Friday, August 9, 2013

I Don't Need Support, But Yes I do.

I am coming to the realization that I don't need support but maybe I do.

I am very very self actualized.

  • I drive. I remember routes and can make very fine use of Google Maps. I have a Tom-Tom sitting on my desk rarely used becuase my pathfinding skills are far better then the most excellent GPS guide can ever hope to be.
  • I handyman. I know all to well the safety hazzards of powered equipment and the necessary precautions needed to keep my own, and someone else's, limbs attached and unchanged. I've used a hammer, square, level, and knife to help construct things. In fact the new Dover building for End 68 Hours of Hunger has a roof on it that I helped put the beams in place. And I did it only 4 months after the accident when I couldn't balance myself on one foot but I could climb, safely, a scaffold and help direct a crane to place the Roof timber in place while someone else used the nail gun to lock it down.
  • I am again a computer geek. While I have not tested the full extent of my old abilities, yet, I have reset my network. A network not from Comcast or ATT or any of the other data providers as I don't have confidence in what is being offered to the general public. My network handles all the data traffic in my house and some outside my house.
  • If you visit my house you will have to ask me for the "guest" password. The guest network is not limited mind you, you can use it very well outside of my house. However signal degradation is designed to be STRONG out front of my house and beside my house. Coverage is good behind my house but only be there if permitted and invited.
  • Can't be positive what might happen to an uninvited "guest" sitting around behind me house. Anything might, my backyard has deer, coyotes, and (rumoured) a couple of black beers. Additionally the Somersworth public schools are against part of my back property so, it should go without saying, that the occasional Police Officer is yet another random creature that haunts the area. If those weren't enough, the owner of the property (and the wifi) is an indentified sufferer of PTSD Combat Veteran who doesn't need a gun, at all.
  • I am a show producer. With my creative side being unlocked from the old social/psychological restraints that once constrained it I have been working on an Audio/Visual show. I was recently (a few weeks ago) interviewed on "Don't Dis My Ability." That experience got my brain percolating, very much. Sitting there with Lee & Ali made me realize that I am as capable as I strive to be. Ron, bless his soul, showed me that there are doors I can open but only if I want to open them.

  •  I DO.
My creative side expresses itself in many ways. I'm working on my home, spent so much time building and fixing other people's homes but at the expense of time on my new (to me) home. If this is where my wife & I live.... let it be lived in! Also, I carry a Canon digital camera around with me everywhere. If something beautiful enters my view, >snap<. If something dramatic happens, >snap<. If a car driver acts without regard to law or life, >video<.
I have a really large collection of photos just from my walking around my neighborhood. I remember 13th and West Moreland (Philly) without any need for visual assistance. I am now learning my local area. Maybe not as well but then I haven't lived here as many years as I grew up in Philly.

Some of the above facets of me have started coming together into one interesting package. Using my computer skills I have started learning how to record Audio & Video from with here, at my desk. I have also started learning how to be a backroom producer massaging those tracks into one combined track. I have also learned how to use YouTube to deseminate the product. However YouTube has limits imposed on it by highly intelligent jackoffs so I am seeking YouTube alternative(s).

Blip.tv was on avenue but to register a show is so much work. Heck, even their webinterface for doing so is broken, I mean fill out everything on the form but when you go to upload a sample of your show >plink<. Their server just doesn't work and they have no mechanism to report trouble. So I am going to have to plan out something. I have an idea but it is going to take a fair bit of work.

And my mind is filled with many many many ideas. There are so many possible shows I can do, so much video I have used my Camera (And Cellphones) to record, so many things I see that just doesn't make sense - opinioning is the fair thing to call it though I see the solution(s) as plain & obvious. The show may have me acting like "Sheldon" more than just a few times but come on people stop taking the state motto so carelessly. 

I mean, as a Combat Veteran, I watch these people who I put my life on the line for so casually tossing trash out the window desecrating this wonderful country - that if stopped they will scream their defense of it. Then they will revup their engines, cutoff a line of traffic to get on the highway, and light up a cigeratte so that they have a butt to toss out of the window onto the country they will say they'd defend with their obviously unwanted lives.

Yes, I need Support. I am not crazy, not at all. How I used to handle being so different from the :Common Conventions" was my personal assistant. He would keep track of appointments, resources, and upcoming agendas. He would guide me around social situations with the care that people can be landmines. One wrong step, >boom<. The wrong >boom< can activate the entire minefield at once. And this has happened to me at Church (before his accident) or at the Lodge (after his death).

Yes, my personal assistant died. We are approacing the first year anniversary of his demise and I am finding myself struggling without him. In fact, the tears have just started flowing down my face. I never really told him how much I loved him, how much I needed him, and how much his help meant to me.

So, yeah, I do need Support. To replace my ever present notepad that would remember that I slipped my ATM card onto my driver side visor. That is before I searched for it, then cancelled it, and sat down in the drivers seat for a half an hour .... then noticing the card. Yes, I need a personal assistant with memory better than mine. 

The accident, which injured me & killed him, victimized me. If I let it my injuries could make me "walking wounded" to draw the attention of our least desirable elements. Not that they would succeed, oh no, however my PTSD as a Philly Ghetto survivor might make my responses something to be regretted. That is an interesting aspect of my PTSD.

Doctors keep wanting to go back to my military service when, in truth, my service flashbacks are totally non-violent. Yes, someone could get hurt from them but it would be me. From a heart attack when the flashback hits I go through so much fear and shock that my blood pressure goes through the roof. (I practice Tai-Chi and Yoga to help my blood pressure standards.)

My mean streak was long before the military got me at 18 yrs old. It was started as a young white boy growing up in the black ghettos of Philadelphia. I've survived so many fights and attacks that the experience will never leave me. In fact, the experience is part of what makes me seem "odd" if you meet me in person. So many people are guided by what they see that they greet me warmly without realizing one plain truth that explains why I seem so different: I might be your "skinfolk" but I am not your "kinfolk".

Now, this does not mean I am angry. Not at all. Just that I have had to learn how to interact with White Culture as an adult. However, culturally I am a black man with an annoying white skin condition.

Yeah, I maybe self actualized but am I??

Really?

(PS: The calvary link is accurate however I served in the 2nd Squadron out at Sabre Airfield. It is not on Ft. Campbell, just a touch outside of Campbell.)

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