In my writing, I've always been very hesitant to write personally about myself. I suppose this is because I'm actually a pretty shy person and in writing, just like in my general life, I'm very hesitant to reveal much about myself. I think this is one reason I have written much more imaginitive fiction than essay type writing. When you're using your imagination, you don't have to let people know you. You can divert all attention to a completely different place. I suspect that my extreme reluctance to open myself up to others has prevented me from accomplishing many things in my life. It is hard to pinpoint at this place and time exactly what those things might be, but I do believe there are many.
Therefore, it is my goal in this forum to move past this demon of mine and write with great frankness and honesty about myself. Let's see if can do this...
On Thanksgiving Day, I drove to Camilla from Valdosta to have Thanksgiving Dinner with my family at my dad's house. My step-mom had cooked the usual spread and those in attendence were my sister, Michelle, her two children: Abigail and Meredith who are three years old and one respectively, her husband, Brandon, my dad and Michelle. So it was a fairly slim crowd. My step-brother Michael had apparently bolted to Miami of all places to visit a friend for the day and my step-sister, Leigh, was also MIA. Rumor had it she was visiting her husband's family in St. Simon's. I was slightly bummed by the absence of these individuals, especially Leigh since she and I tend to yuck it up a bit when we're together. I could write a bit more about she and I but think I will save that for another day. Also, Maria, my girlfriend, didn't come with me due to needing to spend the day with her own family. My uncle, my dad's brother, Super Bob, as I've always called him was also absent. He and my dad have a long-standing feud over various issues that is mostly perpetuated by my uncle who tends to carry on a solitude and somewhat paranoid existence. He is also perhaps the subject of another day. All of these missing individuals seemed to suck the energy out of the holiday for me although my dad seemed really happy to see me which made me feel good. Also, it is neat seeing him behave so affectionately towards his two grand-children. It makes me wonder where that side of him was when I was growing up.
My step-mom is a very good cook, but she did not make congealed salad for the meal which to me, was disappointing. The conversation was very low-key. The only thing that stands out in my mind was when I asked my dad if he wanted a swimsuit calendar for Christmas this year as has been my custom to get him ever since I was about twelve years old. Before he could answer, Miss Joy, my step-mom, said that I should not give him a swimsuit calendar because it was embarrassing to her to live with a sixty-two year old man who still took pleasure in hanging a calendar featuring scantily clad young women in his study. My dad suggested to me that Miss Joy didn't need to be studied and that I continue our family tradition. He also requested a bottle of Crown Royal as a gift so that he might apply it to his holiday glass of egg nog. Miss Joy offered a general snort of disgust but made no further comment on the subject. I should interject at this point that my dad and step-mom are not actually married. They were married for ten years before Miss Joy moved out without ceremony a few days before Christmas some years ago and were divorced afterward. However, to the best of my knowledge, they never truly broke up in spite of this, but have also never formally retied the knot either...to the best of my knowledge at least. My dad is not always forthcoming with this type of information.
After the meal and a couple of hours of vegetating in front of the television, my dad announced it was time to drive his cows off the rye field where they had been grazing throughout the day. He brought Sam, his beloved Golden Retriever, and a reluctant Abigail with him to complete this task. I also went. Sam was happy to encounter a human approximately his own height and attempted to lick her enthusiastically. Abigail was not at all pleased by the dog's atttentions nor the very prevalent cow patties at her feet that threatened to soil her pink Dora the Explorer shoes. She cried and complained throughout the ordeal, forcing my dad to carry her most of the way. Amused by the scene, I took pictures of cow patties with my cell phone and sent them to Maria, sure that she would appreciate it as an artistic gesture.
After the cows were successfully run off the rye field, we went back in the house and resumed a vegetative state for awhile. I am always a bit miffed when I go home to my parents' house on weekends because none of them care to watch sports on TV. I've always considered it a part of my Thanksgiving Day tradition to watch pro football after lunch. But there was no way that was going to happen this year as Miss Joy forbids sports to be watched on her tevelevision. I think there was some sort of Lifetime Channel movie on that was less than captivating to me, so I read a book and eventually dozed off. My dad was sitting in a chair beside me and also snoozing even as my one-year old niece, Meredith ran in frantic circles around the living room for no apparent reason.
