When All Is Said and Done

Or Getting my Goat

“Try something different – surrender.” —Rumi

As longtime readers will know, I can become pretty hotly bothered by the nonsense dished out in this crazy, nonstop, megalomaniacal world. Quite often, all of that agitated energy drives me to want to get my goat, as they say—here’s an interesting piece on that particular idiom, if you’re interested. If not, that’s fine, too. All you really need to know is that the goat, in this instance, has a calming effect (which, honestly, seems like the most likely outcome in every occasion involving a goat, but that’s just me). In other words, all of my bullshit wrangling is wearing my patience quite thin, leaving me in need of a breather. 

Of course, there are many problems in the world, such as war, climate change, extreme poverty and such, that raise intense feelings of powerlessness, dread and a what-the-fuck response, many of which are created by power-hungry hypocrites, greedy corporations, and a host of other shameful  clowns and questionable characters. It’s been that way throughout the ages and is not likely to change anytime soon. 

So why should I let it bother me? I didn’t move half a world away from many of those issues to dig and sift through the dank, smelly trenches of that cacophony and noise just to bring them again and again into the light of day. There are far better methods to surrender yourself to longing that don’t involve getting all riled up by the many ways in which the world can disappoint. Isn’t that what the news is for, after all? If feels that way, depending on who has the floor. 

Here's a word cloud from one of more contemptuous posts on humankind. 

Not that we should ignore climate change or any of the many other horrible, no good things going on in our lives, we shouldn’t. In fact, we should do everything in our power to change them. But thought is not the same as action and it doesn’t take skinning the cat to understand just how badly it’s ruining things for everyone else. In fact, leave the cat out of it entirely. While it might be in need of some serious scolding (and maybe some de-clawing) it’s not going to listen anyway and therefore not really worth your time (sorry to any cat lovers feeling offended. It’s just a metaphor. I love cats—I just can’t eat a whole one is the punchline to that joke, sorry again). 

I used to not be this way

We've all probably thought of ourselves from time to time (for sure, we've thought it of others) as not who we are today. And it's true of myself: I wasn’t always this way. I used to be less…shall we say, intense. Or serious. Or just less concerned with what others thought or did, less focused on any of the negatives. Life changes you.  Marriage changes you, kids and work and bickering with relatives and going to war and all the many other daily battles we face, they all change you. It’s hard, when you’re in the thick of just living, to even know that it’s changing you. But it is and it does and it will always and forever more.