day realise that I am not fighting anything in particular, or perhaps fighting an unwinnable war ... and giving up the battle yields the same results as if I kept up the swarm of words, sentiments, and emotions? I don't know; I've never given it a try.
Off the top of my head, I thought I had a good idea going for a few moments. I wrote this little shorthand note to myself to act as the thesis for today's rant:
my struggle is a personal one: i struggle constantly with myself over how much civility to show in the world versus my neverending fear of losing the resources I compete for to survive. it's the classic struggle of wrestling with how much to give and how much to take.
And though I didn't quite finish the thought, the ultimate ending to that idea is this: "To give up that fight would be to stop competing for resources and just lie down in the mud and die."
Ah hah! (I thought for a little while) This is good. But then I thought about it in bigger terms: Anything in one's life could be couched in terms of the competition for resources. Every fear traced back to a fear of death. I wasn't content to let things descend to such a primal unthinking level ... there must be more to this life than a steady mule-like march to eat the greenest grass and drink the purest water. And my struggles with marketeers, stupid store clerks, dangerous drivers, friends who hurt by helping, former co-workers who can't see the jungle for the trees, and so-called professionals who are really just protectionists must be more than just ever-refined details in my own struggle to have my own sustaining niche in the world.
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