A Beginning?

I guess it all starts with me acknowledging that the whole world doesn't revolve around me.

Not that I ever thought it did mind you.

Just that...well I guess it had always been a possibility.

See very little of what I do directly affects other people, it's not that it can't, it's just that it doesn't. By design usually. By default occasionally.

I try to be a low impact kind of guy. I don't want to leave my mark anywhere, this isn't three years ago. I just want to survive. Part of that is not messing with other people's lives.

You want to be a crackhead? Ok.

You want to be a bum without a job living at home with your parents when you're thirty? Go Ahead.

You want to go around screwing everything that walks while crying about how messed up your life is? Fine by me.

It's not that it's ok, and it's certainly not that I don't care, it's just that...

I can't save the world.

No matter how much I want to.

People get hurt. People hurt themselves. Bad shit happens.

Get it?

Doesn't matter who you are, or what you do...bad shit happens.

Cynical? Maybe. True? Definitely.

And it's not because the world is this horrible place, it's not through any real fault of our own, it just is.

I was almost childlike for a long time. When someone close to me was sad I wondered what I did to upset them. When they were happy I wondered if I had done something well. When they were angry I wondered what I had done wrong. And when they were disinterested I wondered why I wasn't good enough for them.

I made the horrible mistake of assuming that I, in some way, mattered.

And then the pendulum swings. They're sad, I did nothing to upset them. They're happy, I did nothing right. They're angry, I did nothing wrong.

I had removed myself from every aspect of the scenario, I had ensured that I would never matter.

And so it went.

Now it all left a rather sick feeling in my stomach, like drinking cough medicine while still having yogurt in your mouth or more appropriately watching a truly horrible man doing rather normal nice things.

Saddam Hussein playing with small children. Pol Pot writing Christmas Cards. Hitler eating an ice cream cone.

Awful.

Yet there I stood. Exactly where, at some point, I had decided to be.

I was cold. I had cared about nothing for so long. Didn't even really care about myself.

What next?

I never meant to hurt anyone. Never meant to save myself at the expense of harming someone else. It just went that way though.

God damn.

This isn't three years ago...I know I can't save the world anymore.

That doesn't mean I don't still want to.

So I guess it all starts with me acknowledging that the whole world doesn't revolve around me.

Not that I ever thought it did mind you.

But there was...a beginning...where I stood screaming up at the new night sky on a cool spring day challenging God to let it all make sense, "I get it. It's not me, it was never me, it will never be me. But who gives a shit? I don't care. I don't. I know it can never be me, but that doesn't mean I can't help them. Don't you get it? All I want to do is help them. I don't care if it's not me. I get it! Really I do. I swear. I'll let it go, I won't talk about it anymore, I won't think about it anymore. I won't try anymore. Just...just let me help them. Just...help me help them. I promise...that'll be it. That will be the end."

I forget this is my world sometimes. Forget that it's my show.

I forget that the whole world doesn't revolve around me.

The whole world doesn't revolve around me.

Right?