Eventually, my sister's family went back home and I began thinking about heading home myself. I always feel vaguely guilty about leaving home every time I go because I think my dad hates for me to leave and probably thinks that I don't come to see him nearly enough. But at the same time, I was eager to head home and see Maria who was coming to spend the night with me. I had just gathered the guts to tell my dad I was leaving when he asked me if I wanted to go to Michelle's house with him because he was going to borrow some welding equipment from him. A part of me wanted to say, "No thanks, Dad. I need to head back," but another part of me didn't want to disappoint him and he said all he had to do was pick up this piece of equipment and head back. I sensed he wanted some alone time with me, so I agreed to go with him.
On the way to Michelle's house, my dad discussed my uncle, Super Bob. His approval rating in recent years has fallen far below the Super level, but I still try to stay in touch with him unlike everyone else in my family. My dad told me Bob had approached him twice recently with an apparent desire to reconcile their differences. My dad wanted to know, if, in my professional opinion, I thought Bob was crazy. I contemplated this for a minute and informed my father that he would certainly meet the DSM criteria for Paranoid Personality Disorder. He considered this without commenting.
When we got to my sister's house, Brandon was outside waiting with the piece of welding equipment in the back of his truck. The two of them fell into a conversation about buying land and various types of land-clearing equipment. I had absolutely nothing to contribute to this discussion having no knowledge of these things. For the umpteenth time, I got the feeling that Brandon is actually much closer with my dad than I am. Somehow, I did not inherit the inerest in mechanics and heavy equipment gene. There seem to be very few points of intersect between my dad's interests and mine I often believe. But then other times I think perhaps it has nothing to do with common interests and much more about old but unsettled resentments between us. I don't know if it's his fault or mine that those exist, but neither of us seem capable of really getting to the bottom of it and moving past it. I see the easy-going way Brandon interacts with him and suspect that I will never have that kind of relationship with him. In any case, I suppose it is what it is and there's no use worrying about it too much. I know my dad will always be there if I'm in any kind of crunch and I guess that's more than enough.
After my dad and Brandon engaged in deep conversation for about an hour, I finally mentioned that I needed to get back so I wouldn't keep Maria waiting on me too long. So my dad reluctantly left and took me back to his house so I could leave. On the way back, he and I discussed possibly going skiing in February in Colorado. My dad is hyper-enthusiastic about skiing and this is one point where I can meet him. In the past, I've always thought we bonded on the slopes, but when the trip was over, it seemed that things went right back to how they were before.
I told my dad I would check my finances to see if I could afford such a trip and I imagine I will go and have fun doing it although I hate to leave my girlfriend for that long.
When I got back to his house, I told him bye and shook his hand. He thanked me for coming with a pained expression that suggested he wished I would have stayed longer. Then I got in my car and drove away, happy to be going and looking forward to seeing Maria.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Meaning of Life
Today, I was doing a little bit of light thinking. I was pondering the meaning of life.
Since I wasn't sure what the answer was, I looked it up on dictionary.com. This is the answer I got:
Life: the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
That was actually one of several definitions but somehow none quite fit the answer I was looking for. Then I realized that the question I was posing to myself wasn't really, what is the meaning of life? It was more like 'how do I make my life meaningful?' This question struck me as a bit less abstract and infinitely more personal than the former one. Acually, this is not really a question I'm struggling with at all. I know the answer. The answer is that I need to do the things that make me whole. I need to work out, read things that are interesting to me, write regularly, do my best at work, and maintain good relationships with the people who are important to me. The philosopher Joseph Campbell is famous for saying follow your bliss and that is what I need to do to make my life meaningful.
The challenge of this question is not figuring out the answer, but in staying focused on it. It takes a lot of self-discipline, self-awareness, and a selfless spirit to remain true to what's important. There are many opportunites to derail one's self and many are not easily noticed at first glance. But one has to keep in mind, that the battle is not lost if one fails to attain all of his goals because what ulitmately matters is the honest and passionate effort rather than the final result itself.
In writing this, I'm feeling a bit Yoda-ish which was not my original intention. But in thinking about the meaning of life there is another aspect of this question I wished to discuss as well.
