Alfred Stieglitz: The Net Mender (1894)

" … when all finally seems right enough with this world."

I find myself Between passions. The Muse's campaign all but over, my contribution finished, and my next passion pending; I feel at more or less loose ends. I presently have no particular end in mind. Not even our impending excursion to New York City interests this homebody. I move listlessly, as if little matters, probably because very little seems to matter at this moment. I understand that I'm supposed to be actively engaging, appreciating my good health while I still have it, flaunting my lack of physical complaints. I have no complaints. Disappointments haven't tainted my outlook. I've harbored no grudges. I've not been wronged. Nor have I taken it upon myself to change this world, however much it might scream for someone's intervention. Archimedes taught me everything I understand about leverage, and I feel certain there's no fulcrum sufficient to change even a willing world, and ours doesn't appear to be all that willing to me.

I rise at my usual time but lengthen my preparation. I am presently the polar opposite of up and roaring. Up and groaning might better describe my feelings. I'd turn around and head back for bed if my bed hadn't also stopped working for me. I can't seem to sleep for anything. I wake after too few hours and cannot entice myself back to sleep again. Max, my LapCat, and I have been spending particularly unproductive early mornings with him slowly migrating from my lap down my legs before he disembarks onto the footstool, only to circle around to mount my lap again. I'll take all of that attention he can dish out. He's currently my only connection to this world.

Is it just me, or does everybody have social media connections to every leadership guru in this universe? I often feel assaulted with All Ya Gotta Do To Becomes, messages noteworthy primarily due to their lack of subtlety. They seem to indict me without even asking after my side of the story. Maybe I don't want to become an Empathic Leader®. Perhaps their solutions are the source of some of my knottier problems. I understand their passion, for similar obsessions once consumed me. I'd glimpsed The Way and sought near-constant reassurance through annoying insistence. I'd see some object lesson in every experience. I'd claim insight into pretty damned near every human condition. I was probably a dangerous annoyance, one of those risks nobody will insure against. I gratefully outgrew omniscience.

I ache for those more certain times when circumstances conspire, and I lose my spot. I often feel sentenced to pursue some objective, a Sysiphus endlessly busying myself. Still, I miss that old rock and even the steep incline when I find myself stranded Between purposes. I tell myself I'm only resting, storing energy for the next big push, though I secretly wonder how many more big pushes I have left in me. Might I at least try living a more mundane existence, one not so damned focused upon who I'm trying to become and what I've not yet accomplished? I wonder if there will ever come a time when I might consider the competition finished, the winners designated, and the losers duly castigated. It might be that then's the time one's bed works for the intended purpose, and all finally seems right enough with this world.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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