The Gossamer — April 4, 2016

I’ve been thinking. (“Don’t hurt yourself,” you joke. “Har har,” I say, before I spew tomato sauce all over your new Armani shoes.) When I do things, especially grand undertakings, I never ask myself if what I’m about to do will help me become a better person. “Will I learn from this?” I should ask. “Will this action help to understand something substantial? Or will I come away from this feeling as unfulfilled as I did before? Or worse: Will I come out of this feeling like a worse human being?”

As humans, we are entitled to add to own our growth. Whether we add to our growth by helping others grow, or by seeking knowledge, or by exploring the world, or by inventing, we are entitled to the benefits of our actions. The whole point of living, from what I’ve experienced — which admittedly hasn’t been much — is to always grow beyond. Do we want to stay where we are if we don’t feel like we’re growing? Do we want to settle if we don’t feel like our current situation will help us to lift ourselves up?

Some people turn to vice to achieve this goal. Some turn to virtue. This is why people come in a variety of different flavors. And this is why people enjoy or suffer from various levels of success and failure. Successful people have been able to grow regardless of their commitment to vice and virtue. Failed people have not grown. It is hard to grow in this world; fear, malice, and xenophobia have put vague limits on how much individuals are able to grow. They have shoehorned humanity into lives of boredom and frustration and ruined dreams which Bruce Springsteen — my man! I love The River! — might write songs about. But regardless of how some of us — myself included — might find it difficult to grow beyond and achieve true joy, we press on. Pressing on is growth. Breaking rules could be growth. (I cannot condone that you break rules. Do that at your own risk. I will be over here breaking many rules.)

There’s a reason why we’re seeing more growth in the world. Yes, there’s more growth, regardless of what Dumbo Trump is saying and regardless of what your racist neighbor did and regardless of the fact that major cities are probably going to become major flood zones by the turn of the 22nd century. We’re seeing more growth because now more than ever, people don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Someone somewhere did something to throw everything off balance, and now everyone is confused. I don’t have a clue what someone did to screw things up so bad. But whatever it was — Adam eating the apple, or Cain slaying Abel, or Gavrilo Princip assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the year 1914 — it threw humanity for a loop, and suddenly, people got upset. (“Upset” here doesn’t mean sad, and “people” doesn’t refer to a group of individuals. What I mean is that the culture became changed, and the organisms in that culture didn’t have the proper means to react well to that change. Therefore, they became frustrated, angry, volatile; in a word, “upset.”)

But from that frustration comes growth. How? When individuals don’t know what they’re doing with their time — and I’m going to focus on “the youth” here, because “the youth” go through boatloads of change, and are therefore huge catalysts in changing culture — they tend to act totally as themselves. And when they do, they form communities with other individuals whose actions match their own. Granted, change often dies down, and there is often a regression back to the way things were. But the point is that growth stems from a need to break out of a repressing situation. It’s like a sapling shooting up through hard soil, or a newborn baby busting through a birth canal filled with cement. (I reached with that metaphor. But for damn, did I reach high.)

Humans grow and relationships change and people get born and get dead. And yes, even with growth, there is pain, and there is loss, and there is failure. But as long as we allow ourselves to grow, and as long as we do not allow ourselves to get stuck living lives that we aren’t able to live, we can create positive change for ourselves. We’ve got ourselves, at the least. And then there’s everything else.

Some headlines for the fun of it:

The Panama Papers may have implicated the Icelandic Prime Minister in a massive corruption scandal, but the PM of one of the world’s most beautiful countries says that he won’t resign. Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson’s setting up of a shell company in order to evade tax law has prompted for calls of a no-confidence vote in Icelandic Parliament. The company that Gunnlaugsson set up — Wintris Inc. — was instrumental in the collapse of the 2008 sinking of the Icelandic economy. So hey; while the scenery in Iceland may look nice, the air from Reykjavik must stink.

Something must be wrong in Amtrak’s stars, for there’s always an incident whenever they pass through Philadelphia. The National Transportation Safety Board is trying to find out why Amtrak Train 89 from NYC to Savannah, Georgia struck and killed two maintenance workers on the tracks. The incident caused the train to derail, which led to the injuring of 35 passengers on board. On the train was publishing magnate Steve Forbes, who said of the incident: “There was coffee flying everywhere.” I’m curious as to why Mr. Forbes chose to focus on the coffee.

And finally: In Manchester, Connecticut, two people were arrested at a Royal Buffet restaurant after committing violence against a 21-year-old male. The cause of the fight? Crab legs. Now, I’d like to comment. In this town just east of Hartford, there’s probably not much going on. And if you’re living in Manchester, Connecticut, and if you’re not too happy with how you’re living your life, then yes, it’s understandable that you could be easily provoked. But for heaven’s sake, don’t punch a kid in the face because he went for the crab legs at the same time as you. They have more crab legs in the back. If you really want crab legs, just wait for them to bring out more! And if they don’t, then have something else! Can ye of little patience reappraise the situation and grow in that atmosphere instead of belittling thyself? Did we not just discuss what makes up part of the human condition? Come on.