I probably stole this from somewhere but as it concerns pessimists and optimists, pessimists truly appreciate good fortune because they understand its rarity and value. They don't expect good things to come of everything they do, not because they don't want good things but because they realize the world isn't Candyland.
I'm stressed because my old boss can't find a place to live and his family is miserable and cramped and uncertain. I don't know what in me wants everyone to land softly, to feel no pain, to have someone make their lives easier. Maybe I am putting into the world what I hope to get back. Maybe that's just one of my needs, to be needed, to care for something, to facilitate. I just want everything to work out and I kind of want to be a hero if I'm unflatteringly honest. I want to be someone's hero. I want them to admire and respect me, to see me as capable. That is my fuel. The assist is my calling card, acknowledgement is my reward. I need a place to live too but I would honestly rather spend my time looking for a home for my old boss' family.
I've thought about this before, this need of mine, examining it as evidence of lack of self worth or something else sad and dark. I'm not ruling it out but I don't think it is that deep. I think I just don't care about most things. But I care about some people and if I care about you, I care about everything. If I think I can help you, I really want to help. It makes me feel good to think about you having one less thing to worry about. But there's also something about my boss that makes him different. He's ridiculously disorganized. I'm not sure if he thrives on chaos or like a shark must keep moving or he'll die but I have a hard time even imagining him sitting down without doing something else at the same time. And his attention to detail on something like finding a home-he just doesn't organize himself in the same way I would. I found working with him that it was better if I handled the details. He just didn't think most of them were important. And he is frankly smart enough to usually pull out of the face plant his oversight causes. But over time it becomes a drag on progress, a death by a thousand cuts situation. Though I didn't realize when I started writing this, I hate watching people suffer at their own hand. I hate watching Ashley piss away her time. I hate seeing anyone make their lives harder. Life is hard, why not make it easier where it can be?
I've been dabbling a little in string theory (note: most pretentious and ridiculous sentence ever written). I understand none of it and actually looked it up purely for mocking someone else who claimed to dabble in it. But I like the concept, to the extent I understand it and have started using it in a literary way to describe that which tethers us to one another. The theory was developed to mathematically explain gravity which doesn't behave mathematically like any of the other elements/forces from the standard model of particle physics (string theorists, physics majors, anyone else, jump in here if I'm already way off). String theory seeks to address this and provide the math to explain everything. Not sure why I had to explain that but it's done now and I don't feel like hitting backspace.
What I like about string theory is the strings. Instead of electrons and atoms bouncing all over the place, there is some unifying force holding it all together, connecting it all. Beyond the very complicated math and theory, it sounds very hippie, very metaphysical, and I can see how a pizza delivery guy can claim to dabble in it. When I have a really bad day and find out a close friend was hurting as well, I feel like our difficulty resonates on the strings that tie us to one another. Maybe string theory will one day explain how a mood can color a room. Maybe bad moods have a gravity that overwhelms the short powerful wavelengths of happiness. Maybe I like learning new words and concepts just enough to use them in sentences that only make sense to people who know even less than me about string theory, and maybe not even them.
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