Pen-Elayne on the Web

Next Stop, Heaven?

I've been talking on message boards today about perspective. Answering a poster who asked, in defending the comics 'fanboy' mentality, "why is it, these days, that if anyone shows any real, intense interest in a subject, they need to 'get a life'?" I responded, "Because it indicates obsession and misplaced priorities, rather than balance and moderation, and most people believe a life that contains balance and moderation is more varied, interesting and healthy." I went on to say that I felt it applied in a lot of circumstances, not just fandom. And I know whereof I speak. It's a nasty world out there - maybe it always has been, but I feel like the last 23 years in particular have been meaner to ordinary folks around the world - and I'm relatively privileged to be able to afford food and shelter and have some disposable income left over much of the time. Things could be so much worse. And yet, I obsess over the idiots who live upstairs. Even knowing they're presumably gone by month's end and it will get worse before it gets better, I'm still unable to ride out this interim period with any sense of perspective. I'm constantly wearing earplugs and fleeing whatever room they're stomping above; I'm unable to relax even during the breaks from moving furniture and throwing or dropping things on their floor because I'm so busy anticipating the next interruption; I've stopped doing most home-oriented activities from cleaning to exercising because I'm just so tense and disoriented much of the time. That, my friends, is obsession. I've no doubt I'll return to normal when these rude, thoughtless people are finally gone, just as I did after we moved out of a similar situation in Bensonhurst (the rude and noisy ones there being our landlord's family who lived downstairs), but when you're living through a particularly discomfiting moment it's hard to remind yourself "this too shall pass."