Tag: society

A Recent Visit With An Old Journal (July-September, 2008)

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

astormI do know how it happened, this convergence of the perfect storm, but the why I set it in motion is still a mystery to me. My feelings of absolute worthlessness have been building for years; starting much like the birth of a tsunami deep in some crevice in the ocean, a shifting of my inner tectonic plates, natural I suppose in the grind of life, but this shift caused great, unpredictable movement of the seas of my life which, by all accounts rose higher, and deeper, and soon engulfed the tiny town of my life, built, I suppose foolishly too close to the shore.

And then it came, this huge wave and friends and lovers fled. I on the other hand, all too well aware stood steadfast in its path. It washed over awaveme, this wave, crushing me against the only world I knew now, that which was beneath my feet. Gripping the sand I held firm, never certain that as it receded, that it would not pull me far, far out to sea.

Gradually it did retreat and once again the sun broke the surface and I lay gasping, choking on air which days before had given life and now condemns me to deal with this devastation.

I had a deep sense that not all was okay with me. I often complained of a dark gnawing I had felt, or heard in my mind. I always thought that it was my creative self scratching to get out in the form of writing. But now I wonder if indeed it was my inner self pleading for help. I could never articulate it sufficiently to those around me, nor did I ever think it was truly a cry for help. Until this week when, what I thought was my tidy little world fell absolutely apart. It was this week when I was diagnosed with major depression.

aquietzone2And from what I now understand it is taking a very predictable course complete with dark patches, rough zones, drifting away from reality, but the one part which I cannot fathom is my inability to be stimulated by more than one thing at a time. For instance, I cannot tolerate music playing and talking; I cannot tolerate stress; I cannot tolerate anger or anything except calm. If I sense more than one thing at a time I shut down and go to a quiet place.

I suspect it all fell apart when it all came together; a perfect storm as I have said; a convergence of three wholly separate, yet tumultuous events which I set in motion.

I had been in a loving 23 year relationship. We had all the trappings of a solid relationship: jobs, cars, cat, home, garden, money, retirement. But something was sorely lacking. Me. I wasn’t in it any longer. I couldn’t be in it. Being in it was too painful for me. The hurt which started as aloverskissingsuspicion around my drinking and drug abuse quickly cascaded into a kind of secret identity which I couldn’t share with him for fear of reprisal. I needed the drugs and alcohol to buffer the deepening sadness of my life. I didn’t want to face, didn’t know how to face this gnawing, this scratching which would never quiet on its own. The only way to silence it was through sleep, inebriation or a Vicodin high.

I also had a very romantic side which died when my partner no longer accepted my tokens of affection. It’s not that he didn’t want them, but they grew silly or unneeded or immaterial or expensive or, even I suppose worthless. Aren’t these tokens of affection best saved for times of seduction or apology or bereavement? And so into the roll-top desk of my life I placed this need to “show” my affection in the drawer called “get to later” right next to my sexual desires, overwhelming need for affection and self-worth. I simply closed the drawer and drew down the lid patting those things adieu. I knew they’d be withdrawn at some later date, when the amour would willingly accept my advances.

Should I have simply ignored his requests to cease and continued my gifts? Perhaps. But our finances had become so entwined that he would have known how much I had spent of these trinkets and he would’ve been cross. Could I have paid cash? Of course, I suppose, but when tokens of affection aren’t valued, the value plummets, the surprise ebbs, the feeling I get wanes. I learned to simply file it away.

I knew that our relationship had weathered many storms; it was built strong; based on honesty and open communication. But shouldn’t every abiggameman have a secret or two? A trinket of conquest placed deeply into a suit pocket? An amulet to ward off demons? A trophy? Hung handsomely on the wall? Hadn’t all my friends had trophies? Yes! Oh, yes, they had! Not one friend that I know has ever been in a relationship as long as ours without the occasional dalliance; but mine was different. Mine was a manic affair, built on a foundation of bogs and swampland and prone to sink.  A manic affair is a very dangerous liaison often resulting in collateral damage and repairable of which I did not fully anticipate it’s consequence.

 

Related articles

 

One More . . .

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 7 Comments

3-One

5-One

1-One15-One

One more trip to the doctor.

One more admission of humiliating symptoms.

One more physician‘s persevering uncertainty.

One more hunch about drugs even after repeated failures of 6 week trials.

One more hopeful bottle of toxins to ingest.

One more set of side-effects to endure.

One more crippling debility: Illness’s strong swing of a sharp ax into the pulp of my dignity cutting deeply.

One more intentional assault leaving me with a staggering and teetering propriety.

One more debility before I’m disqualified from sovereignty; stripped of my liberty, freedom, and independence, my self-reliant character reverts to childhood, a time of absolute dependence for survival.

One more obedient abdication of my extinct identities and forthcoming dog’s age.

One more no more.

 

Our Cultural Conflict: “I-centric” vs. “Us-centric”

~ Harlan Didrickson

I’m still crying.  Especially for the amount of preciously rare innocence lost that day.  I fear a crevasse of cruelty ripped open our discouraged plains of humanity and swallowed acres of hope, kindness, and gentility.  The displaced societysurvivors have been inoculated with indifference.  Recently, our society welcomed the technological efforts to promote the importance of the individual thereby neglecting the citizen’s toil required to maintain a individualcohesive and unified society abiding by civil law, ethics, and respectability.  This change strongly suggests a recent shift and an alarming unraveling of the knotted threads which bind us together as a cohesive society.  It  suggests that the aggressive “me-me-meism” trumpeting self-importance repudiates the codes of propriety and civil obedience.  It’s appearance is fueled by social networks promoting the innate yet invisible importance of the individual, and their  dull and oft mundane daily rituals as provocative, riveting, and jocular.  This “I-centric” movement supplants the laws of society with a horde of myopic pronouns (I, me) living in the surreal world developed by the late physicist Dr. Berners-Lee.  This environment is wholly the fabrication of a society of scientists working together while at the same time relying on fixed rules, regulations and laws.  The “I-centric” movement relies upon the ICQ protocol to herald their importance and distinguish themselves.

electricity2 That is, until the power goes out.

