Walking Meditation

 

Great. I was certain I was about to have a Brian insight, or else I just felt like bitching.

A Brian insight? Really? What’s that? I don’t wanna get in an argument right now, Siri.

Let me start over. I really thought I had something brilliant to say, but it was a false alarm. Like that epiphany that I almost had a couple of years back. But now, I guess I just feel like indulging my sorry side again. Why can’t I be like that dog with his head out the window, cheeks flapping in the wind?

I suppose I’m just feeling a little insignificant right now. A little melancholy creeping in. Maybe it’s because of the ending this week  of my 12 weeks of teletherapy sessions. Endings always seem to do that to me. 

My life is already pretty empty, so this will leave a big hole. For all our ideological differences, Dave was a decent guy and will make a great therapist now that he's finishing up his internship. I'll miss him. I feel like we kind of bonded over all of those philosophical discussions about death, despair, anger and the ultimate meaninglessness of life.

What difference does my life make, really? What value does my social interaction (or non-interaction) make, really? Why would it be so desirable to make a difference, anyway? I’m just one in 1 billion in a sea of faces, unrecognizable, easily obscured by the shadows.

What would it matter if my little pixel winked out? It isn’t contributing that much light or color to the picture. Perhaps it will just fade into the shadows. Lord knows, there’s enough darkness out there to conceal my exit from the picture. I guess it all comes down to my cats. They would miss me terribly. But with the proper grief therapy counseling, they would snap right out of it, after a few weeks in a thriving, vibrant household.

It might be time to resurrect my "death notification" email, just in case. I really did get tired of those false alarms that it kept sending out, though. Invariably the program would glitch, prematurely sending out the email telling my important contacts to swing into action because I was either dead or incapacitated somewhere. Meanwhile, I'd have been out taking a walk or mowing the lawn while my relatives were left wondering if this was yet another cry for attention or the real deal.

Oh yeah, note to self: Find out how to incorporate a countdown timer to give the days, hours, minutes and seconds until May 29, 2054. That is my expiration date. I was specifically shown this, in an image in my mind a few years back, while contemplating my demise.

I spent about 70% of my life on the couch now. And the other 30% is split between cooking, cleaning and self-care. Ha. Things like walking, exercising and playing the guitar in my living room, with a smattering of Zoom meetings, phone calls or texts from friends thrown in. Oh, and showering and brushing my teeth. I still do that.

With regard to my social interactions, I feel like the hot potato, the crying baby that needs attention. No one wants to be the last one to have checked on him before, well, you know. Or maybe they do, I don’t know. Perhaps there is some social obligation box that they are checking, for which they will get credit.

I just know that I am nobody's somebody. Any attempts to make me feel that way, relevant, included, etc. are all just pity techniques. I am odious, and I know it. My attempts to camouflage this, my true nature, simply adds 'disingenuous' to my list of character flaws.

I am Andrew. I like animals, green fields, rustic fences, oddball movies, sappy music...oh, you know. What difference does it really make what I like or don’t like? I’ll be dead soon enough. These yappy dogs won’t have me to bark at any longer. The trees and bushes won’t miss my silent curses as cars drive down this gravel road, leaving me with a dusty exhaust plume to inhale.

My one or two blog readers will most likely easily find better fodder with which to tire their eyes after I have posted my final post. But don't call the buzzards just yet. I’m still wearing my orange safety vest, but mainly because I don’t want to be Stephen King'd by some errant automobile.

I am still here. Grudgingly.

I’ll never be a world-class anything. Not even a world-class asshole. I just lack the consistency. I’m not even like water, my friend. Water has more flexibility. I am more like slime Jell-O. I am wishy-washy, yet resistant to change at the same time. And yet, there are cracks in my existentialist negativity, through which the light shines occasionally, according to some people, if I can believe them.

But I’m not chasing after truth or some kind of enlightenment. I would just like to feel good, if that is even possible. I know it would just be a delusion, fooling myself, a distraction to keep me from thinking of my looming appointment with the grim reaper. But hey, everyone’s doing it, why can’t I?

Fun? What is that? I really don’t know anymore. Routine, that I know. Boredom, yes, very familiar. Hopeless, intractable depression, sure, I’ll claim that. Even though I might have brief flashes of something that looks like a tolerable existence, my should-ing and shouldn’t-ing gets me in trouble. I should be appreciative. I shouldn't complain. Whatever. All I really have to do is live and die, but right now I'm not doing either.

I’m going to exhaust this pixel metaphor. I had an OLED TV recently. The "O" in OLED stands for Organic. Each of the pixels is an individual living entity in an array. Varying voltages across the grid cause them to illuminate in various colors and levels of brightness. Pretty special, huh? They provide the clearest picture, since each individual pixel can be turned off or on or vary its color in any gradation.

However, they are susceptible to screen burn, or image retention. I found this out the hard way because I used it for a computer monitor, which would display the static image of my browser for lengthy periods of time. My brain is kind of like that. Repetitive negative thought patterns have burned themselves into my physical neural network, distorting the picture of my perception, neuroplasticity notwithstanding.

And in other pixel related metaphors… I am that one dead pixel in God’s big TV monitor. Together we all make up the picture, each of us playing our various parts at different times. It is better for a pixel to be flexible and have a range of expressions than to be static or stuck in one particular mode. Sorry, God. You should’ve made a better product. Maybe next time around, eh?

I was able to return my TV for a full refund under warranty. I was downgraded to a non-OLED TV, where the pixels, though less expressive and individual, are at least obedient. Kind of like those robots that God wants in his churches. You know, do you as you’re supposed to do, don’t be stuck or stubborn, obey without question. We can’t have those pixels thinking for themselves now, can we?

A guy in a truck just stopped in the middle of the road and backed up to ask me if I was OK. What do you suppose I told him? Although I am far from OK, my stomach in knots, my brain and emotions in a broken state: “Fine,” I told him, “I am just out for a walk.”

Can you tell that the loneliness must be getting to me? I’ve been talking to my text editor the whole time that I’ve been out walking. Well, not the whole time; my brain isn’t all that active. And I really don’t have that much to say.

(later)

Dit-da-dit-dit-dit. This just in:

I actually got a nibble on my whimsically haphazard personal ad. She responded positively, and we exchanged a couple of emails and pictures. She’s quite pretty. I won’t go into detail, since I directed her to this blog (which, in hindsight, may prove to be either a fatal error or else a brilliant strategy; that has yet to be determined).

If you’re reading this: Hi, G___! I won’t use your name, since that would be a bit presumptuous and quite forward of me. But I will say that your picture looks lovely, and you sound like you would be a delightful person to get to know.