Chasing "Normal"

Have you ever seen the movie "Chasing Amy"?  The main character, Holden (who is heterosexual) falls in love with Alyssa (who is homosexual, at least at the time), and they begin a romance.  Holden later discovers that he is not the first man Alyssa has ever been sexually involved with, and that her past is littered with some fairly raunchy experimentation.  Angrily, he ends the relationship with her.  Later he is counseled by a friend with the following story and advice: the friend had a love interest named Amy, whom he broke up with after discovering unflattering personal details about, but once he realized that everyone makes mistakes and he was truly in love with her, she had moved on and he was left out in the cold; from that point on, he could never forget her or forgive himself for his impetuous mistake, and in a sense he'd been "chasing Amy" ever since in his heart.  To save himself the grief, Holden should hold on to what he has, or else he'll be "chasing Amy" (or Alyssa, in this case) for the remainder of his days.

"Chasing Amy" is the obsessive, never-ending pursuit of that thing you lost or almost had or wished you'd had, that you presently think you can't live (or at least can't find fulfillment in living) without.  Usually "Amy" is no longer accessible or achievable, but "substitute Amy's" are usually the target of our passions, pursuits, goals, and the unspoken purpose of our style of relating to others. 

I have my own "Amy" I've been chasing most of my life, at least ever since I was aware enough of what I wanted but didn't have and thought I couldn't live without:  I'm chasing "normal."  Normal to me has always been to have a steady job with no more than two to three different employers for your entire work career, and to always have been steadily working up in terms of responsibility and authority; to buy a house shortly after marriage, and continually move up the "housing ladder" by expanding the size and square footage of home as income swells; to have a plenteous supply of adoring friends and well-wishers (so that that final grand sized home is filled to capacity with celebrants at your retirement party); to live happy, healthy lives all the way to the grave, with only momentary inconvenient pauses for bouts of ill health, anomalies at most; to pay each and every bill on time or ahead of time, to have a credit report that sings your utmost praises, and a bank account to add further credence to such lauding; and whatever "et cetera" you may want to add to the list of things that your American Dream defines as "normal".

I'm confronted daily with the fact I'm nowhere near "normal" by my own standard!  I have a host of varying and interesting jobs on my resume, each one contributing in its own way to who I am today in my eclectic conglomeration of knowledge, skill, ability and professionalism;  but it's far from the perfect linearly upward ascent I'd always thought of as "normal."  Professionally, I like who I am and how my experiences have given me much to think about as I apply my craft in the marketplace, but at age 46 it's getting harder and harder to sell that vision in an interview situation.   I owned a home from 1993 to 2004, but I've been an apartment dweller with my family ever since leaving the Toledo home to go to graduate school, and we've been longing to get back into a house ever since.  Lack of home ownership is certainly not for the lack of trying, but the opportunities have been elusive in the last few years, and we've (meaning me, my wife and two sons) been slammed with numerous disappointments and heartbreaks as several opportunities fell through for houses we thought we'd be able to buy.  My wife suffers from a debilitating medical condition that is genetic in origin, and thus not treatable or curable.  This has totally changed our habits of recreating, socializing and even worshiping. 

The question that confronts me these days is whether "chasing normal" is truly going to get me nearer to that happy state of normalcy (as I've defined it) or is it going to make me more miserable in the pursuit, and less content in the having, if I ever get there at all?  I suspect the latter.  Chasing "normal" also undermines one of my fundamental beliefs as a Christian: God uses all things to bring glory to Himself, and for my greater good. Whatever mistakes I've made in my career and relationships are unfortunate, but redeemable; whatever hellish circumstances I'm going through at the moment are tragic and something to be grieved for being far less than the Garden of Eden I was originally designed for (imago dei), but they're also useful in the Master's hand and redeemable for the greater glory of God and good for me and those I influence.

What I chase is ultimately what I worship, and I'm built to worship...built to "chase."  I wasn't built to "chase normal" in the way I've been taught and molded (and, in reality, chose) to define normal; I've been made to follow in the steps of the Old Testament love poem, "Song of Solomon", shouting to God Himself,

"Draw me after You, and let us run together...(I) will rejoice in You and be glad!"
- Song of Solomon 1:4

What are blogs for?