That is: 'What purpose, if any, does life serve in the cosmic, universal scheme of things?' In other words, why does life exist at all? For that matter, why does the Universe exist? It seems like the most obvious answer to these questions is: it just does. But let's say for argument's sake that somehow someone made the ultimate discovery and discovered that the Universe and/or life did exist for some external purpose. If this happened, the first question everyone would be asking would be: okay, so we now know the purpose and the meaning of life and the Universe, but what is the purpose of the existence of whatever it was whose purpose it served. It becomes a sort of Russian doll affect. Every time you open one doll, another is inside of it no matter how deeply you go.
It is analagous to our perceived place in the hierarchy of things. As far as we know, we are the most intelligent, self aware creatures in the Universe. But do we really know that? Suppose there is something else whose intelligence and awarness is so superior to our own, we are not even capable of comprehending it. For that matter, doesn't every life form on our planet lack the knowledge that another being is superior to it? Do the deer really know their world is dominated by humans? Do the plankton in the ocean really realize how far down the food chain they actually are? So why do we feel so confident that there's nothing out there just as superior to us as we are to the smallest bacteria? Can we really have so much faith in our own perceptions to be sure that there's not?
So if we had the ability to ask this superior entity the question: What is the meaning of life? Would it know? Somehow I doubt that it would know the ultimate answer. It would just be like peeling another layer of an onion.
Since I wasn't sure what the answer was, I looked it up on dictionary.com. This is the answer I got:
Life: the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
That was actually one of several definitions but somehow none quite fit the answer I was looking for. Then I realized that the question I was posing to myself wasn't really, what is the meaning of life? It was more like 'how do I make my life meaningful?' This question struck me as a bit less abstract and infinitely more personal than the former one. Acually, this is not really a question I'm struggling with at all. I know the answer. The answer is that I need to do the things that make me whole. I need to work out, read things that are interesting to me, write regularly, do my best at work, and maintain good relationships with the people who are important to me. The philosopher Joseph Campbell is famous for saying follow your bliss and that is what I need to do to make my life meaningful.
The challenge of this question is not figuring out the answer, but in staying focused on it. It takes a lot of self-discipline, self-awareness, and a selfless spirit to remain true to what's important. There are many opportunites to derail one's self and many are not easily noticed at first glance. But one has to keep in mind, that the battle is not lost if one fails to attain all of his goals because what ulitmately matters is the honest and passionate effort rather than the final result itself.
In writing this, I'm feeling a bit Yoda-ish which was not my original intention. But in thinking about the meaning of life there is another aspect of this question I wished to discuss as well.
That is: 'What purpose, if any, does life serve in the cosmic, universal scheme of things?' In other words, why does life exist at all? For that matter, why does the Universe exist? It seems like the most obvious answer to these questions is: it just does. But let's say for argument's sake that somehow someone made the ultimate discovery and discovered that the Universe and/or life did exist for some external purpose. If this happened, the first question everyone would be asking would be: okay, so we now know the purpose and the meaning of life and the Universe, but what is the purpose of the existence of whatever it was whose purpose it served. It becomes a sort of Russian doll affect. Every time you open one doll, another is inside of it no matter how deeply you go.
It is analagous to our perceived place in the hierarchy of things. As far as we know, we are the most intelligent, self aware creatures in the Universe. But do we really know that? Suppose there is something else whose intelligence and awarness is so superior to our own, we are not even capable of comprehending it. For that matter, doesn't every life form on our planet lack the knowledge that another being is superior to it? Do the deer really know their world is dominated by humans? Do the plankton in the ocean really realize how far down the food chain they actually are? So why do we feel so confident that there's nothing out there just as superior to us as we are to the smallest bacteria? Can we really have so much faith in our own perceptions to be sure that there's not?
So if we had the ability to ask this superior entity the question: What is the meaning of life? Would it know? Somehow I doubt that it would know the ultimate answer. It would just be like peeling another layer of an onion.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Prison Counseling: Pros and Cons
A question I constantly ask myself is this one: Do I really enjoy what I do? I am a licensed professional counselor and work as a mental health counselor at Valdosta State Prison. People generally are intrigued when I tell them this is what I do for a living and want to know what it's like and if I enjoy it. I always find this a difficult question to answer. This is because, to me, there is not a simple way to answer it honestly. But, using this forum, I've decided to give it a shot.
