Thursday, October 13, 2005:

I've mentioned in the past about having burned bridges. This is a fairly significant part of my life, if only because the some of the bridges that I've burned were fairly significant.

It stirkes me as funny that people always talk about burning bridges as though the act were conscious. Most of the time, the bahavior is conscious, certainly, but the concept of not being able to go back ever again is not. That's the accidental part, the unforeseen result of the behavior or decision. You call your boss a cocksucker on the way out of the building -- that's burning a bridge, but probably not intentionally.

The bridges I'm speaking of, metaphorical though they are, were quite consciously set ablaze. I may have poured kerosene and pumped the surrounding area full of fresh oxygen without thinking about it, sure... but the match was struck with full knowledge of what I was doing, and more importantly, why.

But not all parts of your life should remain accessable. And I think that a determined perspective can allow you to make good even the most accidental crossings of points of no return.

It's all about perspective, though, innit? Feelings aside, we are capable of finding a comfortable point of view for yourself. It just takes a realization that there are infinite ways of looking at things, and deciding that you don't want to take the angle that leaves you sad or angry or negative, in some way.

A really bad example, bordering on New Ageism, is that getting fired from your job leaves you unemployed. That's bad, sure, but it opens up your job for someone who needs it more. It allows your enemies to find shallow joy in your misfortune. It opens doors for you to move forward, or perhaps sideways -- but new and unexplored avenues.

It's all in how you choose to look at it.

And watching TV and movies, reading books -- you can find new perspectives in the dialogue and situation. In fact, you can't help but notice some of them, if you're open to that sort of thing.

Last night's LOST, for instance -- and finally, a sign of hope on that show! Not that I think everything's gonna turn out okay; in fact, I think the two hopeful endings in this week's episode are only setting up the survivors for a lot of pain. But you can only take the audience so far down without a breather before they start to get numb. And...

Thank god for rereading to figure out what I was saying. Hurley had a chance to overcome his fear by taking a different route away from what he percieved as a problem, by taking a different perspective. And it was a shiny happy moment, and I remember thinking that hope lives. Not in a LOST sense, but sort of a universal sense.

New Age Kenn. Available everywhere in time for Christmas.

And on Tuesday's NIP/TUCK, a show that has really gotten hard to watch this new season with a severe undercurrent of The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell, there was a discussion of having hurt someone close to you, and having to pay for it. And knowing that things can get better in time, but the waiting -- that's the hardest part. That's the punishment, waiting for things to get better. Knowing that the world will get more bearable, but having to wait while it's not, while people get past their anger at you, or their hurt, waiting for your guilt to subside.

These are things that I notice.

I find myself occasional sad that I burned a bridge or two -- the intentional ones -- because I wouldn't have been on the other side if there wasn't something there worth visiting. And I like to think that I remain abjective about the people and situations on the other side of the chasms -- perhaps not perfectly objective, but as close as any person can be, and much more so that anyone that I know. There are good things still there, on so many of those islands, but there were bad things, too, the things that I had to leave behind.

But then I remember that there were those bad things -- things that outweighed the good, that even cynically optimistic me saw and couldn't look past -- and those good things are still out there, in other people or situations. I haven't lost the good things, anymore than I've guaranteed myself riddance of the bad ones. I have, though, been able to recognize and catalog things in the world that I like and don't like, that I want in my world and don't. I've identified the things that are important to me and the things are important for avoidance.

And next time I'm faced with that situation, I'll hopefully be able to find a new perspective, a new point-of-view, a new path forward... One with a happier ending.

Even if that happier ending is just setting me up for more pain in the next episode.