Tonight at w00tstock I ran into my friend Steven and he asked the perfectly normal question, “What’s new with you?” He just wants to say hi and see what has been going on in my life. I hate that question. It’s like asking a chronic stutterer to read Fox in Socks in front of a crowd. I hate that question not because nothing of note has happened to me but because I don’t remember. My brain does not parse events like yours does. If I don’t make an effort to mentally tag something as anecdote fodder so I can participate in small talk, I won’t think to mention it. I can maybe keep track of a few days, but beyond that is a compressed field of time where everything that has ever happened exists. Some time ago, when I knew I was going to meet a new person, I would look over a document which detailed facts like how long I had lived in my current city, how long I had been married, how long I worked at my current job. Part of this blog still does the job of that list. Without it, time becomes “a while now” inching ever closer to “always”. So don’t ask me time questions.

“How are you doing?” is the other pleasantry that annoys me. I think I’ve made my peace with it. It isn’t a real question; it is a greeting like “hello”. What gets to me is that these two questions remind me of the disconnect I feel from the world where everyone is confident with the answers to those questions. Even now I’m getting frustrated at having to attempt to express this. I don’t want to talk about what’s new with me or how I’m doing because I am so disinclined to participate in your world that there is hardly any overlap with mine. There is nothing to talk to you about except the lowest common denominator: television shows, the job, the weather. There is nothing new to report and no day is distinguished from another because I do not have the energy to be here with you unless it is going to matter. Unless it is going to be real.

Sometimes my life feels like my job: I’m exhausted by doing hardly anything. I’m burning out. Even on autopilot the fuel has to come from somewhere. Why should I do anything about it? What compelling reason is there? Man delights not me.

In my recent time traveling adventure, I arrived upon the calm shores of an ocean under a deep midnight blue sky. A lighthouse shone into the night. Sitting on the beach was an old man. Well, to be fair, he was probably in his late fifties or early sixties.

It was me.

He turned to look over his shoulder at someone out of my view. He had a wild, warm look in his eye.

I wasn’t alone.

In the end, the Tower becomes a lighthouse and I am contented to look out at the mystery of the ocean.

And I am okay.