It Doesn't, You Can't, So Stop Trying

Sadly, I live in the town that gained some national attention these past few days, due to the actions of one individual. I put off making any comment on the event, not so much because it has little to do with the project (more peripheral than direct), but because my views may be seen as controversial or heartless. In all honesty, I am not even sure I want to express my views. I have learned, however, that it is best for me to express rather than suppress. Yeah, like that has been a positive thing in that past. Still, for all the crap I've piled upon myself by opening my mouth and speaking my mind, I still manage to feel the slightest positive reward when disclosing my views. Again, some of my opinions are controversial, so prepare thyself.

First, shut up. Or, more bluntly, shut the HELL up. I really don't want to hear or read about what happened at that mall anymore. I suppose a large contribution to this feeling is my tendency toward denial. In this case, however, I think it is less denial and more disgust. It bothers me greatly that the ultimate goal of this individual was achieved, that being the 'fame' he garnered for his action. It occurs to me that making such a spectacle of this tragedy serves more to reinforce the sick notion that any one of us can become 'famous' via a traumatic act than it does to deter any future acts. Need I remind anyone that the goal of terrorism is to strike fear into the minds of society and disrupt the status quo?

Second, nobody will ever know what this person was thinking or why he did what he did. We can speculate for eternity, but I can assure you that NO ONE will ever know. From experience, I can tell you that swimming in the 'whys' are just as bad as treading in the 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' waters. Ultimately you will drown, unless you find the shoreline. What I am really saying is that if anyone truly wants to get close to the mindset of this individual, you better prepare yourself for discovering some real ugliness inside. Not him, but yourself. I worry that saying something like that will make a few feel that I am heartless. I assure you that I am not. The contrary is what makes this event traumatic for me. It is probably some evolved positive empathy that keeps me from being the next news headline or top story, as I can very easily step into this individual's thinking process, but that same empathy can put me into his shoes when I close my eyes, recognizing the same potential for insane action. Make me one heck of a FBI profiler, huh?

Finally, the worst component of this event is not the loss of lives. Granted, I feel such pain for those who were present, for those who were wounded, for the families of those who were killed in such brutal fashion. No, the worst part of this tragedy will be glossed over, briefly mentioned, casually tossed into the mix as the media and society continues its exploration. Failure. In that sad, sick, twisted sort of way, this is about how things failed. Without specifics, I can tell you that similar elements of life gone wrong have played out in my existence. Troubled childhood issues, broken relationships, loss of employment, irrational views that the fault is external rather than internal. Yep, been there, seen that. Failure. Not of the individual as much of the 'system.' For all of our supposed progression as a society, we still can't handle the truth of the mental health system's failure to fight it out with the idiots in control, or the reality that our society does more to perpetuate mental health problems than reduce them. It didn't come as a surprise to me when I was told that the office employing my therapist was closing because it was not making enough money for the hospital administering it. It came as no surprise to hear that the shooter of late had mental health issues that seemed to receive little resolution since his first interaction with the system as a child. Time and money, money and time. A lack of either or both in the mental health realm results in a lack of, well, results. A lack of results, more often than not, ends in pain or tragedy.

So, I rant no further, and I put this out there for the globe to consider, and I move beyond this traumatic event much as I have others in my life. Then I go back to my corner of the universe and do my thing, which mostly means finding more boxes of stuff to empty out, and maybe listing some stuff on eBay.

Something

You only thought I gave up on this whole thing. Truth is, I've been busy. Doing something. Now I have to do something else.

Did I recall something?

I managed to let one of those scary thoughts enter my brain at some point during the last few days. One of those thoughts that I have spent years and dollars working to remove, recognizing that thoughts of this sort propel me down the dark alley of depression and negativity. Reeking of futility, these thoughts muddy up the reflection and cloud the perspective. The good part is that I know now how to handle these thoughts, but that doesn't make them easier to accept. The thought, in particular, is that I just as well forget about One Room given that it has been nearly a year and I've yet to finish one room.

As I look around me, I see that I've not come very far in my project. I can count on one hand the reasons for this, with the quickest to surface being the laziness factor. Follow that with obsessions (and compulsions) of various natures, and the joy of MS-related fatigue, and not much time is left in the day to accomplish any task, let alone making progress with One Room. I have to make some change in myself, again, if I want to see success. Change, however, brings fear. No, not because of any LCMS affiliation issue, but more for the general fear of change that comes with the human wiring. In my case, it is high voltage wiring.


Change stomps upon comfort. Lack of comfort brings out lack of control. Lack of control brings out futility, which contributes to depression. Hence, the entire scope supporting the One Room project is inherently depressing. Medications are helpful, but there is no "clean up my mess" medication. Hmmm. There's a money-making idea. A pill to remove the clutter. Riiiight. I know better. So, lacking the magic pill, I have to do it the hard way, which is harder than most would think. And recognizing that talking about the problem is the first step to combating the problem, I will take a deep breath, take another look around me, and see the potential for success rather than the overwhelming lack of progress.

