After A Time

After yesterday's Bill Hicks induced rant, I feel subdued today. It's pointless to stay angry at things which one cannot change. As a true Scorpio, I rant and rave and then five minutes later it's gone. My emotions are constantly in a state of flux. Yet, I must admit it felt good to get it all off my chest.

I came to this realization last night after having totally lost my temper. To keep things stirred up in the Hoover system hurts us all. It hurts the school children, it hurts the reputation of the town, it hurts the teachers, and it hurts the property value of everyone who owns their own house around here. If Hoover continues to be inundated with bad press, then who will want to move here? Who will want to enroll their kids in the city system?

There comes a point in time where you just want things to die down and stop being so dramatic. One of the reasons I came to the conclusion that I could not be a lawyer is that I realized I don't have the emotional stamina to live inside a tornado. I don't thrive on confrontation and though I am highly competitive, such intensity drains me rather than invigorates me.

I deliberately try to keep my innermost thoughts and opinions off this blog. I try to keep confessional issues of my own off this blog. So I'm going against my better judgment when I reveal this to you. One of reasons I am sports-phobic is that it absolutely tears me up inside when my team loses. Some people can blow it off. Some people yell and fuss and use sports as a cathartic exercise. Once the game is over, they resume their lives. I've never been that way. All it does it keep me upset so I've learned to follow sports with a casual interest and not let it ruin my day.

There's nothing wrong with sports, per se. It's just that when it becomes about all the wrong things like money, power, greed, and personal gain that it becomes tainted. Ideally, sports teach teamwork, self-discipline, self-reliance, and perseverance. Ideally, sports become a way that communities and people from all social classes and walks of life can find common purpose.

The problem arises when tribalism and factionalism cause powerful emotions like anger, resentment, and jealousy to spiral out of control. Then we are no different from our Barbarian ancestors. It reminds me that we are not really that far away from being uncivilized ourselves and the ways in which we are rational and civilized hold an often very tenuous grasp upon us.

I know I've included this poem on two separate occasions in this blog, but I'll include it again. It's been a leitmotif in my own life and almost an incantation. Think about how often we recite the Lord's Prayer or the Serenity Prayer. Some of us do it daily, or if not daily, certainly weekly. This poem holds special resonance for me.

After a Time
by Catherine Davis

After a time, all losses are the same
One more thing lost is one thing less to lose;
And we go stripped at last the way we came.

Though we shall probe, time and again, our shame,
Who lack the wit to keep or to refuse,
After a time, all losses are the same.

No wit, no luck can beat a losing game;
Good fortune is a reassuring ruse:
And we go stripped at last the way we came.

Rage as we will for what we think to claim,
Nothing so much as this bare thought subdues:
After a time all losses are the same.

The sense of treachery--the want, the blame--
Goes in the end, whether or not we choose,
And we go stripped at last the way we came.

So we, who would go raging, will go tame
When what we have we can no longer use:
After a time, all losses are the same;
And we go stripped at last the way we came.