Blog Post No. 513
I might be off work again soon and I don’t know for how long it will be. Hopefully the time off will help kick start me back on the Invasion Novel edits. I really need to get over the hump on that one. I’m so tired all the time from the state of things at work. And from being an adult in a world seemingly crumbling. That’s the thing about the world, though. If you get out of your own narrow perspective, you’ll see a lot of similar events have happened many times over. We’re not that special.
Sure, the world is on fire. That’s new and troubling. People have been complaining about the next generation and how technology will doom us all since before the printing press, though. Politics has always been divisive. It’s particularly harsh right now, mostly due to radical groups, but that’s happened before too. Not that we shouldn’t be concerned because it happened before. At least once it was really bad for a lot of folks. It’s too bad we haven’t been able to learn from the past, but that goes right back to that narrow little perspective of ours.
It seems like people are focused on the wrong things, to me. Something I’m still trying to learn is when things aren’t about me. It’s so easy to get caught up in other people’s lives, especially when what they are doing seems silly or dumb to you. In those instances, I’ve been trying to take a step back and see if it has anything to do with me. Usually it doesn’t. Even when someone is going through something personal and I get butthurt about it, I just have to give my head a shake and remind myself it’s not about me. Which is hard because I’m a selfish person.
The benefit (other than way less stress) is learning when to make things not about you when someone is really trying to make their problems your problems. All of a sudden, you can dodge that crap because it’s not about you. (Not to say you should avoid things that are definitely about you). All those little angry people kind of fade away (for a bit). Really, there aren’t so many of them. They’re just really loud. It’s like magic.
If the worst things facing the world happen, we may all be gone, but the spinning rock will still spin. It’s got a deadline a lot longer than we do. Eventually the whole universe will burn out due to entropy, but that doesn’t mean we have to sprint to our own demise. Wow. I guess it’s been a little too doom and gloom in the old noggin. Hopefully venting through this post will help. Like letting steam out of a release valve. At the end of the day, I’m doing alright (and I’m unbelievably lucky) and just reminding myself of that does the trick. It doesn’t get me off my butt and back to editing, though. That might take a team of horses or something.
Ben Van Dongen 