Related articles

 

Newtown Might Be Anytown

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 7 Comments

cryingobamaSince I first heard President Obama fight back agony so wrenching it overwhelmed the indomitable propriety of his office, I sensed a depth of heartache rarely freed by a sitting president.  President Obama’s valiant attempt to sandbag the stalwart character of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was breached nevertheless as the surge of emotion overwhelmed his duty as the harbinger of serious information to America‘s citizens.

Every time I read an article, listen to President Obama’s painful pauses, or watch television coverage I simply cry for everyone involved.  And everyone is involved.  By everyone I mean everybody; all of us; each of us.  It’s impossible to locate anyone unmoved by this horrific incident.

It’s all part of an escalation of rights protected by the constitution, to the safety of the innocent, to the invasion of privacy at pat down check-points, to righteous citizens hawking firearms at uncontrolled, unregulated gun showgunshow free-for-alls at which anyone — anyone regardless of their background — can purchase a firearm because, by law and by money and by lobbyists and by radical firearms enthusiasts, gun shows are not gun shops, gun shows are for the gun collector, the gun enthusiast.  But what do these collectors and enthusiasts feel or imagine as they feel the firearms heft, the iciness of the steel, the clip or chamber, the single cartridge trigger or the semi-automatic trigger; what do they feel or imagine that propels them to dodge laws, drop a few hundred dollars, and leave pleased as punch.  They must imagine the kickback of that first round, the power the firearm possesses, the. . .the. . .____________ of ownership.  It’s the blank I’m curious about; the “what” as to why they insist on owning firearms.

Which is their constitutional right: “To bear arms. . .”   But the Constitution doesn’t mention ammunition.

policefront deskSo here’s my idea:  Treat ammunition for publicly owned firearms in the same manner our society treats prescription drugs.  If you want ammunition you need to go to your local police department; there pharmacythey’ll write you a legal dispense order for thirty rounds only and non-refillable within a thirty day period.  The federal government would monitor ammunition shops like they monitor pharmacies.

Have all the lawless gun shows you want!  Have all the gun shops you want!  Let everyone carry concealed weapons!  And most of all, appease the self-righteous, entitlement-wielding, insensitive and ignorant myopic NRA by letting them bear as many bloody arms as they can carry!

But you can’t have any bullets.

 

Unbearable Cruelty

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

2menWe were walking a block-and-a-half home tonight after watching a recently released movie.  About thirty minutes from the end of the movie I closed my eyes and withdrew the custom-fit Etymotic ear plugs I wear around my neck every day, and tried, really tried to isolate myself from the movie.  I knew that it was already too late to stave off the consequence of watching a film which included the graphic horror that the characters (humans) performed on one another.  I’d swum well past the breakwater and already found myself caught in a riptide of emotion that I prayed I could withhold until after we said goodnight.

And then it happened: starting from deep in my core, an ache, dull, almost quiet; but it sank, then caught fire and spread throughout my torso, finally exiting by way of heaving sobs and weeping.  I wretched as though vomiting; it had to come out like bad liquor; all at once I wailed, it was impossible to breathe; my partner grabbed ahold and hugged me; and I asked the same question I always ask when this happens: Why are people so cruel to each other?meanpeoplesuck

Whatever degree of resistance we’re born with or develop as a means of survival, when it comes to cruelty I find it absolutely unbearable and I must, in order to keep my wits, distance myself as quickly as possible, or shut my eyes which is partially effectual by eliminating the video portion.  An apparent afteraffect of my mental breakdown in 2008, one of my widely known characteristics disappeared.  This capacity was a basic tenet of survival in my career: an unusual and boundless tolerance of unwarranted and often gratuitous domination, insensitivity, and publicly verbal assaults by senior executives.  Post-breakdown I was no longer immune from feeling, really, really feeling the appalling and sorrowful inhumanity most humanity ignores, approves, pities, politely acknowledges while respecting civil decorum, or determined is very profitable as entertainment and implants it in scene after scene of recent motion pictures, or spends millions of dollars to create brutal, vulgar, savage, and murderous atrocities then market to our children as toys, or a sympathetic and comfortable populace helplessly citing the excuse approved by concerned yet tolerant bourgeoisie and the proletarians alike, “I mean really, what can I do?  I’m just one guy?”

TRY EMPATHY AND INTOLERANCE AND ACTION against any expression of cruelty by a human being!

And if that doesn’t inspire you to get involved, how about when you witness any expression of cruelty by a human being?dalaikindquote

But if neither works for you, place yourself in an environment where one human being (them) has dominion over another human being (you), and experience how it feels to take both barrels of cruelty.  And not just once.  Any time. Any where.  And fighting back gets you fired, sued, incarcerated, or killed.

We’ve got groups throwing blood on fur donning women; hordes marching on behalf of the inhumane treatment of animals for experiments; prohibition of foie gras in Chicago due to the mistreatment of the goose.

Really?  I mean, really?

Our cruelty to each other must take precedent: It’s intolerable, inhumane, unjust, and in no uncertain terms has it ever been, or will it ever be fodder for entertainment or a toy for a child.

Related articles