Happy October

[Hubert Few]

At 09:50 PM 9/30/2005 -0700, Curtis Jenkins wrote:
>Really sorry to hear about your neck and the pain, Bill.  I have a whole
new respect for chronic pain now, 
>since I have this neuropathy thing going on. 

Curtis, 

I am trying to recall where we were in our various disconnected
communications. It appears, judging from at least one email you sent me
which I apparently did not reply to, that the disconnect was my "fault".
Fault of course implies blame and I rarely accept or assign much of that
anymore. It's part of my peculiar adaptation to life!

It all comes down to being a selfish bastard I guess. If that seems
negative I haven't adequately related what I intended. Point being I don't
know enough about what is "going on with you"....I looked up "neuropathy"
and that covers a broad range of topics....fill me in if you wish, off list
if it is more comfortable or convenient.

Back to your opening statement....Never respect pain....I know (or think I
know) how you meant it. The best adaptation I have found to both emotional
and physical pain is DENIAL. I don't respect it because it never does
anything helpful to me, i.e, the insufferable selfish bastard that I am.
Sometimes I have to dig through a whole bunch of bullshit in my crowded
closet of "unhappy" outfits to find the "happy face" mask. When I do find
it, I drag it out like a suit of armor and put the sumbitch on with a great
deal of enthusiam....like, yeah baby, IT STILL FITS!

Frikkin' A...


>I can't believe that at just short of 51 years old this thing is going to
get anything but worse over my 
>remaining time, and one of the worst things is not being able to get a
decent night's sleep.

I turned 51 in July, sort of a non-event actually, sort of like any other
day I reckon. When's your birthday? If that bit of information came up in
one of our rambling conversations I have obviously forgotten....nothing
personal, I forget a lot of things!

I still think you "missed your calling" You have an exceptional speaking
voice. Maybe you should be a radio talk show host or something, eh?

Unlimited potentiality....if you're selfish enough I s'pose.

About the most problematic adaptation I have ever had to deal with along
life's winding path was the idea that I WASN'T just about the most selfish
bastard in the world, or more specifically that I had no RIGHT to be that
way....EVERYONE has that right! I think if the founding fathers had thought
about it they might have included it in the constitution somewheres....or
was it the bill of rights, I forget.

My definition of selfish is probably not the definition many would think it
to be....interpretation.

At some point I figured out if this "thing" I was preserving could not rise
above it's own pitiful circumstances, step outside of "itself" and revel in
the "beingness" of it all, then what the hay was the point? Being the "old"
definition of selfish was particularly cumbersome and potentially
destructive when I finally realized that not only was my own life not worth
living, but I had DRAGGED OTHERS into it! Then I was really screwed because
that only made the "old" selfish bastard feel worse.

Now the door was not only closed but locked and fortified with rigid boards
and nails....nails I would drive in with abandon every time things didn't
go to suit me. On the rare occasion I could rise above my own pitiful
existence all I could seem to muster was ANGER.

"Fuck it, I'm gonna start throwing bodies out if there's ONE MORE THING".

And of course that wouldn't work either.

Fact is I don't know how this story ends. I'd be lying if I said I did.
Fact is it's something of a work in progress which often seems more work
than progress.

I digress....some where in the above there was supposed to be a snippet of
what I call truth.

You can't give to others what you don't have. The biggest deficit in many
people's lives by my reckoning is a REAL sense of doing something that
affects others in a positive way. I choose to believe this....notice the
word believe...denotes "faith". Not of what might be perceived in a
"typical" sense where a tel-evangelist rails at the fornicators in his
midst and then passes the collection plate but REAL faith, an article of
indisputable truth that provides fuel for the infernal combustion engine in
our heads.

My life has a very specific and narrow focus....survival. I could bore you
to tears with the details, the details vary by individual but are
collectively the same. You know what yours are because you are living them,
I'm not. I can honestly tell you that I am now for the most part above
shame and fear, maybe "above" is not the right word, it's just somewheres
else. I'm not even close I reckon to being beyond (above, below, whatever)
*pain*. That's the tough one. I don't have to understand it to survive it
though.

I can't even tell you anything you don't already know, which coincidentally
makes me totally blameless if you can't apply the shit that I don't know to
the instances that don't apply. That was either nonsense or something
approaching profound, or just a sentence...dunno.

So really I am not able to give you anything, yet I feel that by some
infallible scale that I have....go figure. I guess being selfish requires a
little bit of what passes for "ego". I figure if I am not injuring another,
and I am TRYING to do good, then it counts and is worth the effort.

Well, my time for this has now run out....Melissa will be up soon and we
have a full day of glorious yard work ahead of us. I know at some point
during the day I will both curse my existence and also be filled with a
warmth in "being" that many would likely be envious of if it is lacking in
their own lives. Hell I might even find time to think about motorcycles!
Now THAT is something that brings a smile to my face often as not!

Catch up with ya later!

Hubert