Solitary Confinement

I don't have any personal experience with being prison life. My only brush with the law was many years ago when I was seventeen and received a ticket for inattentive driving. However, I have often thought about what it would like to be jail and had the occasional dream about living life behind bars. This interest in "doing time" was piqued recently as I read Jeffrey Archer's three volume Prison Diaries: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. I had read a number of Archer's novels over the years but my interest in Archer, the man, was heightened because a friend of mine is also a personal friend of the Archer family. His trial and subsequent conviction dominated the British press for months. At the time I had followed the trial quite closely and continued to read the occasional news item about his time in prison. While Archer spends some time justifying himself and portraying himself as the wholly innocent victim, some of which is completely at odds with the facts presented in the trial, nonetheless he does paint a vivid picture of life behind bars. The entire set is worth reading even though the third installment is less successful.

Cells come in all shapes and sizes from the self-imposed monastic variety to solitary-confinement in a maximum security prison. It might be a bit of a stretch but cells and closets have some commonality. They inhibit freedom. However, they also occasionally also prevent self-harm. That might be the case for me. I don't really know what would happen to me, especially spiritually, if I had complete freedom. It's likely that the freedom I would experience would be merely a mirage that would not satisfy the deep-seated longing I have and that the real freedom I need means "freedom from" rather than "freedom to."

Questions, questions, questions... and no answers. Seemingly my lot in life.

Sunday Musings

I've been tempted in the last 48 hours to delete all of the recent messages. There is nothing particularly attractive about dirty laundry. I have resisted the temptation simply because I am somewhat more at peace with myself for having been truthful about myself. Unfortunately there is no grand scheme as to what comes next.

In some respects that is understandable since pretty much every facet of my life is in a holding pattern until I find full time employment. In this economic climate doing so may prove problematic. I am both over-qualified and under-experienced for most of the jobs for which I have applied in the past few months. I really can't blame the prospective employers for not hiring me, a fish out of water especially when they have dozens, sometimes hundreds of candidates for the same position.

Time for me to get at the dirty laundry, the real stuff, not that which is proverbial. I have had quite enough of the latter for awhile.

The Fire of Desire

O Fire, you are relentless. You simply won't leave me alone. You inflict yourself on my waking hours and even in my sleep. I must conclude that you hate sleep for you make it almost impossible for me to go to sleep and/or stay asleep.

O Fire, you are a contradiction. You burn but you don't illuminate. You are not a source of comfort and light, but an agent of darkness. You demand to be satisfied but you are never satisfied. You are powerful but you render me weak and vulnerable.

O Fire, you pretend to be only interested in the young but in reality you are ageless. You allow us to think that over time we can simply be "handled" as we did in the past, but this is a lie. You are like Oliver, you want, "MORE!"

O Fire, you claim to a product of nature and the goods you hawk are "all natural" but you defy the laws of nature. You refuse to be snuffed out by even the coldest of showers. You refuse to limit yourself to what the world calls "natural" and what God calls "good."

How long, O Fire? How long?

Back Again

Tough night. Just a couple hours of sleep. I have been consumed by the internet. One search led to another and another and another... Blog searches, websites with huge member lists, links leading to still more links. I am constantly amazed that I am not alone even though I often feel that way. So many people with the same hangups and challenges. I can only hope that they have more success in dealing with who they are than me.

I really hope to begin a more disciplined approach to blogging. I'm not sure if daily is possible, but these long pauses between posts must stop. The blogs I enjoy reading the most are those which are regularly updated.

Monday, Monday

Yet another Monday is here. The beginning of the work week for most. For me its simply another day to cross off the calendar as I impatiently wait for the phone to ring. I never thought it would come to this. I really thought someone would see that beneath my shy, humble facade lies a person would prove to be a valued employee. How wrong I was! Leaving the safety of my former way of life in a feeble attempt to spread my wings and fly free has in reality rendered me less free. I've become a virtual prisoner due to the financial realities I face. The transition funds are dwindling rapidly. It is quite likely that my tax bill will eat up what is left. All that will remain is my housing fund and while I could survive on it for many months, one of the main reasons I cut the cord with my former way of life was so that I could finally own a home of my own. That dream is fading. There is, of course, nothing unique in my situation. Many individuals find themselves in the same straits. I am certainly not a candidate for life on the street just yet. But as days become weeks and weeks give way to months of unemployment, it is quite easy to wonder how long this will go on. When will the job drought end? When will life commence again? O Lord, how long?

The Living Dead

I'm quite sure you have encountered individuals who are living to die. Hopeless individuals who have seemingly lost the spark of life. They merely exist. And when you come across such people a quiet, internal word of resolution is voiced, "I'm never going to let this happen to me." Unfortunately like so many other resolutions, this one too is assigned a place on the scrapheap. No one intentionally sets out to become a member of the living dead. It just happens as tiny droplets eventually make a puddle. The slow drip, drip, drip of joylessness eventually extinguishes the light of life. The living dead probably always imagine that tomorrow will bring a rekindled reason for living, but tomorrows have a way of becoming months and years. Hope is replaced by hopelessness, cheer by cheerlessness, and life with existence.

How does one break this pattern? How does one breathe new life into a corpse-like existence?

One-Sidedness

It probably is singularly unwise of me to think too much about the nature of my life. Such examination is quite likely to lead to another bout of depression. Still it is impossible to completely ignore such matters. Perhaps rehearsing it here will help. While my email and cell phone address books contain lengthy lists, I can't help but wonder whether any of them is really a friend. Virtually all of these contacts are one-sided; that is there contact if I initiate it. Otherwise its complete silence. I am weary of the one-sided nature of these relationships. It is quite likely that not one of these people is really a true friend. They are all mere acquaintances. They are important to me, but I am a mere afterthought at best to them. I am simply not part of the fabric of their lives. I am not on their radar screen. I am valued for what I can do (actually more accurately, what I used to do) rather than who I am. What a sorry sight!