Yes I Am Selfish

It's raining all weekend, that cold drizzly rain that makes your bed sing to you like a background siren, a comforting escapist hole against the world. Rainy days make me pensive.

I've dropped in on some friends this morning, in a blogworld sense. They are still ranting or worrying about who is the best candidate for President, why my friend Joe Wilson is an incompetent Congressman and human being, and needs to be replaced, how the populace has suddenly realized that Congressman Harry Brown is a lying sneaking pandering and self-righteous moron, what they feel and think about the fiscal collapse of the Union...

Yawn.

I used to be a part of all that. People don't understand why I stepped out and back and away from it all, why I want nothing more to do with it, why I won't go gangbusters ever again trying to convert the ignorant or the innocent to the logical and socially responsible platforms of this, that, and the other. More - they can't see HOW I could, when I was, in their words, "so damned good at it".

The fact is that I slowly came to the realization that people in the main are determined to be ignorant, determined to be emotional, determined to sacrifice themselves for any and every cause, and expect everyone else to do the same. Not being of the Kenyesian persuasion, the self-sacrificing hordes who think that they have a right to be in everyone else's lives, that everyone should sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole, I stepped back, out, and away. I'm done.

I am tired of directing the minds and thoughts and emotions and reactions of fools who need to be told at every turn what is real, honorable, good, and just. I have a disabled husband and an auto-immune disease that weakens me if I push too hard. I have an excuse, but it goes deeper than that. The truth is that I got tired of the viciousness, the lies, the snide remarks, even the phony sympathy-without-helpfullness that I encountered. I refuse to argue with them, defend my thoughts and positions with them, while neglecting the one thing that is more important to me than anything else - my happiness.

Yes that IS selfish. I cheerfully admit it. I seek a quiet, uplifting, emotionally relaxing and physically expressive life. "Kicking against the pricks" is futile, because then there are just - more pricks. Those who are determined to be pricks, who want and need to argue, to shove their opinions down everyone else's throats, bore me. They always have. But their insistence on stomping on others brought out the Don Quixote in me, the defender of the innocents, the Vox Populi in me. No more. There are too many self-determinedly ignorant, arrogant, and obnoxious pricks in the world, and too many permanently innocent, permanently needy folks along with them, for me to exhaust myself repetitively trying to educate or save them all. As most of my friends know, when I say, "God I'm BORED!" - things are about to change. Well, these types of folks began to bore me to distraction. So it was time for a change.

It is vitally important that one seek one's own happiness. I have found mine. Of course it isn't perfect. If I won a lottery, I wouldn't go for all of the immediate and fast-passing pleasures that others do - I'd buy my garage, greenhouse, chickens and cows straightaway instead of planning for them. But my new and very fun job, my new house and property, my new and much-longed-for lifestyle, have all brought me closer to where I want to be for the rest of my life.

The wind is blowing, out of the Northeast and HARD. The rain is whisking across the hills, and the clouds are tumbling just above them. The leaves on the maples and hawthornes are glowing golden. I have things to do, and friends coming over later in the evening for some simple board games, chess, and fun. I love where I am, what I'm doing, and who I'm doing it with. Not for me, the upheavals and passions and rages of the helpless or the mindless any more. Not for me, listening to the endless yammering about the next American Idol, be he from the phony television show or the phony election races. They can say whatever they want, now - I'm not a part of it and never want to be again. There is more to life than that. I've always known it, and I can finally live it. Selfish? You bet.