The Human Factor

Hello. It’s been a few days. I am going to write until at least 9:50. Actually, It will be closer to 10:00 when I factor in the bathroom breaks and getting up to get more coffee. That’s okay. It’s fine if it becomes more than 45 minutes. That is actually a good thing. Nothing at all wrong with that.
In fact, if only I would fall into a routine of doing this daily, this would be a little bit of nothing. It would be a great thing I do every day, that I take for granted. It would be a routine. I don’t do routines unless avoiding routines is a routine. But I need to break that routine to replace it with this one. Because this is my “ticket out of here.”

“Out of where?” you ask.

Out of here. Here is where I am stuck. I depend on my tiny social security check, which will remain tiny, and I depend on my Medicaid, which will become Medicare, shortly, and I depend upon my government subsidized apartment. I’ve always believed that government assistance is for people that need it. It should be available to those who need it. It should be saved for those who need it. And those of us who can rise above this and take care of themselves, should. That includes me. I am going to write for a living. I can and I will.

It’s snowing outside. I’m inside so I am enjoying it. That sounds selfish. It is selfish. Every human has his frailties. Mine is, among other things, self-centeredness. I think the tendency to fall into routines and take them for granted is in us. We are made that way.

An EMT saves lives. If it’s something that particularly stands out to him, he may remember it. But saving lives is typical to him. It happens because he went to work today. For someone who plays a different role, it is amazing. For an accountant or a gas station attendant, it’s a once in a lifetime high point. But to the EMT, it’s Wednesday.

It actually would be pretty amazing to feel that way. I don’t know what it’s like to do anything like that and actually feel like it’s just another day. It must be amazing. And if it happened to me, I would be the last one to know. The EMT can’t be amazed at what he does. If he was, he would be so full of himself that he couldn’t function properly.

I have always been afraid to be wonderful, for fear of being so wonderful that I think I’m better than everybody else. But, even an EMT is only human. Even though he gets to be a hero on a regular basis, there is always something to keep him humble. Maybe he isn’t quite as intelligent as a lot of people. Maybe he is, but eats too much. Or maybe not, but has an adrenaline addiction that causes him to jump off cliffs and see how close he can come to the earth before he must pull the cord. He may be addicted to caffeine, nicotine, alcohol…regardless of what he can accomplish, there is the human factor. There is something wrong with everybody.

Maybe I am fortunate for having been less than wonderful. Whether I could avoid being too conceited about it, if it didn’t manifest itself in one way, it would be another. I’ve realized before this, that if I wasn’t this, I’d be something else. What if I were an alcoholic, a drug addict, someone with a violent temper? What if I had done something that landed me in prison? Or maybe I would be perfect in every way except I would be convinced that “greater common good” means that “I’m greater, everybody else is common, and that’s good.”

Instead, I have the attention span of a mosquito. I think, for the first time ever, I’m glad of that. That doesn’t mean I can’t be better now. I just need to remember that things, thus far, have happened the way they should have. I have begotten Jamey, who has begotten Gracie, and they are both a part of my life, along with all the ones I haven’t begotten. They are all a part of my life that I wouldn’t be without, given a choice. My life is what it is. And it will be what it will be. It’s all by the grace of God.

It could be better in some ways, but it would be worse in others. I’d rather be my kind of bad than some other kinds that exist.

By the way, I didn’t get it published at 9:50 or 10:00 or noon. But I did get most of it written by noon, and proofread it and got it up by 3:25.