Did I forget something?

Age, a disease that eat brain cells, replacement addictions, non-replacement mental health issues, new household distractions. I suppose I can up with any number of justifications for my lack of posting. I can even say that I was just plain lazy. That hardly gives people anything to read, however. Did I mention that I've been tired lately? Or that people keep wanting to overeat out and all that food makes me lethargic? Maybe I can use the monthly milestone as a springboard for motivation and get some serious stuff done. Or I can go back to bed.

A round hole

Yesterday I found an example of just how muddled the efforts of a clutterer can turn, when said clutterer wants to create a justification for keeping something. It came about after I decided to spend a little time clearing clutter away from the exterior of the garage, given that the weather was fairly decent for doing such things, and since I was tired of looking at that particular clutter, but mostly because I found the ground ivy was attempting to take over the lawn…again. The origin of attack was the area just under the clutter that didn't cover the ground, thus the focus of extermination had to be that same area. You see, I don't much care for ground ivy. When I smoked, I would go out and pull ground ivy up by hand on a daily basis, but I haven't been out for some time, and the ivy knew it. And once ground ivy gets a mind to take over a lawn, it gets the job done. Thus, I needed to get busy before it did.

I faced a choice I similar to ones I faced in the past. Where do I put this clutter I've kept whilst I terminate the growth of the ivy? I thought about putting it inside the garage, but given how long this clutter had been outside, I wasn't sure I wanted the accumulated bugs and slugs to join the accumulated interior garage clutter. I thought about moving it around to the other side of the garage, but the new grass managed to establish well on that side, so I didn't want to kill it off by cluttercation, a most deadly form of clutter suffocation. I thought about the spot on the other side of the shed, but the fencing awaiting a more proper location (for example, around the yard) is stored there. I finally came up with the novel idea of figuring out why I had collected the clutter and then actually tend to that 'why.'

Right.

Some of it was obvious. Screens kept from window spaces that had new combination windows, giving the screens new futures as screeny things. Therefore, screens were to be disassembled and the screen material rolled up nicely and stored. Glass kept from the same window spaces, primarily because it was old glass, the wavy, bubbly kind that comes with older houses, and just so happens to match the glass in the built-in cabinet doors. Therefore, glass windows were to be carefully deconstructed, the glass cleaned and carefully stored. Those were easy enough. More challenging were the long pieces of 2x2 that came from some deconstruction project of days past. Long past. So long, in fact, that the pieces of 2x2 barely resembled pieces of 2x2 and were more like 1.5x1.7x1.88x2 instead. And full of holes, those little kind of holes which explain why old wood is so light, the kind of holes that generally come with little piles of chewed up wood. As I looked at these pieces of wood, I realized that they had long passed the point of reusability, and there had to be some other reason I kept them. It might have been hardware related, as I had other items amongst the clutter that were the keepers of hinges and handles holding out hope for new homes. As I reflected upon this possibility, it hit me that 'hardware' was close, if you consider that nails and bolts and such are also considered hardware. Indeed, I had kept these 2x2 boards because of a discovery of a certain kind of hardware, a square head nail.

OK, so it is more rectangular-headed than square-headed, and it resembles a miniature railroad spike more than a common nail, but I was (at one point) fairly certain that it was old. Maybe even worth something. And where there is one old nail there has to be more. Thus, I kept all of these 2x2 boards until such time that I could cut them to a reasonable size and check them all for nails of a similar style. I obviously found one in the past, which explains why I kept the old wood. I have no idea where it is at this point, but I must have found one, and that is precisely what I found yesterday in that large pile of cluttered used-to-be 2x2 pieces of wood prior to tossing them into the trash bin. All of them, or at least nearly all of them, all saved for one purpose, all becoming clutter for one reason.

One old square nail.

Yet another

Motivation is a wicked thing, especially when it seems to only run in streaks and is easily distracted. Lately, my motivation has been distracted by creatures of a furry nature. In fact, as I type this I find myself attending more to the little four-month-old feline attempting to type for me than I do planning out my efforts to get the guest room finished off. Some who know the situation know that Chester is a rebound kitten, with Noodles fast becoming a memory. The whole story is addressed elsewhere (and I will attempt to get the URL up for people to go read), so I won't spend any more time on it here. Having observed the little guy interact and acclimate to his new surroundings, I am quite certain we ended up better off with this little orange tabby. Could do without the nose chewing and sneezing in my face, but he is still very adorable. Might even get a picture up…as soon as I get my camera back.

OK, so Loki, Smudge, Mickey and now Chester are all waiting for a new place to nap, so I reckon I'll need to get working on that room. That is, if I can find the motivation.

Thwarted by constraints

Now I know why there are so many three-quarter-dollar stores on half.com, and I will state on record that it seems conspiratorial. It seems there is a lower pricing limit of seventy-five cents. Thus, I am now one of those hundreds of virtual street corner vendors competing for attention with the lowest possible price I can place on my items. Yep, time for a different means of getting the attention of the many out there who have no knowledge of One Room.