A Whole In Time

OK, pun that is part of the title of this work is intentional – I hasten to mention that (when I had other things to talk about) first, to forestall the Twitterverse (and I use the term to define Social Media in general) going crazy. I fully appreciate the ascension of Social Media in our consciousness, but, let’s face it, people have a tendency to react out-of-context and go off half cocked (I remind you of the line from ‘Men In Black’ that so perfectly defines humanity: “A person is smart; people are dumb, panicky animals and you know it"). And second, because enough people remember my old journalism days to know I previously had large issues with spelling. I say ‘old’ days because it was my inability to consistency spell anything greater than C-A-T that let to my demise in journalism. I say ‘previously’ had issues because, now, and for the last couple decades, there is spellchecking software, which if I’d had ‘then’ I’d probably still be in journalism.

I adore good journalism, and have tremendous respect for journalists, especially in this environment, where politically empowered bullies use journalists as scapegoats to cover their every flaw and numerous misdeeds (in all fairness, journalists themselves contributed to the rise of the bullies in question). Bottom line – I simply lacked the temperament to be a journalist, and it is my good fortune that my deficiencies drove me out of that profession rather quickly. I’m simply not a Type-A personality, I don’t have the killer instinct a good journalist needs, and I just don’t have the proper temperament. I much prefer the cool breeze on the deck to the heat of the kitchen; slow roasting a chicken on the grill to crispy southern pan fried.

No, not a misspelling. Altering context by wielding semantics.

***

A guy I knew in high school, who had found me on a widely used Social Media platform, once respond to one of my works by saying “I don’t understand still lives”. Some time later and for an unrelated reason I decided the guy was a blowhard who I really didn’t need in my life (he probably felt the same way about me – especially in my younger days I could be a little shit). (Cue the chorus crying, “younger days”?). Certainly over time a number of acquaintances have fallen by the wayside for that reason; who needs that kind of ugliness in their lives?

I suspect I’m the real loser in the deal.

It wasn’t this guy’s fault that his opinionating posts irritated me – he wasn’t trying to piss off specifically me. And, of course, in those days so many of us thought we could use Social Media to actually educate everybody to why they should think like we personally do. That my lasting thought about the guy is that I didn’t need him is a subtraction from my own universe. Me retreating to the cool breeze and the slow roasting chicken on the deck, missing everything going on inside the house.