I meet hundreds of people in a typical year, perhaps thousands. I travel a lot. I work on construction sites with dozens to hundreds of people. I eat out. I hang out at bars. I got a lap dance from a stripper named London somewhere in Appalachia a few weeks ago. I liked her.
All in all, we can expect to say “hello/goodbye” a lot in our lives. If I were to have a tombstone, I might put that on there (from Slaughterhouse 5, of course).
And I contemplate that the remedy is affection and goodness. If you give them some part of your self, then you travel with them. Your goodness can travel with them. You can love them, and trust that things will work out, for them, exactly how they need to, whether that be what we call “trouble”–which is the lot of most of us–or profoundly good fortune.
It’s all a very interesting game, a fascinating game. I don’t know where it comes from, or really where it goes to. I have my beliefs, but we all find out as we go.
I like this idea, though: start with people knowing they will leave, start with the end, which is you alone, and recollect there will come a day when you will never see them again. We are meeting for a time at a cafe at the end of the universe and the end of time, and are only sharing one meal together.
Even difficult people have a texture. We are all works of art, in some ways. I am trying to look at them “there but for the grace of God go I”, and, more often, “damn, I’ve BEEN that guy. I was an asshole. What made me like that, and how can I make more of it go away?”
I am a man of many moods. Some of them are very charitable. Have a pleasant day, fellow traveler!!!
Listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGX_WJLCxrA
Then this immediately after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR58vE6GYic
If you are like me, you get this sense of “what is out there, that I will never know?” This is a very important feeling. I will blog on it soon.