Jim, just a short note on anchors, shackles, and tethers.

[Doktor Howl]

You know, Jim, if you don't find some way to secure yourself, you'll drift off like a derelict ship.  It's true...The currents are strong, these days, and the rocks are never very far away.  They're all covered in the wreckage of those whose anchor lines snapped, and they're so soaked in blood that the beachcombers have forgotten what it smells like.

Of course, there are various ways to secure yourself, which I'd like to briefly detail. 

1.  Anchors.  These are the people and things that keep you steady.  Maybe it's your wife or your kids, or maybe it's your job or your studies. 

2.  Shackles.  These are the things that keep you stationary in an undesirable way...the things that hold you back.  Maybe they're that friend who drags you down with him, or perhaps a job you hate but can't leave.  They still keep you off those rocks, but in a way that make the rocks look more attractive every day.

3.  Tethers.  These are like anchors, but you are also anchoring them.  This may be a friend who helps you, and receives help back, or maybe it's a devoted spouse that sticks with you, and gets back everything they give.

Note that many people or things may be in more than one catagory.  Take my case, for example...My daughter is both a shackle and a tether.  Her schooling requires that I stay in a city that I loathe, but she also looks after her old man, and of course I'd do anything for her.  Maria is both an anchor and a tether, because most of the time, she's holding my head above water, but on the few occasions she's needed me, I've been there.  Nurse Mayhem is definitely a tether, because she and I spend an awful lot of time laughing (much of which is directed at a shackle she happens to have).

My problem is that I'm running awfully low on securing devices of all kinds.  There's Keelin, Maria, and Nurse Mayhem, and that's currently about it.  Three points of contact aren't a whole lot, in fact they're the bare minimum, and you can believe me when I say that no matter how strong you are, you can't find your way without being able to see where you're going.  Without those anchors, you'll drift off into places I'd rather not describe...you may do that anyway...I know I have, but I've had those three lifelines to help me find my way back out of the nightmares and paranoia that lurk around in my skull.

I seem to remember having more, once upon a time...a friendship that went sour (the person is still my friend, but more in an acquaintance type of way) because I was a shackle to that person rather than a tether...Other friends that moved away, or died, or said things in a moment of anger that wound you so badly that you can't ever look at them the same way.  One major anchor chain snapped the other night, when my great uncle Bill died.  I'll be writing a separate piece about him, because he rates it.

Obviously the thing to do is to gain more anchors and tethers.  Pick myself up and start rebuilding my life, and maybe spend a bit more time being a tether and a little less time being a shackle.

Well, that went a little longer than I intended, Jim, but time is short, and I wanted to get that out in the open.

Okay for now,
Dok Howl

[Richter]

I wonder if Jim's ever seen "Waterworld".  Yeah, cheesy refernce to a cheesy movie, but there's a point.  They didn't have beaches, shoals, or anything, just water.  They had these "atols", rafts, boats, and anything floating lashed together to keep afloat, kind of like Salazar.  Not that we don't have beaches, ledges, rocks, and shoals out here, but I feel like we're a lot like one of those atols sometimes.  No solidity anywhere, we just drift.  Interconnected, tied off, tethered or chained together (strong to weak, weak to strong). 

I try to anchor, when needed. Strainign down, trying to reach bottom, catch in mud, sand, or rocks, I'm not certain if there's anything worth grabbing onto.  Traditional hardpoints, church, country, cause, I haven't seen any solid ground, just a lot of tangled human wreckage.  I can't tell them, "I have found security here, try it too, it works."

Keep above water, keep things moving, keep the tension on the lines right, hold fast.

[Doktor Howl]

Traditional hardpoints, church, country, cause, I haven't seen any solid ground, just a lot of tangled human wreckage.  I can't tell them, "I have found security here, try it too, it works."

Those are lies, they're not even shackles.  They're ways in which you can speed up your progress toward the rocks.  

Who tells us to honor our churches and our countries?  Yeah, the people who have a vested interest in us doing so, and they are not on our side.  They want what's best for the bottom line, not what's best for us...elsewise, why would any responsible church outlaw contraception?  Remember, kiddies, a spike in donations in 20 years is worth the whole planet in 50 years.

And those who tell us to love our country usually say that when they want us to get maimed or killed for the bottom line of no-bid contractors.

It's all a pack of lies, Richter.  All the anchors you need are already around you.  Your family, your friends, the people that love you.

