Striving After the Wind

R.a.n.t. of week 09/12/04

Ever have one of those days where nothing is going right? As the day goes on, the stress continues to build? Problems with health, home, family and job continue to mount? Suddenly the stress is so great you feel you are on the edge of a nervous break down? Now imagine you are not dealing with this stress, but someone you know and love is. How do you comfort them? Even if you have dealt with the exact same thing in the past, you feel like an idiot telling them, "I know how you feel". So it makes matters even worse when you don't have any idea how they feel. How do you console someone then? Many times, I'm at a loss for words. I never know what to say, and anything I wish to say feels like it's an insensitive platitude. My ex-wife was the hardest person to console. Any time she felt stressed or depressed, there was never anything I could say or do that would be right. Her responses were "Whatever", "How would you know," or "Yea, Right". I felt I was always sincere, and I still believe I was trying as hard as I could to be sincere. Not being appreciated and even accused for trying to care made me feel a little like I was striving after the wind. To some degree, it reminded me of this poem:

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -"

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on."

- Stephen Crane

Unfortunately, the more I was attacked for trying to be caring, made me care less. Each jab or accusation thrown my way made me less and less sincere, In time I became jaded. It was then I began to hate myself more and more. I was supposed to be the comforter, I was supposed to be the moral support, the backbone, the pillar. I was becoming nothing. I hated what I had become. You might think I blamed my ex-wife, but I didn't. I realized I only had myself to blame. It wasn't my wife I hated, I hated what I became, because of my wife.
Reprinted 11/29/12





*PLEASE NOTE - I recently found old R.a.n.t. articles posted to a website I once owned. I've decided to reprint them in my current run. However, ironically enough, I'm not to fond of the writing so I've decided to edit the articles and repost them. For comparisons sake, I've decided to run the edited version as well as the original. In a way, it's kind of fun to see how my writing has changed in eight years.

Original R.a.n.t.
Ever get to that point in your life where you start to feel like everything you do is for nothing? Every attempt to entertain, enlighten, help or satisfy someone feels like a feeble attempt? Or worse, seems to make matters worse? No matter how hard you try, you fail? There have been many times that I’ve felt just like that. There has been a time in my life when I just wanted to give up. I can proudly say that I don’t have those feelings anymore. I’ve learned that sometimes you can’t please everyone, sometimes when you work at something; you have to work at it for yourself. Take my website for example. I’m not saying I feel it’s not entertaining anyone, I just think that even if no one visited it, or cared about what happened to it, I know that I would care. Every day I update a photo or update a new page, I try to work on it so that I will be proud of it, regardless if anyone happens to check it for the day. To some degree, I remind myself of the man in the poem by Stephen Crane: "I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. "It is futile," I said, "You can never -" "You lie," he cried, And ran on." I’ve taken on that attitude to some degree. Don’t tell me what I’m doing is futile. If I felt it was futile I wouldn’t do it. Try taking that attitude next time someone tries to knock you down a level or two.