Checking-Out

On re-reading my accounting of the journey so far, I wonder why anyone would particularly care about my gruesome little corner of IF land? I've begun to follow many blogs out there, and am increasingly realizing that my experience is pretty universal among IFers. All the new thoughts that fly up in my head, all the epiphanies and new life-lessons are very very typical.

And I don't know about everyone else, but I tend to begin to glaze over after reading tragic story after tragic story. Like the oil spill response - everyday is a new cluster fuck and I no longer register the day-to-day since nothing is working anyway. The oil just keeps gushing and gushing and spreading and spreading as our delusional species scrambles around trying to manhandle millions of gallons of oil run-amuck, revealing the pathetic limits of our influence.

In the face of the same-old same-old - oiled birds, brown ocean, empty sacs, blood and toilets - I have to mentally check-out. There's definitely a certain self-preservation mechanism at play here, but there's also the element of habituation. I get used to the macabre stories and they begin to lose their impact. I also realize I'm not anything special, I have no great new words of wisdom to offer the blogosphere, it's the same view over here in my chair in front of my iMac as it is for you wherever you are.

It all seems pretty fruitless, but you can't stop trying, can you? Whether it's oil spills or biology, we keep trying to assert control over forces bigger than us. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose; but in the end, success is not a reflection of our power, just a reflection of our perseverance.