Hello darkness, my old friend...

Dim, wet and cool. Darkness inky black, even as the sun rises. It breaks on a damp fall morning, which matches my mood. How could something that was a life dream go so wrong? But then that's life, eh? Reality, as they say, bites. And so where does one find encouragement or hope then? No optimism, no reason to think things will improve. Oh, a friend of mine always tells me that things will get better. The roller coaster I've been on continues to drop day by day into the black abyss, and for how long now has there been no sign of pulling out? Not even a leveling, much less an improvement. No, things do not always, by default or fiat, get better. Who said it had to? Where is that guarantee?? How do I make a claim against it since it's not holding up? And too, who cares? Oh, I know the pat answer to that too. The truth is that everyone else is too busy with their own concerns and difficulties that true caring is more rare than the rarest element.

Going ever deeper...

Into the morass...

Life is like a vacuum cleaner

It's like deep, empty space. Life is like a black hole; it pulls from one, with the greatest force, all life, joy, energy...all light. It's as dark as a black hole, emitting no hint of radiance, seeming as tenebrous and lifeless as the dark of death. It gives nothing and takes everything. If you gather enough energy to generate a bit of hope and will, life drains it away with greater gravity than a singularity. No description of emptiness, nothingness, or dark can completely describe life; it surpasses all of that...and more. And while it pulls you in, it also brings you more and more boulders to bear, weighing you down so that hope of possible escape flees while you sink ever faster into the void...

To be, or to see

The long slide into the dark continues, and who knows when it will stop or how low it can go before it levels? That's the disheartening part...sometimes scary. When will it stop? Will it stop?

I feel as if my life has been stolen from me. When I sit here like this, finding it painfully hard to do the simplest task, I know something has been taken from me. Not just simple motivation, but meaning and even words to try to state my meaning or feeling. It has taken about five minutes just to type this much. And yet I have to press forward. If I stop to try to call up just the right word then the lethargy grips harder and freezes up not merely my fingers, but my will. My mind takes off on flights of fancy that have nothing to do with even a resemblance of reality. It's similar to a waking sleep, a conscious dream. It makes no sense and just flows from one idea to another concept all under its own power and direction. I don't even seem to have the ability to control that. And so I sit and stare into space, seeming to have lost the tenuous contact with the things and people around me. My mind has a life apart from what my body knows it must do. This is the time of sleeping not for rest but for escape. The sleep of escape. It's always been interesting to me how much I can sleep when I seek escape. My mother always ran a tight ship of making sure we never slept too much during the day or too late in the day so we wouldn't "sleep too much" and not be sleepy at bedtime. But this sort of sleep defies all logical reasoning of getting too much sleep. It's not the body in charge now seeking restoration. The mind is in charge and shuts the body down so that it can have the escape from the dark oblivion. So the mind can wander in worlds of fantasy, finding fun and hope when none exists in the waking world. None of it makes sense. And there seems little choice but to flow along with it. It's too much work to resist. It creeps in insidiously and steals away bits of life. Where will it stop?

I never understood...

Initial considerations...

I never did understand how hearing another person's troubles or difficulties was supposed to make one feel better. So that you know you're not the only one? Well, I still don't get that. I've never been encouraged when I was low by hearing someone whine about "if you think you had it bad, wait until you hear about what happened to me!"

Friday's experience has made me think a great deal about my job situation. For about six months I have attended many, many hours of meetings (about 30-35% of my work hours), listened to many hours of telecons, read and responded to hundreds and hundreds of emails, dealt with as many phone calls, and the only real product I have produced is one hazard report of 24 pages...not full pages. It's a form and only about 50-60% of the boxes are filled in, which is on schedule. And on Friday that report was trashed entirely. It seems a lot of effort for little product and that wasn't even good enough. It's very demoralizing. I don't have the motivation to do this job any more. And it spills over into life in general. I was so de-motivated that I did nothing with my weekend. No reading, or writing, or drawing. I did nothing constructive at all. It was a waste and a wash. And I don't really care.

The Big Presentation:
I could only get you to appreciate the full impact of Friday if I told you everything that happened. That is beyond my ability to endure to type it all, the space to put it and the patience of the reader. Therefore, I keep it to a synopsis of the worst of the highlights.

After starting 20 minutes past the time I was scheduled to start, and not being able to get into the hazard database where my data was, I got to talk for about 15 minutes. I was scheduled for two hours. However, things did not procede as expected. It was suggested to me to READ the hazard report to the panel so nothing got left out. I didn't quite read it to them though but on the third information block the panel chairman said, "Can't you just summarize this??" Well, I could but I was told to make sure I mentioned everything. Then on the next block, I made it about half way through the hazard cause when the panel chairman said the whole philosophy of this hazard report was wrong. That was not against me because I didn't make that decision. I was just...doing the report I was told to do. However, that took the entire meeting off on another discussion...about the direction that vehicle integration was going and how we get there. Even though I had points to make on that, I got to bring up two of them and then I was talked over for the rest of the time. I know when to shut up. I was shown my place, and I took it because there was little choice. Chad led the way in talking over me. The panel and a couple of engineers took off on the "how integration should do its job" discussion for about an hour. I got to sit and listen. I thought that was it for me. I'm done. They want this hazard report re-done in an entirely different way. So I don't have to do any more presenting. Then just at 12, Chad said we needed to get back to my report. The panel chairman said let's take a lunch break. So I get to sit here and wait an hour for what??? That is what I asked Chad...what now? He told me to push forward and present...what they already said is wrong and they don't want to go through the details. However, that doesn't matter. I've been given my orders and I'm expected to follow them no matter what the panel chairman says.

So, an hour later...we started 15 minutes late and Chad presented three charts he had. Then he got back to me and my hazard report, which had already been discredited. I asked the panel chairman three times if he wanted to do Choice A or Choice B on preceding. He would listen and then talk to the guy next to him so he would ask me to repeat myself. Very rude, and makes one feel treated like a dog...which they had already done from the beginning. So I got re-started and I got to talk for about 10 minutes. Then the subject that started the morning argument got…re-opened, after they had agreed to talk it outside the meeting. I was this close to being able to leave but the panel chairman polled the panel to see if anyone had questions and that’s when that subject got brought back up. Thirty minutes later I was this close to being able to leave a second time and an engineer who is not involved in vehicle integration wanted to know who was going to do the integrated analyses. Why? Don’t know. It doesn’t affect him at all. So then they talked that for about 15-20 minutes. Then the panel chairman had to poll everyone again to see if there was anything else who wanted to ask anything.

I was supposed to present from 10:15-12 and I ended up presenting (ha…listening) from 10:30-12 and 12:45-2:00. I must have talked a grand total of 10-15 minutes. I stood and listened the rest of the time. Stood…

The final tally is that I have attended meetings and meetings and meetings and telecons and answered tons of email. In the last 6 months the only real product that I have produced was the hazard report, which was re-written 3 times. And now it is trash. The panel threw out my report as not being what they wanted…redo it completely in a totally different way. 6 months down the toilet. :p’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

That’s the government way.

Chaos

When the world comes too close
And you feel its press the most,
That’s when it’s harder still
To run o’er dale or hill,
To find the quiet and the calm
To fill your spirit with a balm
That heals the break in soul
From which the world extracts hard toll.
Where to find a quiet haven
Where no mark of world is graven
Deep into the surrounding stone
Where one can release the moan
Of pain and deep ache of heart?
Where can one even start?