House of Cards....

I was talking with my buddy J this morning over coffee, and we have seemed to evolve our friendship into a mini men's group in which we are safe to share some of the misgivings about life and romance in Thailand. Even though our circumstances are quite different, at heart they are the same, and it's good to have a mirror and sympathetic friend to process with. We both are East Coast guys with a certain way of looking at the world, that mix of intelligence and cynicism (and vocabulary) that is refreshing to encounter over here. So yeah, there is a type of gravity that brings us together every few days to check in, commiserate and support one another. In short, a friend.

And we had a brief visit today, but it seemed to spark a thought that I'll try to express on the blog. I started expressing it to him, and realized that I had happened upon a thought that I hadn't expressed much in this forum, so here goes. It's that here in Thailand, it's as if we are living atop a Jenga stack, where at any moment, a stick can be pulled out and it all crashes to the ground. It's the house of cards, baby, one false step and we're flat down on the table.

Thing is, our minds have a hard time accepting that reality; it doesn't quite jibe with our desire of order, predictability, 'as ye sow, so shall ye reap' indoctrination. I think that we're brought up in the west to see the world as something we can control, we can manage, put our stamp on, get what we deserve, our just desserts, if you will. (I'll 'just' have the sorbet, he tried weakly). Where was I? It's the way we're raised, to believe that we have quite a bit of control over outcomes.... so that when things don't go as expected, when 'bad things happen to good people', it's seen as some kind of anomaly and it shakes the foundation. But I eat right, I exercise, how did I get this heart attack, it's not fair.

I'll wager that a large percentage of clergy time is spent wrestling with this very question. 'How could this happen? Doesn't God love me? We don't deserve this' (as if we deserve a universe in which our actions are some kind of insurance against calamity. Ah, it would be nice to think so, and yeah, we do think so, but perhaps at our psychological peril.

Maybe that idea of order and 'deserving' is some kind of myth, one that keeps us in line, keeps our nose to the grindstone, keeps us inside the box, fearful of upsetting the apple cart. It's what I rebelled against from an early age, the idea that you have to get good grades to get into a good school to get a good job to make a lot of money to make it to retirement etc etc. My brother Mick came across a Social Studies test that I failed in high school in which I laid out that scenario, with a few 'F bombs' thrown in, I hadn't prepared for the test and was sitting there in Miss Parmet's class, surrounded by everyone else feverishly writing about US foreign policy, while I worked up a righteous rage about the idiocy of getting good grades to get a good GPA to get into a good school on and on, that ended with 'TO MAKE A LOT OF FUCKING MONEY! I followed up with 'It makes me sick' Of course I got the F, along with a visit next morning from the guidance counselor who asked me if everything was all right. And cheeky me, I asked if he liked what I wrote... (early blogging I suppose:-)

And the reason that I'm on this topic today is that Farang life over here is so transitory, so wind-tossed, so unpredictable that all of our desire for stability, just desserts and the like is almost laughable. For one thing, we're here at the whim of the Thai government, they could pull the visas at any time, strike one. We get involved in these relationships with women from a different culture, and though we want it to be like we want it to be, uh brother, good luck with that. There is a nearly constant battle between what we want as opposed to a more objective appraisal of what is going down. In my case, that manifested in a crazy period of back and forth, I'm here, I'm gone, I'm here, I'm gone until I got sick of writing about it. It gets embarassing after awhile. strike two.

And the sex is great, and when it's great my mind creates some kind of a world in which that's the reality, and the most important thing and life is good and let's keep it going. It's as though something chemical happens (and I'm sure that it does) which makes the mind create a picture with a future and rainbows and sunsets over the water. I deserve this, right? And then when stuff happens that doesn't correspond to the rose colored universe, it's suddenly shaky and dangerous and 'what the hell am I doing here?'. strike two and a half... (aha, I'm not ready to strike out yet :-)

Dylan had that line in 'Forever Young' which I always related to. 'May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift' We're not in control, we have some control over our selves, but only within the context of a shifting universe. I think I get it, I think I understand it and know how to ride the winds. It's not easy or without emotional peril. And it seems like a realistic way to be here and now. I give love, I receive love, I pay attention, hope for the best, but keep one eye open, keep my passport close at hand. Staying light, ready to balance on that jenga stack in the wind.