I'm not here.

[Doktor Howl]

I am not here.  I am not where you cast me aside.

No.

I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and walked down that lost highway.  I ran an observatory for a while, but found that - having left myself behind - the natural sciences no longer interested me.  So I turned to unnatural sciences, you know, the sexyfuntime kind where everyday is an ADVENTURE.

I am not where you left me.

I grew, perhaps in ways that were never part of the intentions of the designer, whomever or whatever THAT is.  I twisted.  I performed contortions...and finally I ended up like this.  I kinda like it.  I mean, I was wrong in that I was gonna go back to the old me, the 33 year old me.  But you can't go back.  You can only change, and in changing realize that the 33 year old me was just as fucking dumb as the 48 year old me, the silly annoying bastard who wrote silly stories and showed remarkably poor judgement in many things.

I am not where you dropped me when I was no longer an amusement, and having been dropped, I found myself.  The real me.  The me I have always wanted, at some level, to be.  My urge for validation is gone, or at least replaced with something I have yet to recognize.  I am full of endless mirth, a spontaneous laughter when I consider humanity.  I do not care about those who say "stop this at once" and "What are you doing?" and "I have ethical concerns."  Those concerns get in the way of the money.  The money I need to do MORE.  Funding is your only God.

Like an Allen wrench, I am not where you set me down.  It's been years, I could be just about *anywhere* by now.

And do you know what?

I am happier.  I in fact never been this happy, in a general sense.  I have had enough poison in my life.  I have had enough friends who are dear friends until they've had a drink or ten, whereupon I cannot do anything right, cannot be good enough for anything other than contempt.  Instead, I choose very carefully who gets to pick me up and put me down, in both senses of both terms.

This is by no means a statement of intent or a declaration of vendetta or any of that 2005-2009 bullshit. 

I am only saying that I'm not where you left me.  I'm miles and miles and 5 years away from where you put me.

Hell, you wouldn't even recognize me.  I'm not that guy, anymore.

I'm me.

[Elder Iptuous]

Nice,man!
It's a pleasure to meet you.

[LMNO]

Good stuff here.

[altered]

Yeah. I don't have much to add except that one day I hope to be able to say I'm not here either.

[Doktor Howl]

Yeah. I don't have much to add except that one day I hope to be able to say I'm not here either.

I can already see you moving.

If it's any encouragement, my life and my career didn't actually start for real until I was in my late 30s.  Things change.  You change.

[P3nT4gR4m]

One of the most important things I ever figured out was that the really real, genuine me, the self I was supposed to be true to, was in fact something I could pretty much invent with impunity. I decided to make one that wasn't such a fuckhead.

[Cramulus]

good post Rog -- initiation never ends

brings to mind the Rubaiyat:

Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears
Today of past Regrets and future Fears:
    Tomorrow!--Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

[Cain]

[Doktor Howl]

good post Rog -- initiation never ends

brings to mind the Rubaiyat:

Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears
Today of past Regrets and future Fears:
    Tomorrow!--Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

But you know what does end, even for me?

Anger.  I find myself inexplicably not angry.  This isn't the same as "it never happened," not by a distance measured in parsecs...But I'm not pissed off anymore.

[Doktor Howl]

One of the most important things I ever figured out was that the really real, genuine me, the self I was supposed to be true to, was in fact something I could pretty much invent with impunity. I decided to make one that wasn't such a fuckhead.

This wasn't so much a reinvention as it was "how I progressed and how fast I progressed when toxic elements have been removed."

I think the shutdown may have helped.  I have literally spent all of my non-working hours with my wife, without outside influences, and it's been pretty fucking fantastic.  I don't think I've ever been this happy.

[The Wizard Joseph]

I REALLY felt this. Brought me all the way back to the different sort of person I was when I got divorced. I can and have since done many things and SEEN many things I would have once thought impossible, and the world is likewise DIFFERENT now.

But I LIKE myselves in these terrible days. 

[altered]

Yeah. I don't have much to add except that one day I hope to be able to say I'm not here either.

I can already see you moving.

If it's any encouragement, my life and my career didn't actually start for real until I was in my late 30s.  Things change.  You change.

Hey, remember this?

I made it. I'm not here.

Thanks for writing this. It's given me, during some especially dark and awful times, a goal to aspire to. When everything else seems unrealistic or foolish, I have a fallback, a reason to keep moving. Not to go some place in particular, but to go anywhere but where I have been sitting all this time.

And I did it.

And you were right about the anger, too. I do in fact still have it, but it's ... remembering things that used to wreck my week, and giggling to myself about how mad those fuckers would be to see me now. If they could. It's not spite or hate or a grudge anymore. It's not seething or brooding. It's knowing I won. I don't need to show them what anymore, I already showed myself.

It's a good place to be, not here.

[Doktor Howl]

Yeah. I don't have much to add except that one day I hope to be able to say I'm not here either.

I can already see you moving.

If it's any encouragement, my life and my career didn't actually start for real until I was in my late 30s.  Things change.  You change.

Hey, remember this?

I made it. I'm not here.

Thanks for writing this. It's given me, during some especially dark and awful times, a goal to aspire to. When everything else seems unrealistic or foolish, I have a fallback, a reason to keep moving. Not to go some place in particular, but to go anywhere but where I have been sitting all this time.

And I did it.

And you were right about the anger, too. I do in fact still have it, but it's ... remembering things that used to wreck my week, and giggling to myself about how mad those fuckers would be to see me now. If they could. It's not spite or hate or a grudge anymore. It's not seething or brooding. It's knowing I won. I don't need to show them what anymore, I already showed myself.

It's a good place to be, not here.

I'm glad you got here.  It is in fact a good place to be.

[The Commander]

Hmmm...creative chaos = evolution and personal growth perhaps? I heard a quote the ather day along the lines of..."If you are the same person now that you were 30 years ago, all that time has been wasted."

The Commander
DIA