Stuff to See!

Means Justifying Ends

It's almost over now.
Autumn has come. Baseball in Baltimore is reaching its end. Kids are back in school, and traffic has returned to its normal crawling pace as I leave every weekday from work.
As I drive around town, or walk around town, or simply prosecute the activities of daily living, I can see a number of recent personal trends come toward their end.
My Transformer collecting frenzy (ha ha) should be winding down, since there are at most two or three more pieces that I have strong desire for (one of which, Predaking, should be released by year's end). Since the others I know of tend to fetch triple-digit figures on the secondary market, I tend to believe that those purchases will be among my last. Sure, maybe here or there I might see a figure I fancy (such was how this sick streak began nearly five years ago), but I can't imagine that much more will be coming down the pike from a collector's point of view.
I've already pretty much sworn off baseball for the rest of the year (unless tickets fall into my lap somehow, which could happen). Having been to 13 games this year, I've seen plenty. I might conceivably see the Red Sox if Schilling happens to pitch this week, though. We'll see.
But my thoughts of late have turned to other things, other random things, and some not so random. Like getting my new laptop to connect to the internet, or perhaps getting published again (this time in something people may read). Acts of seduction, politics (my pedigree is no good for this country), and other things so far beyond the pale that I hesitate to put them into words for fear they may actually happen. It might be fun, but it would probably turn out to be an evil memory.
Like Hurricane Lucifer, for instance. Sure, there will never be an official hurricane named Lucifer, but the tag can stick for the weather problems experienced in Florida and other points south this year. A damn shame, but being hit by three hurricanes is better than three nukes, I would imagine.
*Counting*...28 Transformers this month. That's a bit much and may very well be a record. Considering the recent impetus occurred a little over two years ago, and I've spent around, or maybe above, $1,000 since then on toys alone, I begin to wonder what things would have been like had I actually been dating? I think I'm happier as things are, but who's to say that I couldn't find a partner in my demented collecting.
Although a girl did buy me a toy for Christmas once.
But I'm not getting younger, despite my whole-hearted attempt to reach back through twenty years to reclaim my childhood days. I look at myself in the mirror and know that by some alchemy I am now a man with a man's responsibilities. Time continues to march on.
How inconceivable this was even ten years ago, when I was busy doing as little as possible to earn good grades in college so I could keep my scholarship, all the while trying to decide whether I should start dating or continue to romp and frolic in the world with a few good men? I chose the latter, although the former found me soon enough.
To think, for nearly seven years I played the game of love, never being sure of the rules, becoming sure, only to find them all the more inscrutable. No wonder I gave up on it, only paying lip service here and there to prove to others that I still cared to pass the time in a somewhat normal lust-crazed fashion.
At this point, I doubt I'll find the patience to put aside my love of solitude to measure up almost good enough for the girl next door. At the same time, I'm conscious of the fact that I will no longer live forever and that it may be well to pass along my genetic heritage and experience to someone who will likely prove to be just as messed up in the head as I am, if not worse. For the moment, I'm doing pretty well, although I could be doing a hell of lot better with just a small admixture of discipline, financial and otherwise.
In my dreams, even waking dreams, I find myself utterly alone, without any connections to my fellow man. Family, friends, people I've known for years, even for life, gone. To truly strike out on my own, to cut the last cords of fellowship, is attractive to me. To begin anew in a far away place, where no one will expect me to say the requisite oddball if insightful thing, to be free of the expectations of the very few people who know me well, only to find others who will expect less because they see so much less, living up to a different paradigm, more restrictive and therefore less real. I want it so bad sometimes that I can taste it, so to speak. Under the right circumstances, I may yet do such a thing. However, I've seen enough and read enough of history and literature to know that such hopes are dreams in a very real sense, in that they never happen. To feel the way I do sometimes, to have such thoughts as the ones above, is really to have an eye on escaping not your external situation but yourself. As the old saying goes, no matter where you go, there you are, barring some unlikely amnesia. It doesn't work. Anyone who is successful at eradicating all links to the past is doomed to pursuing a shell of a life, with any future experiences robbed of their richness by a refusal to acknowledge the relevance that can only come from an understanding to the past. To escape completely is to fail. Failure to escape can only bring remorse. But in the end, perhaps happiness can only come to those who fail to see the truth for what it is.
Aristotle would say that the ultimate end for man is happiness. Fame, fortune, success, love, these things only matter to the extent that they promote the inexorable drive to happiness. I've experienced some fleeting moments, even some sustained stretches, of most of those things, and yet there has always been something missing. Moments of true happiness in my life, such as I can identify them, have been few and far between, and transient. Maybe my definitions are too stringent, for I've had my share of joy, my share of fun, certainly enough that I can't say with any honesty that I've had a horrible life. Far from it, really. But I fail to see the point, no matter if I attain universal fame along the lines of Shakespeare, or I become little more than food for the continuing life of this planet. I find it hard to reckon any further back than three generations of my family's existence. Genealogy has never been a great interest in my life, although I will admit that 85 percent of what I am I owe to the combination of nature and nurture from my loving family. The other 15 percent is enough to make me feel ill at ease among any of my relations, although I do care deeply for them. That's life.
Looking at the upcoming postseason in baseball, I find myself believing that the Minnesota Twins will go far, perhaps all the way to the World Series. I'm not sure anyone in the National League will be able to hang with St Louis, but I just have the feeling that this is Minnesota's year. Perhaps you heard it here first. If not, at least I can claim to put it out there. Sure, Boston has more weapons on pitching and at bat, and the Yankees have a great offense, and Oakland/Anaheim are decent teams as well, but Minnesota will roll. Perhaps all the way to the world championship. We shall see.