Unwanted change (circumlunar.space), 12/06/2019
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Recently I've changed. I didn't plan to change, I didn't
want to change. I'm not entirely sure why I changed, and I
don't understand the scope of the change, but I know that
I've changed.
I'm not sure I like the change, but I somehow know that I
can't go back. I suppose some great philosopher has already
noted that we can never go back, establishing the ground
rules for our understanding (thanks great philosophers!).
Do I need to understand the change? I'm not sure of that
either. Part of me feels like it doesn't matter so much that
I should lose sleep over it. I can probably continue with
life, and work on understanding the change in a synchronous
way rather than stopping everything. That's good, because
I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to understand.
Since I don't understand, it would be futile to try to
explain the change; but, I'll make some vague attempt
anyway, because I'm not opposed to futile struggles.
This year, I'm not finding joy in whiz-bang Christmas
movies; you know the type, like "Elf," or "The Santa
Clause." The kind that don't have any depth, that are just
for fun. That's odd for me, because I've always enjoyed
those kinds of movies. It's doubly odd because I can't
really think of any reason for the change- it's just a
change in my brain, like part of me broke or something. It's
not an important part, I think, but it was noticeable.
Over the last few months or longer, I've not been motivated
to participate as much online. I don't mean on the web (that
motivation died a long time ago), I mean on pubnix and
gopher and the BBSes. I guess part of it is, I have no
idea what to contribute, or if there is anything I can
contribute. The change here is primarily this: that I didn't
use to worry if what I added was of any value. My mental
approach, in the past, was to simply contribute whatever I
felt like contributing, and not worry if it meant anything.
I was doing it for the joy of doing it, and that's all.
Man, that right there is part of it, it has to be. I need to
get back to that, I don't want to lose that.
My z80 projects were a part of that. They happened mostly in
isolation, and I phlogged about them with only a little
feedback (for which I'm super grateful!). Too esoteric, even
for pubnix I guess (or, the z80 crowd is more introverted,
or some other reason). Or maybe there was simply nothing to
be said about what I was doing (which wasn't ground-breaking
anyway). Regardless, the point here is that I *did* the
projects and I wrote about them, because it brought me joy
to do the projects and to write about them. That was enough.
If I could hold on to the "being enough" part right there,
but it feels so ephemeral! How do you go through life, and
let everything you do be enough? I'm positive that I'm
missing a piece of the puzzle here.
Life has also gotten a little harder recently, mostly on the
family side of things. The kids are growing up, turning into
little adults, and that change has been tough. We're finding
that, like their parents, our kids have psychological
challenges that they will have to face. Perfect angels as
children, the loves of my life, yet they are only human
after all, and I have to help them face that humanity. I
feel like I have to help them learn how to tackle those
things that rise up like monstrous spectres in their lives,
at least while they're still living with me and probably
beyond. It's rough, really rough, to see the transformation
from innocence to understanding.
And without knowing, that has changed me. The battle has
changed me. It is changing me still, I suppose. That's part
of it.
Well, I still don't feel like I understand, but I feel a
little better writing about it. And in the end (of this
post), I do feel like I've gotten somewhere for my (small)
effort.