I have had jobs in my life that I liked a lot less than working at the prison, but at the same time, it's extremely easy to imagine doing something I liked more. At times, I try to tease out the pros and the cons of my job; the parts of it I like and the parts of it I don't.
Here are the parts I like:
I enjoy the interaction with the inmates I work with in my assigned dorm. The dorm I work in is not the dorm where the most hard-core criminals live, but are mostly older guys who have been in prison for a very long time and guys who are genuinely mentally ill and would be almost certainly be very seriously taken advantage of if they lived in the general inmate population. I've been the counselor in this dorm for over a year now and have developed a pretty positive rapport with most of them. It seems that many of them feel I am an ally in an otherwise very hostile environment. Being a counselor in the prison environment and working on such a close person to person basis with inmates, it always seems there is a balance to be struck between trying to do what you can to help another person, but also being wise enough to be aware when that inmate is trying to corral you into some sort of game or scam. It seems that your guard always has to be up and you have to always be objective and follow your instincts. I find this aspect of the job to be challenging and enjoyable in a way. I like to think it is a job that not just anyone would have the wherewithall to do and take a bit of pride in this.
Another part about my job that I like is that it gives me a forum to explore topics I'm interested in and share them with the inmates I work with at the same time. I currently have a group that I call Mindful Therapy. In it, I focus on somewhat Buddhist ideas which coincide a great deal with theories of cognitive therapy. We discuss looking at life as it is actually is rather than how we would like it to be, accepting what is rather than resisting what can't be changed, and taking responsibility for our actions. I have a great deal of interest in Philosophy and so I bring in Philosophical literature to drive home my point. It's a good group that a lot of the inmates seem to look forward to participate actively in rather than many of the groups at the prison which feature extremely indifferent or downright hostile inmates in attendence.
I also hold an informal poetry group once a week in which three or four guys get together with me to discuss and read whatever poet I have chosen for the day. I enjoy poetry for mostly the same reasons that I enjoy Philosophy. In poetry, the poet attempts to express or analyze our existence in a transcendent way. The poet tries to do it through the medium of language while a philosopher tries to do the same thing through logic and pure analysis. Both are cool to me. I try not to set myself up as the authority in either group, but as someone who is studying and learning along with the inmates I'm working with, which is actually what I'm doing in any case.
One other thing I enjoy about my job are my fellow counselors. I think they are all very competent and earnest about what they are doing and that they really always strive to do what is right in a very challenging and downright dangerous environment. I tend to be a bit withdrawn at work and sometimes wonder if they misintepret this as me not liking them, but that is not the case. I just get this tunnel-vision focus at work very often and forget the importance of socializing at times.
As for things I don't like at work, there are these: It goes without saying that a prison is a very oppressive place. There is misery in the air and evidence everywhere that to take another human being's freedom is, next to death, the ultimate penalty. Prisons are necessary evils in our society, but they are evils, and I've found that working in a place that requires razorwire and extensive security precautions to control people does, in time, begin to wear on you. I have worked at the prison for the better part of two years now and can't imagine working there for a truly long period of time. It is an environment, that by its very nature, burns you out. I've noticed that I literally walk faster when I'm leaving for the day than when I'm going in. Going in, I have to take a deep breath to prepare to face the demands of inmates and supervisors. On the way out, I'm always a bit relieved to have survived another day and more than a little anxious to get away from it.
A deeper negative about my job is that, deep down, I do not think I am doing the things in my life that I should be. I don't believe I'm truly fulfilling my potential as a human being by giving so much of my time and energy to an institution. I would love to make my living through creative means such as writing or something else I'm deeply interested in. I have always had this desire, but have never acted on it like I needed to. At the same time, I can't close the book on that feeling. So I go through spurts in which I pursue my creative interests for a time and then let it fade into the background again. I'm not about to quit my job and become a starving artist. I like having a little money in the bank, a shelter over my head, and the ability to pay the bills too much for that. At the same time, I often think about how amazing it would be to be able to expend the energy I am forced to spend at work on the things I am truly passionate about. I think that I couldn't help but succeed if that were possible.
In any case, there is no doubt that on Monday morning, I will get up and go to work just like so many other people do, and do the best I can, not working soley for a paycheck, but also for the knowledge that giving your best effort brings meaning to a person's life regardless of the positives and negative circumstances he or she may perceive around him. If I were in my mindful therapy group, I would declare that doing so is the only way to the transcendence the poets and philosophers are always seeking.
