Professional Detachment

Lately I only feel like I'm part of the world when I'm viewing it through a lens.

Of course that could just be the layer of safety that accompanies the level of pure detachment that video provides.

No one really gets hurt in a picture.

None of it is real when you see it through a lens.

It's just a picture, a bit of video, a story.

Nobody's actually getting sick, or depressed or hateful.

The dead ones will be back for the cut-scene after the credits roll.

It's all safe and nice and contained.

And we'll all get to be together again soon...


It's the sort of comfort that most folks seek when they turn to religion, or drugs or science or love.


Sadly, that level of infectious, insidious, all consuming comfort is a luxury I can ill afford.

It dulls the senses, makes a person sloppy, encourages them to miss the really important bits.

And I've missed enough of those already. 




Maybe I should invest in a camera.

Memories

Sometimes it seems that the most interesting people I've known are dead. 

I know this could be considered as an insult to those people I know who are still alive, and some of them are pretty damned interesting, but really the MOST interesting people I've known did tend to die fairly young.

The funny thing is, the person I remember being most insulted by my saying that was someone who I really hope lives a long and happy life.  A person who isn't nearly as interesting as many of my dead friends, but who I've loved knowing just as much if not more than many of them...

Because, in spite of what our frenetic, input driven society claims, there is more to life than interesting and entertaining.  There is decency, kindness, love, compassion...

Qualities that many of my interesting friends either didn't have much of, or didn't often choose to share.

But the interesting ones tend to be the first to die.

Just something that I got to thinking about tonight.