Theatre d'Absurditie

     So the bomb scares during this past spring semester  at the University of Pittsburgh, one of my alma maters, were primarily generated by a Scottish separatist living in Ireland. He is not a young man, and he is in a wheelchair, and he has a history of bomb scares, primarily in England. That reads like the script of a dark comedy, very dark, for an indie movie that is secretly trying to depict absurdity. It seems like postmodernism come home to roost. Nothing about a man old young to be on Social Security in the United States, as well as on disability, terrorizing a university in another country in order to achieve liberation for his own country from yet another country makes any sense whatsoever. Sometimes human nature and emotions and thought processes are, indeed, stranger than fiction.

Falling Hard and Fast

     This was a day when I noticed how easily I yield to fears, and how quickly the reasonable exercise of asking myself what I am afraid of can become inflammation of fear beyond all reason. Impatience is one of my chief shortcomings, and I have been waiting and working for months toward a particular goal. I received notice late last week that goal should be realized sometime early this week. I have spent hours on this task, often dealing with frustrating individuals and institutions. Now, however, there is no work left for me. I have completed my part, completed it weeks ago in fact, and must wait for others to follow through. I do not like admitting it has been a fearful six weeks for me, when I have repeatedly convinced myself the goal would never be achieved and I would be let down by those whose cooperation I require. For the last two days, in an effort to uncover the nature of my fears, I let myself think events through to the worst possible scenario, and then found myself stuck there, unable to talk myself out of such an outrageous outcome. I am embarrassed by how crazy I became in a short period of time! No wonder I usually try to spend some percentage of each day with other people, rather than alone with my thinking!