not many get to do what I do. No kids, no car, nothing to do but what I want. And no engagement with people. Not a hermitage, no, worse than that; a hiding in plain sight, averting contact with other humans while appearing to engage them warmly—or even while appearing to engage them coldly. They are more likely to consider that authentic.
Solitude in moderation is a good thing; everybody wants to be alone sometimes. I am the test case of taking that to the extreme. Not pretty.
I had a dream. There was some sort of meeting I was involved in, and I knew most of the people there, but I wasn't interested. A dark-haired guy at the meeting, almost ten years younger than me, who I did not know, was making a presentation. He was not standing, lecturing, but sitting with us. He used an audio/visual adjunct to his presentation; the device appeared to be like a very large camcorder, with about a nine-inch flat panel that flipped-up to view. It appeared very dense and heavy, boxy, and I wondered if it had lots of fascinating electronic and mechanical stuff inside. But as it turns out, it was his memory, and he was showing us things from his recollection. And one of those things was me, when I was a fire fighter. The little movie showed the outside a vacant house being used for training, and it showed lots of activity, fire fighters in full gear going back and forth, dragging canvas hoses, stooping to roll them up, carrying equipment. Then it showed me. I was the only one in yellow—my helmet, my coat and my heavy insulated canvas pants. I was explaining something as I walked out the front door of the house. And I looked immense and pompous.
Stunned, I exclaimed, "That's me!" And the dark-haired guy replied softly, "Yeah, I know." And I started crying because I should know, but I had no idea who this guy was, who knew me, then and now. Apparently he had become a responsible adult, since that day which his 'memory' displayed from fifteen years ago. He had become a responsible adult, and I had become, ...something else.
He had to pull me away from the reminiscence as everyone else was leaving, like a kindergarten teacher redirecting the attention of a child.
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