Adrift On An Ocean Of Loneliness

A few nights ago, I spilled my guts to the missus and admitted I was feeling “adrift.” She asked me why I felt this way, but the problem with feeling adrift is you can’t answer such a question.

But I have been trying to find an answer, at least in my own mind, and I’ve come up with a few thoughts. The first is; I don’t think I know of any friend or family member who feels totally content or not somewhat adrift themselves. Or put more artfully by Paul Simon, “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease.”

For our younger generation, I understand it better. They’re anxious to get their lives started and still trying to figure out how and where they fit in. Laz Jr. had a friend visit us in our Virginia Estates and he seemed far too uncertain about his future. This is a brilliant young man on an academic scholarship to earn a masters degree at Cornell University and even he is confused. I had very little advice for him other than to tell him to get in line – none of us knows what we want to be when we grow up. Or put more artfully by Woody Allen when asked who he wanted to be when he grew up stated, “Anyone but me.”

There’s more to it with the 18-25 age group. I think it has something to do with waking up in a world where the security of our country is vulnerable for the first time since our generation was diving under our classroom seats to protect us from a Soviet nuclear attack (still not sure how our school desks would have helped but they were built pretty tough back then). We don’t get to dive under desks these day, we just have to hope that when we get on an airplane or visit Washington or New York that this particular day isn’t the one fanatics have planned to make a violent point. The kind of morbid feeling that comes with this new reality is very unsettling for all of us, but I think it hits the younger generation harder because it must make them worry about the future, and nobody should be so worried about the future when they’re young and just beginning their journey into adulthood.

Whether we like it or not, the world is at war in a different way than it has ever been at war. There are no mighty battles and hills taken to tell whose winning, and no real reason or rules for this clash of cultures gone so wrong. Both sides pray for their god to deliver a victory, but only one will be right – or worse, nobody will be right. The stretch to our imagination over this new paradigm is so disquieting that it would be perhaps more surprising to feel confident and content at the moment. At least this is one reason I must feel adrift.

I also don’t feel at all comfortable about the way the past 14 or more years have become so politically divisive. I admit I took great pleasure in watching our smug former president struggle through self-inflicted wounds caused through general hubris and male-pattern behavior. It was fun to toss a pillow at the TV set whenever his mug was front and center and engaging in some fantastic lie. But now the shoe is on the other foot and I have some appreciation for those who feel similar toward the current president. Rather than say my reaction was correct and then pass off the anger created by Bush as only from irrational opponents who just don’t get it, it’s better to just confess that these past years have been some really, really bad from a dirty politics perspective. And the worse part is; I don’t see a savior in our near future to release us from this partisan dreadfulness.

Now most people wouldn’t be too bothered by this, but to put it more artfully as Brother Bill would have done, “it burns my cookies to a crisp.” I need a break from it, and not just from one of my occupational hazards, but I need to stop listening to talk radio and, especially, stop watching the nightly news.

It is one of the reasons I like international politics so much. Instead of people asking why things aren’t going right in a campaign, I am constantly thanked by the people I work for in other countries because to them, we Americans are the experts. I sort of gag on that, because what we’ve become experts of is how best to tear down our opponents. I just read an article about President Lula in Brazil and how he’s likely to win re-election this year. It was mentioned that the campaign was marred by more negative advertising than ever before seen. That’s as far as the story goes, but I know the truth. President Lula is being advised on his campaign by Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager. There used to be a day when we exported our well-made products and imported cheap Japanese electronics. Now we’re exporting our cynical, negative, hit-piece politics and importing everything else.

I’ve also made some bad investments this year in which I relied on supposedly good friends. In the end, the investment and the friendship fell apart. In my more charitable moments, I assume there was nothing pre-planned by the friend and things just didn’t work out. At least I’d like to believe that. But I’ve experienced this too many times to fall for that generous logic. I was cheated out of a good deal of money and no amount of innocence feigned or good intentions offered will get me to change my mind. Or to put more artfully as Wilford Brimley did in Absence of Malice, “It ain't legal. And worse than that, by God it ain't right.” So I haven’t been able to find a way to forget or forgive on what happened and this adds to my angst.

I wish I could write happier, more jovial posts. I know I will someday. Most of you know me as a person of good humor who uses bad humor to irritate and entertain. I don’t feel so much in the mood these days and seem to find drifting about without a rudder more to my liking. But I think that is the way society is going and perhaps I am just responding to the mood of the current culture. I wonder if I am correct about others out there who feel the same way. If so, drop me a line and tell me. If not, I would especially like to hear from you.