On the Edge...

I feel it.  This rapid movement towards the edges of our being.  People who are normally chill and relatively undisturbed are coming unhinged and stepping out of alignment all over the place.  Places of peace and serenity are becoming battlegrounds for ego and discontentedness.  People are lost, depressed, down, sad, and overall on the fucking edge.

The last two weekends my Sunday meeting has been fraught with negativity and discord.  People who are normally doing well, are not.  And they are taking it out on those around them.  Harmful, hurtful words are being exchanged by some of the people least likely to do such a thing.

While I myself do not feel too edgy right now, I do feel depressed and a little despondent about the state of the world and my place in it.  Seems like most people I know fall into one of two places:  on the edge or downtrodden.

I fall into the later.  And I am grateful. I am very grateful to not be walking around with vitriol and hate in my heart.  I am grateful I am not restless, irritable and discontented.  But I see it in others, and find myself wondering why.

Is it pervasive?  Is it temporary?  Is it worse than usual?  I am not sure, maybe the world is always in this state of despair and sadness.  Maybe not. But it feels different this time.  And I have lots of feelings about it.

I have an overwhelming need to isolate right now.  I just can’t handle the way life and people are.  Dating is out of the question because if one more man tells me how amazing I am and then goes dark for days at a time, I seriously will come unhinged.  I am so over this modern disconnected connectedness.  I am out.

Additionally, I just don’t want to people right now.  I have a few close friends that I still enjoy but the masses? No thank you.  And this is impacting all the things I like to do:  concerts, nights out on the town, travel.  I just don’t want to deal with people and all their ugliness.  And it is exactly this shiftiness that I am attempting to avoid.

The other camp of discontented haters is exactly what I am trying to avoid.  And I have compassion, I really do.  I was sitting in a meeting yesterday where there was strife and controversy and I felt empathy towards all the people.  And I felt no need to take sides or decide which one of them I agreed with more.  I just felt badly that all of them were suffering and then their suffering was becoming our suffering.

I keep thinking it is the world today but maybe it has always been like this and I am just blaming the world, and I suppose it could be the world’s fault.  But it feels like we, as a society and culture, are rapidly moving towards the abyss and some of us are really feeling that edge.

I have no answers.  I don’t know what to do.  I only know that I am here, attempting to not let the current world order keep me down.  I am trying to love and tolerate and understand and grant grace to those that vex me, because I know one thing above all else, we could all use a little grace right now.

Life feels especially hard right now with our world the most uncertain it has ever felt and I grew up in the Cold War.  I feel like we are all on edge and disconnected and being pitted against each other.  And the only thing I know to do is to refuse to let my own discomfort and discord make me apathetic to the plight of those around me.  I can work on my own internal conditions and hope to improve myself, care for myself and move myself a little further back from that edge.

Right now I lie peacefully in my bed, my dog and cats surrounding me.  I spend a lot of moments like this.  A lot.  And it brings me comfort...animals always bring me comfort when human beings usually just deliver lessons I don’t want to learn from people I didn’t think would ever teach me shit like that.

I do not feel on the edge, but I see it and feel it in others.  For me, I am having the opposite reaction...I just want to move away from the edge and all the people and be still and quiet and read books and pet cats.  I feel like I am being called away from all the edgy places and step back into myself where I have some control over how I am and what I am and how I show up.

And to all those who are on the edge, please reach out.  It isn’t your fault.  It feels as though our society is rapidly coming to some sort of boiling point.  Some breaking point.  And while I do not like everyone or want them in my everyday, I want us all to survive and thrive and live our best lives.  And if I can help, I would be honored.

We say in recovery that it works because we are not all crazy on the same day...and I think that applies to society at large.  If you are disturbed, find someone who isn’t and talk to them.  Hatred can be viral, but so can peace. It all really depends on where we place our attention and energy...

Again, still...