Panorama of the Real

What do you do?

  My wife gets testy whenever her working friends ask her what she does with all her time now that she’s no longer in the 9 to 5 workforce; as a stay-at-home-Regent.

  They speak as if she isn’t working. Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, when I think about it, working for a paycheck you can leave tasks unfinished until the next day; or the next week; depending on your current standing with the boss, even until he brings it up.  At home, everything is personal and has a shelf life.

  I’ve grown a thicker skin over such insensitive remarks by the uninitiated because, well, I’ve been retired for seven years now and recognize that people pretty much judge the world against their own personal experience; it’s a forced ignorance, but it works for so many that it’s difficult to point out the disadvantages; as a population we’ve grown to accept arguing as a vital aspect of social intercourse rather than collisions of confused-mistaken-thinking.  I remember being asked those awkward questions like,

   “So now what do you do?”

  As if I had won a ticket to get off the treadmill; winning some sort of amnesty.  I used to deliver up clever responses like,

   “Oh mostly home invasions, um you don’t have a dog do you?”

Since so many high school kids are into that gig now, I’ve moved on to other things that don’t raise eyebrows, or are less comical, and yes I was joking about home invasions.

  So both of us embrace the daily demands of living and that takes all of our collective mustered attention.  It may sound bland, but it hovers closer to the truth of it all. And when I say IT ALL, I mean existing in this very fragmented, abusive and oppressive social order we refer to as life.

  So what does one who is not servicing a task master do with their time?

Keep busy with little self appointed tasks to reduce annoying invasion into hard wrought calm.  It is ironic how those take-action steps can 'excite' a story of their own; then into an epoch adventure of struggle and independence. 

  It was simple effort to upgrade our Internet service contract in order to get better reception; it became a watershed of wisdom. Our (unnamed provider) is in the midst of a program focused at increasing revenues without investing money into product or service.  Meaning, they are now going to charge a lease fee's for the modem they had to provide initially to get our business.  Once you’re a customer, then they will return at a later date and charge for the equipment necessary to provide you their service; diabolical, yes, the pusher man on the block uses the same technique; give the product away, or at discount until the customer gets hooked; then, raise the prices, you’ve got ‘em.

  At the moment, we the customer, have an option; we can purchase our own modem, thereby avoiding the monthly lease that equals to purchasing one every six months. So we purchased one.

  Then, comes to find out, it doesn't really matter how fast of a speed you purchase from your service provider; 20 mbps or 50 mbps, if your wifi/or router can't handle the speed; you'll get the fastest the device can deliver. Our current Cisco model creeps at 7 mbps, probably was lightening when rope was invented, but now not so much.  So getting an upgrade from the provider means nada unless of course we also purchase a new wifi router....isn't that swell?

  But hey, I’m not bitter. Really, I took on the responsibility of my happy and that means investment into research; then analyzing the facts and decision making; and yes, procuring the necessary equipment. In that election I can celebrate liberty from expectation. I do not surrender my hopes to someone-or-something to meet a poorly examined or unspoken desire; which is of course, the definition of expectation. The outcome, for us, was intentional and conscious which departed from what my friend Margaret once told me years ago about expectations being disappointment on the installment plan.

  It also enlightened me to a bigger panorama of the real.  Take this amusing story and lay it on top of a thousand other little changes that challenge the expectation of contentment.  You might understand better why so many Americans rely on drugs and entertainment to distract them from their personal resignation of responsibility for their happy; choosing others to take care of you is a poor bargain; somewhere you know it, and want to avoid shame, embarrassment, and most importantly, the driving terror of punishment for error; misconstrued as ‘being wrong’.

  So electing to desensitize is just a rational choice by someone who thinks they’re stuck; knowing with certainty, we are all totally out of control.

That is not bad news! Because we can still make good decisions that affect our wishes.

Yes, we want.

Yes, we want now, and unrealistically we don't want to pay for it. But I can work on that childishness.

Also; no I don't want to be handled, or hear empty affect I'm sorry when what I am really protesting is my buying into a foolish desire to obtain special.

  There is only my perception of what that looks like, and darn if it isn’t one of the many heads on the immortal hydra of expectation.