Futility

When I got up this morning and staggered into the kitchen, I stumbled across the wires and cables from our Internet/telephone system. I had organized them well, had put some order into the chaos, had hung up the router and the other boxes so that nobody can step on them, had fixed wires and cables --- and yesterday my son (18) found out, we had forgotten to connect his PlayStation 3 and ripped it all apart. What he needs is a longer wire for the PS, but until he gets it, he improvises. Of course, in search of one, he dropped thirty other things and didn't pick them up, either.

*sigh*

This reminds me of the time when he was little. You may know how toddlers are, that within seconds they can turn a room into the chaos that was before God created the world. Or how kids stampede through your freshly cleaned house with muddy shoes only minutes after you have put away bucket and broom. In contrast to my ex, my son usually keeps his chaos to his own room and when it oozes into mine, it takes me only half an hour to make him tidy it up. Still - I am getting too old for that. I want some order. I need some order. Feng Shui says negative energies get caught up in the chaos and I have put up with negative energies for so long, I want some order. And I am getting tired of trying to re-establish some order that has been destroyed.

One could now think about how life is one great big struggle and how a lot of things are like that: you do something, you fail, you pick yourself up and brush yourself down and start all over again (to quote a song from a Fred Astaire movie). But surely, there can be one area in your life where you can relax and gather fresh energies? Only ONE !?!?!

This sense of futility, by the way, is also one I sometimes have in my job. No matter what I do, for the next 15 years I will have to explain the difference between "is" and "are". Those who have mastered this problem and a lot more, will leave and let university professors and employers profit from my efforts. They will pick the fruits from the tree that I (and my colleagues) planted and nursed and protected and told off for being late. My students don't get older than 19, but I see how I age when I look into the mirror. It is a weird world I live in and one that can make you crazy, if you think about it.

They say, kids keep you young. Sometimes they can make you feel very very old and tired,too.