The In Between Is Mine

I still remember when "I Am Mine" first came out. The first Pearl Jam single in years (if you don't count "Light Years" - which most radio didn't, it seemed), it blossomed on the airwaves like a virus out of control. I instantly took to the song, not just because I was a Pearl Jam fan (read: obsessive maniac fan), but because the song had meaning.

"I know I was born and I know that I'll die. The in between is mine."

Today, I am reminded by the hopeful caution in the song. Winter is a time, frankly, for death. The cycle of life winds down, returning things to the earth so they can decompose and become fertilizer for the new growth to come. Likewise, for me, winter is a time of reflection, where, perhaps, parts of me die, where memories of the past year pass on and break down to become something else in the new year.

It is a process. Sometimes it is a painful one, sometimes a pleasant one, but always it is a mindful one. I can look back on this past year and count many, many things that changed and altered the course of my life, in some small or large way. New friends, new loves, new jobs, old friends, old loves, old problems. New opportunities. Blown saves.

The saddest part of my reflection time this year is seeing how much I lost hope in people this year - and despite some pretty positive evidence to the contrary. Friends helping friends out - be it a drive to the root canal/hellbringing dentist, or a hand on a hammer, helping to build something big for us small town poets. I have some great friends and family, and truthfully, they are not the problem.

It's everyone else. I've always seen other people as inherently good. I don't believe man is so fatalistically flawed (as some would have you believe) that he is solely evil (and can only reach goodness through the bridge of an intermediate deity). I believe in the good of humanity.

Maybe that is why this year was so hard - seeing so often that goodness shook off, in order for someone to make poor decisions and bad, evil choices. And it isn't just things that inconvenience me - yes, people who run stop signs in front of me really piss me off, but that's a small thing.

Last night I wrote a devestating song - sad bastard music, as Barry would say. But, you know... I thought about how one friend is sad that his girlfriend didn't even have the heart to tell him she didn't want to see him anymore. She just stopped calling, wouldn't answer, either. I thought of another friend, on the verge of what might be a messy divorce. I thought of yet another friend, and the deceit and hurt he had been through, culminating in a divorce.

In his pursuit of selfish desires and pleasures, man burns and destroys all around him. Bridges, doors, keys, rooms, all burnt to ashes. Look at what you have wrought. The hell your actions unleash so you can... what? Get a little satisfaction? Leave that to Jagger and the Stones.

It is about time that human beings started acting like human beings again. I am reminded once more of Emmanuel Levinas, my favorite philospher, and his notion of encountering humanity in a person's eyes. A need that screams out - see me, feel me - recognize my humanity.

See me, feel me. Touch me, heal me.

It's about time we looked in the mirror, and remembered what it was like to be human. And then go out and be it. Human.