Pressure

Life steps in the way sometimes.
Friendships fade and renew.
Dreams fade and get reinvigorated.
“What’s with the platitudes?” you ask.
Well an annual event between some of my closest dear friends, ne family, almost came to a standstill because of rumor and the rumors of war. I will neither summarize nor identify the parties-[although it’s safe to say I may be a perpetrator; I do, after all believe in appropriate social transparency]. However, the rumors of war are worth investigating as an abstract. Those pernicious sometimes scintillating viral emics that can undo the most carefully laid plan or friendship.
Group dynamics as miniscule as band and as large as “global” have its own distinct network of communicating ideas, some large—multimedia, some traditional – word of mouth, some underground – fanzines. Then there’s the uber traditional uber organic method: the gathering of clansmen [and women] who annually break bread and well… talk shit.
Talking shit is at once humanity’s greatest triumph and defeat. Yeah, I know “hyperbole!” you scream. And well yes it is. I stand accused. But break it down to brass tacks… how many lives have been destroyed by the Mata-Hari-loose-lips-sink-ships? But alas, we are not spies and the weight of the world does not rest on our shoulders. For the most part, we lead normal urban middleclass lives replete with rent, mortgages, education concerns and [for me at least] the reparation of credit debt.] Our actions will not break the world. For fuck’s sake we still read comics. [There’s nothing wrong with that… Neil Gaiman’s Sandman got me through law school.]
At times we believe it’s the force intrusion of the emic that destroys our lives, yet if we look at the core, investigate the context of the rumor; we may realize a greater truth.
“How now, Brown Cow?” again you ask.
The proof’s in the pudding.
During an impromptu, transparent review and discussion into the various rumors that have fueled our present war, and by impromptu, I mean balls-retracting-into ones-stomach-cold-as-fuck-late-Sunday-night-in the street, impromptu, those same friends, ne brothers, and I each came upon a personal realization. Quite simply, we struggle. Every day. Every moment with the image of ourselves and the way we are viewed, especially amongst each other. We gauge our success in relation to each other. We struggle with our “selves” and our circumstances. At times and during review, we may disapprove of how we each respond to our circumstances and we discuss this approval amongst one another… we dish dirt…, we trade gossip…, in short, we talk shit! Yet at the drop of a hat, if anyone of those guys or their families needs any thing, they need not ask… Heaven and Earth will be moved.

Unfortunately, the initial sting of the words, the intersection of that emic, forces us to react in an emotionally cumbersome manner. I’ve been there: recipient and perpetrator. After the dust settled I’ve always meditated on the affect and searched for that kernel of truth, deciphering beyond the smoke and mirrors, pulling back the curtain to study the wizard in his true form. The truth has always been… and will probably always be revealed to be a failing of my character.The precursor to our reactions are pressure, those personally and externally imposed. Pressure creates diamond or maintains coal. It’s all in how you deal with the release of such pressure.

I find those lessons priceless. In the end, all else is nothing but rumors and the rumors of war.