It used to be that if anyone wanted attention or acclaim for their skills at communicating thought with prose, he wrote a book.  Not everyone's writing is necessarily appreciated in his own time, so some have gone to lengths to personally fund the publishing of their own written work, in the hopes that the investment will lead to exposure, and exposure to readership, and readership to word-of-mouth recommendations, which will lead to more book sales, more exposure, etc.   Henry David Thoreau comes to mind when I think about that strategy.  His work was by and large ignored by readers of his day, and his published works were financed out of his own coffers, and he died with most of them still unsold.  Today a Thoreau first printing of Walden sells for around $40K at some rare book stores or at Christies auction, but what good does that do him now?

Today, we can muse about our thoughts and achieve world-wide distribution with no effort more tedious than a keystroke!  Blogging!  The poor man's way to fame (if he can promote himself enough) and fortune (if he can get enough of a following, followed by enough advertising space sold on his blog).  Blogging is the "YouTube" of the literary world, in which no publisher can poo-poo your work and deny you access to their presses.

Blogging...another form of exhibitionism?  Are there some who use blogging to reveal their thoughts and musings, in the hope that someone gives a damn?  I was reading the blog of a prominent Christian psychologist recently, and there was a response posting by a counselor, who listed his own blogsite along with his post (a form of piggybacking for promotion).  So, out of curiosity, I went to this other fellow's blogsite, and perused at a skimming pace some of his work.  It stuck out to me that at the bottom of each and every one of his posts was "Comments: 0"  He had numerous posts; it was obvious he was passionate and informed about what he wrote about, but no one else seemed inspired or moved sufficiently by his writing to even have a thought to post as a comment...and I hurt for him.  He was pouring out his mind and soul in prose, and seemingly having no impact on his reading audience (assuming he has one) whatsoever.

Men who prowl the streets in nothing more than trench coats, who leap out of dark alleys to frighten unsuspecting victims with a quick flash from an open trench coat before they flee back into the anonymity of the darkness, all seem to express later in therapy that they want one thing: a shocked look, provoked by the sight of their naked male form.  They want impact, and knowing no more well-socialized means of achieving impact, they settle for an anti-social, but proven effective, means of "taking" impact from someone they may assume otherwise would look right past them on the street if they were fully clothed.

Blogging for some (maybe even for me?) can be an attempt to impact the world from behind the safety of the screen and keyboard...our own dark alley into which we can escape and remain safely distant from those we hope will be impacted by our writing, our quick parting of our literary trench coats so that you can see the form of our thoughts and feelings.  Deep inside of us, God put a longing for impact, to do the things or be the persons who are responded to by others in ways that evidence that we've mattered for good.  If not for good, we've learned to settle for....something less noble, if not necessarily describable with precision.  Perhaps the predatory exhibitionist most deeply wants to use the strength of his masculinity to do good in the lives of others, who warmly welcome his entry into their lives and celebrate his having been present and potent for good to them.  When what he longs for most isn't offered, or opportunities seem few and far between, or to have this impact seems too remote, he settles for at least some impact over none at all.  He forces his masculinity, or at least the only prominent evidence he can summon, upon an unsuspecting victim, and demands evidence that he's had impact: a shocked look, a scream, even a pointing finger and an look of disgust is evidence that he's been successful at provocation.

But what about the counselor who pours out his thoughts and research and deepest musings onto his blog, and no one reads, writes or responds?  I suspect that receiving this kind of response over a lengthy period of time would become a bit depressing.  Is he really having no impact whatsoever on others because no one responds to his blog?  Or has he constricted the forms of impact he might have to merely via the Internet, and abandoned the other more natural forms of human intercourse (no pun intended) in favor of lurking in the shadows of his electronic alley? 

We blog for impact, but if this is the sole source of satisfying impact we expect to have, the more desperate we will become for exposure and reassurance that this strategy will work.  Woe to those who despair over their blogging having no impact...woe even more to those who succeed at it and achieve their wildest dreams of followership, accolades and praise, and even financial success from blogging; because then, who needs the real world and faulty human relationships any longer when the cyber world is paying off so nicely?