[Cramulus]

-- these sound like very useful metaphors you're forging.

[Doktor Howl]

-- these sound like very useful metaphors you're forging.

Thanks.  I'm thinking of diagramming the various relationships that can be mapped this way.  Obviously, the tether (anchor <---> anchor) is the most desirable, and (shackle <---> shackle) is the least desirable.

And it's important to remember that someone can be one, two, or all three of those things to you, or vice-versa.

[Doktor Howl]

Maybe I should move this to TFYS.

[LMNO]

You just know some jackass is going to say something like, "Fuck 'em!  Batten down the hatches, damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead! I'm sailing away, set an open course for the Virgin Sea, 'cause I've got to be free... Free to face the life that's ahead of me. On board, I'm the captain, so climb aboard.  We'll search for tomorrow on every shore, and I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try to carry on.  Come sail away with me!"




LMNO
- just that kind of jackass.  However, there is something to be said for tightening up the jib and finding the north star.

[Doktor Howl]

LMNO
- just that kind of jackass.  However, there is something to be said for tightening up the jib and finding the north star.

Not until I get these leaky bilges fixed, and scrape a few tons of barnacles off the hull.

Also, doing exactly what you said is what got me in the state I'm in...of course, that's my fault for not learning how to navigate.

[LMNO]

Yeah... You eventually need to find a port, especially when it's Hurricane Season,and you're out of limes.

I was just trying to get all the metaphors out of the way, to avoid the literalists who try to take it too far.


And that Styx reference was clawing to get out.

Back to the OP... Sometimes, I can't tell a Shackle from an Anchor.  I fool myself with Free Will and Choice, and convince myself that I want to be tied up here, even though there are rats crawling up the chain, and eating me from the inside out.

[Doktor Howl]

And that Styx reference was clawing to get out.

I can hardly fault a man for wanting to expel Dennis Deyoung (sp?) from his bowels.

Back to the OP... Sometimes, I can't tell a Shackle from an Anchor. 

Most people can't, myself included, except on a case-by-case basis.  It occurred to me, however, that if I'm gonna deal with this paranoia business, I should at least lay things out logically.

[bds]

This really resonated with me, Dok, wonderful writing.

And it's true. Sometimes you can't tell a Shackle from an Anchor, happened to me once, and I didn't find out until it was too late. Took me a good few months to get myself off the rocks, that time. I like to think I keep a safe distance away from them, but occasionally something happens, and I realise how close they are. I realise just how little separates me from the poor souls all washed up, and I grab onto my Anchors a little tighter.

[Richter]

Traditional hardpoints, church, country, cause, I haven't seen any solid ground, just a lot of tangled human wreckage.  I can't tell them, "I have found security here, try it too, it works."

Those are lies, they're not even shackles.  They're ways in which you can speed up your progress toward the rocks.  

I know they are the lies Dok.  
It comes off in my head like a bad joke though. "Hold onto something!", "WHAT?!", "ANYTHING, Just HOLD ON!".  
Doesn't come off like a thing to say, and it's all that makese sense sometimes.  One bad old day, I REALLY screwed up, and one (literal) big mother of a wave was about to break over me and two folks who expected me to keep them out of shit like that.
I turned to them and said: "In the words of my forefathers...We are all going to die."  That wave hit, we came back to the surface, and all of us being NOT DEAD was the coolest thing ever.  Then the Coast Guard came, towed us out, and had a few choice words with me. (Which was fair.)      

As a model of interactions, I like it.  The possible combinations give it much more flexibility than a dualistic approach, or a straight tripartate model.  You could really go further and describe even basic interactions like this, but I think that would be getting overanalytical.    

[Muir]

This is a really good one, Dok.  It's got me thinking about a few things at least.   Like...I'm in a country with no family - except my 7 year old son. I broke up with my boyfriend a month ago, kicked him out, because I realised he was holding me back - and not in a good way.  The boyfriend I had before him was a shackle as well.  And the one before him, and on back to my first husband. (Taken me this long to finally learn my lesson)  But this time, I have more anchors and tethers than just my son.  I have two or three really good friends who are all willing to drop what they're doing just to help me when I need it.  And that's such a great feeling.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like this.

And yeah, TFY,S would be a great place for it.

[Doktor Howl]

I like this.

And yeah, TFY,S would be a great place for it.

Righteo.