Still Chasing Ghosts
It wasn�t meant to be a revelation, more of a poignant observation between friends; a pick me up if you will. But clarity is a cruel mistress and once the gates are opened things tend to run through on their own accord when left unchecked. I am bothered slightly I can�t even recall the exact context. The message is important, or at least attempting to convey it is.
Old souls, those of us that have been run through the ringer a time or five hundred, are a socially challenged bunch when it comes to the ways of the heart. How we came to our dispositions varies as much as our unique personalities. Yet we all have the common theme of being spiteful and jaded, while still hapless and hopeful. We all still get the rush of getting a smile returned, an eyebrow raised or one of those wonderfully long, wistful and lust filled once over's; especially the ones that happen twice over. These brief instances are what we cherish the most. You can simply make up whatever you want for this newest �crush� and you can make them be exactly everything you think you want. At least in your mind she says all the right things and he knows what you are thinking before you even think it yourself. The rush and the giggles from these highs can last for quite sometime. Find a constant supply of crush worthy material and you can live detached from reality infinitely.
But alas, dear reader, such pureness is never meant to be. Inevitably the luster of mental blind dates with your off hand and Tea parties with stuffed animals wanes. The lack of a real life flesh and blood persona that you can touch and feel and basic human nature of being a pack animal overrides and drives us all to seek out companionship. It is here that we falter.
Over time if you expose any creature with a fraction of our mental capacity to stimuli that results in specific action and reactions, the creature will learn. Or at least it will associate certain items and actions to what it has been taught are the parallel reactions. Imagine similar sets of circumstances that are heaped upon beings that posse�s logic, reason and a thought process unmatched on this earth; or don�t imagine, live it with me as we already do. I was advised by a friend in my moment of clarity that the problem with social interactions on a dating level is that everyone thinks entirely too much into things that have no pertinence. It is by associating stimuli to pasts �lessons� that we have learned that create the situations that we react to and the conclusions we eventually derive.
In the mind of the embattled lover, 1+1 always equals 2. Math has never really been my forte, but linear mathematics can never be the proper formula for such things and has zero application when it comes to chasing ghosts. There are variables and invisible numbers. Numerically incalculable answers for the same question and there are never easy answers. The curse and the blessing of an intellectual mind are to analyze an occurrence from multiple angles to determine the answer we think we need. And all the while, the algebraic equation we need to come up with the solution we so desperately seek is seemingly always out of reach; ever stop to think that between you and I we might not even be reading the same math book?
�That�s why I don�t even bother anymore�, I was told. �Everyone freaks out at the first sign of trouble; no one lets it ride, no one takes it easy and everyone has to assume the worst case scenarios for even the silliest of situations. Understanding is impossible to achieve when every new person I meet starts off trying to figure out which one of us is going to fuck up first.�
An alternate solution? Find a brainless shell with no opinions and no fight left in them that simply obeys whims and doesn�t think for his/her self. I�m quite certain, however, that if we all wanted Stepford wives we could have mail ordered them from Russia, long, long ago. Understanding can only be achieved when we ask the right questions and don�t assume that we always know the answer and we can let go of the pasts that we all seem to be tainted with these days.
Personally, I�m not anything new. My original manufacturer�s box and pristine plastic wrapping have been discarded long ago. While I�m certainly not aged to perfection like a fine wine, my internal odometer has rolled over a time or two. The exhilaration of pressing lip to lip comes with the knowledge that you are surely not going where no woman has been before. I have scars that you surely didn�t give to me, but you can bet we both have to live with. Fresh starts sure are fun, until the realization sinks in that both parties involved have enough baggage in tow to equip a family of four with a complete luggage set.
The question has never been to find answers. And it is surely not about what are we going to do about it, but what aren�t we going to do that truly matters. How do I obtain and blank slate or a fresh easel from a work of art that was painted years ago? Will I ever be able to look in your eyes and stand alone with you in a room and both of us still be heard over the ghosts that chase us and constantly threatened to drown out our own voices?
Do you really exist?
And if so, would you mind sending me a mapquest attachment with directions; I seem to have forgotten how to find you.
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