Years ago, back in the 1990s, I had an insight regarding the source of many emotions that I feel, that perhaps the emotions were not coming from inside me but from outside of me, that is, from other people. I came to think of myself as perhaps some kind of psychic radio receiver that get tuned into the strong emotions out there in the world, and this can result in a confused stressful situation.
I reflect on this idea quite often today, wondering if it is indeed true, and also if this makes me normal or in any way different from most people. It is a difficult issue to consider especially lately because the nature of being "connected" to others has radically changed over the last thirty years.
I used to think of it only in terms of physical proximity to others. Now we can be connected to literally the entire world online. I think about the world-size ocean of thoughts and emotions that are now at our fingertips, twenty-fours a day.
To say this is unnatural is obvious. Yet this is where we are in the world right now. It behooves us to disconnect from certain media for our mental health. It also behooves us to stay connected for the sake of our jobs and our professions, and to keep in contact with people we love.
The only solace I feel lately from the storm of maddening emotions I feel from being connected is in the personal. When I get private messages of any kind lately, it makes my day. Last night after my show, can a text from someone I met in Nashville in 2002, who has even been on my show with another guest he helped arrange last year. My show last night was about the very topic we had discussed a year ago (the JFK assassination, as it happens). I was speculating on my show about
If it's from old friends, it can make my week. Heck, with some old intimate friends, it can make my year.
After prayers this morning, I followed the habit of checking my cellphone for messages and one from an old friend---James--whom I used to live with in Austin, and whom I have known since we were in junior high school in Fort Collins. I last saw him a year ago in Pasadena for the funeral of his father, who was very dear to me as well.
Like many men, we had a friendship that based on a lot of inside references about such things as sports. We hardly communicated at all for years after. left Austin, and at one point it seemed like our friendship would fade out completely. He's the kind of friend I have to go visit in person if I want to have a meaningful connection. I've long known that about him and other people who are dear to me. I have to go to them, or I am liable to never hear from them again. Even I were to call, text or send an email, it would typically be a "hit-and-run". Hi, how's it going? Great! ok talk to you again in a couple years maybe. Most people are up for maybe one back-and-forth with text or email every couple years that way.
For the past five years or so, I have made a habit of texting James at the beginning of the Super Bowl querying him about his opinion on the game. I will usually phrase it in such as way as to include old inside references that only he and I would fully understand. I love this kind of hyper-personalized communication with my friends. It's a form of play that delight in, when the other person is up to it.
This year I did much the same, and we had a brief back-and-forth during the game. Five years ago I might expect to wait another year for the opportunity, but the last couple years he has begun texting me spontaneously during the college football season because he bought season tickets to the Longhorns, and he sends me cell phone pictures of the game in progress.
It's such a delight and pleasure to receive this and I always text back very quickly. I am the most loyal friend in the world that way.
This morning it was he who initiated a conversation with me. It was about sports but only tangentially. He was talking about watching an international hockey tournament on television. He used to watch hockey a bit but said he hadn't done so in years. Seeing the tournament reminded him of how we used to play a hockey video game he owned back when we lived together in Austin on Emilie Lane. That was in the 1990s. Then, of all things, he also mentioned us watching Australian Rules Football together on cable back when we hung out in a "college house" where friends were living on Remington Street in Fort Collins, back in the early 1980s. It must have been 1983, the summer after I graduated. I spent so much time hanging out in the house.
His girlfriend, a classmate of mine, had moved in there, as maybe the tenth person I knew who lived in that house in the early Eighties. James and I didn't even know what Australian Rules Football was and were trying to figure out the rules by watching it.
This reference to Remington threw me for a loop. That's the kind of recollection that I have constantly but I rarely bring up, because forcing too much reminiscing with friends is usually a turn off. I keep my treasure chest of memories mostly for myself and bring them out to share them with others usually only when I think the other person would welcome it.
Ironically, he knew Ken, whom I was just writing about. Ken would have been in that house at times too, although he never lived there as far as I recall. If I asked him, James would probably have memories of Ken to share.
Also, James and I had known each other for four years by 1983, but we had also been a theater production together, early that year at high school in my last semester. We only had a few lines together, but he is one of the friends I mentioned whom I can prompt into spontaneous dialogue.
Of course I think about Remington House from time to time, but memories that come only to oneself have a limited ability to bring joy, even if they were pleasant times. Ones shared with other people, especially if offered by the other person, are a thousand times more joyful.
For the moment I haven't replied to him. The fact that I get to reply to him is a gift I want to savor for a few hours. By the way, if any of my other old friends are reading this, who once read my blog and are dropping by again, my number is 503.888.9382. Make sure to make up a playful identity, perhaps one that tells me who it is, or maybe not, and I will play along.
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