The Anvil Chorus

Well, to those faithful few who drop by my dark little corner of the interverse, thank you. Yes, I realize I have been rather scarce here and in other "communities" I frequent, and there are folks there and sometimes even here who have noted this. Thank you for your concern. For them, and for you the chance reader, here is my explanation.

I don't care.

Really, I don't. We are all to a great extent, just faceless names; a sea of monkeys typing at a sea of keyboards blathering an uncounted number of largely contentless words to one another. There are a small handfull of aquaintences among them for whom I care, and who likewise care for me, but to a great extent all else are simply a group of fairly predictable artificial intelligences whose lives will blunder on whether I participate or not. If you find this insulting, prove me wrong. Didn't think you could. My point remains.

I come to to this thought through a process, a chain of events. Some weeks ago I had a brush with one of the darker places the unconstrained human lust can go, and I can't say I came away unscathed. I am posessed of a rather melancholic bent to begin with and this fairly well tipped me over the edge. Combined with this are politics of personality that come with people management, the frustrations of trying to herd the selfish toward a higher goal of selflesness and hopefully even productivity. Why must the simple and reasonable be made so difficult and unfathomable? Why would someone who is ostensibly a friend be so contrary? Selfishness is indeed the scourge of the human existence.

Concurrently, I have to deal with the ongoing battle of ignorance that surrounds any widespread yet largely misunderstood technology. I suppose I don't mind the truly ignorant. They simply do not know. The stupid, those who are willfully ignorant, are utterly frustrating. Compounding that is the rampant pandering to the stupid which does nothing but muddy up the water, confusing the stupid and frustrating those of us who are paid to pick up the pieces. Some might say I am being too harsh, but the truth is often painful. Deal with it.

I have less and less patience for the ways of the world in its many forms.

Parallel to this thought process I came to a revelation a few days ago. We work so hard to "stay in touch", but seem to only package less and less content in more and more ways. We email, voice mail and text message back and forth again and again and at the end of the day we have said essentially nothing. We pass familiar faces every day and ask "Whats up?" and get the ubiquitous "Nothin' " again and again. Are our lives so empty that we have nothing to really communicate to others? When was the last time we took enough blocks of sacred time to speak to those we care for about the content of our hearts and minds? More essentially when did we last listen to the content of their lives? It's all enough to make one become a hermit.


My own techological world had one of its usual traumas when my hard drive decided to scatter data to parts unknown and became unwilling to retrieve them. Thus, I was "out of touch" for a week and a half or so, and realized that I could indeed live without it. Quite well as a matter of fact. I almost regret repairing it. Maybe not even almost.

I find myself more jaded than usual. I find myself in a state of perpetual melancholy bordering on outright depression.

So the last few days I have attempted to spend more time with The Wife. When my world moves on, she is constant. She is endlessly fascinating, and desires to not just pour out her days and concerns on me, she constantly entreats the same of me. So I have forgone time I might have otherwise spent here in the interverse, circling in her sphere of influence, and I find it highly rewarding. She reminds me of my dreams, and even brings them to fledgling life. She expects, no demands, the very best of me and still encourages me when I so often fail. She believes only the best when many times all she gets is the worst. I have no better friend.

So there you have it.

Now go away.