I have had jobs in my life that I liked a lot less than working at the prison, but at the same time, it's extremely easy to imagine doing something I liked more. At times, I try to tease out the pros and the cons of my job; the parts of it I like and the parts of it I don't.
Here are the parts I like:
I enjoy the interaction with the inmates I work with in my assigned dorm. The dorm I work in is not the dorm where the most hard-core criminals live, but are mostly older guys who have been in prison for a very long time and guys who are genuinely mentally ill and would be almost certainly be very seriously taken advantage of if they lived in the general inmate population. I've been the counselor in this dorm for over a year now and have developed a pretty positive rapport with most of them. It seems that many of them feel I am an ally in an otherwise very hostile environment. Being a counselor in the prison environment and working on such a close person to person basis with inmates, it always seems there is a balance to be struck between trying to do what you can to help another person, but also being wise enough to be aware when that inmate is trying to corral you into some sort of game or scam. It seems that your guard always has to be up and you have to always be objective and follow your instincts. I find this aspect of the job to be challenging and enjoyable in a way. I like to think it is a job that not just anyone would have the wherewithall to do and take a bit of pride in this.
Another part about my job that I like is that it gives me a forum to explore topics I'm interested in and share them with the inmates I work with at the same time. I currently have a group that I call Mindful Therapy. In it, I focus on somewhat Buddhist ideas which coincide a great deal with theories of cognitive therapy. We discuss looking at life as it is actually is rather than how we would like it to be, accepting what is rather than resisting what can't be changed, and taking responsibility for our actions. I have a great deal of interest in Philosophy and so I bring in Philosophical literature to drive home my point. It's a good group that a lot of the inmates seem to look forward to participate actively in rather than many of the groups at the prison which feature extremely indifferent or downright hostile inmates in attendence.
I also hold an informal poetry group once a week in which three or four guys get together with me to discuss and read whatever poet I have chosen for the day. I enjoy poetry for mostly the same reasons that I enjoy Philosophy. In poetry, the poet attempts to express or analyze our existence in a transcendent way. The poet tries to do it through the medium of language while a philosopher tries to do the same thing through logic and pure analysis. Both are cool to me. I try not to set myself up as the authority in either group, but as someone who is studying and learning along with the inmates I'm working with, which is actually what I'm doing in any case.
One other thing I enjoy about my job are my fellow counselors. I think they are all very competent and earnest about what they are doing and that they really always strive to do what is right in a very challenging and downright dangerous environment. I tend to be a bit withdrawn at work and sometimes wonder if they misintepret this as me not liking them, but that is not the case. I just get this tunnel-vision focus at work very often and forget the importance of socializing at times.
As for things I don't like at work, there are these: It goes without saying that a prison is a very oppressive place. There is misery in the air and evidence everywhere that to take another human being's freedom is, next to death, the ultimate penalty. Prisons are necessary evils in our society, but they are evils, and I've found that working in a place that requires razorwire and extensive security precautions to control people does, in time, begin to wear on you. I have worked at the prison for the better part of two years now and can't imagine working there for a truly long period of time. It is an environment, that by its very nature, burns you out. I've noticed that I literally walk faster when I'm leaving for the day than when I'm going in. Going in, I have to take a deep breath to prepare to face the demands of inmates and supervisors. On the way out, I'm always a bit relieved to have survived another day and more than a little anxious to get away from it.
A deeper negative about my job is that, deep down, I do not think I am doing the things in my life that I should be. I don't believe I'm truly fulfilling my potential as a human being by giving so much of my time and energy to an institution. I would love to make my living through creative means such as writing or something else I'm deeply interested in. I have always had this desire, but have never acted on it like I needed to. At the same time, I can't close the book on that feeling. So I go through spurts in which I pursue my creative interests for a time and then let it fade into the background again. I'm not about to quit my job and become a starving artist. I like having a little money in the bank, a shelter over my head, and the ability to pay the bills too much for that. At the same time, I often think about how amazing it would be to be able to expend the energy I am forced to spend at work on the things I am truly passionate about. I think that I couldn't help but succeed if that were possible.
In any case, there is no doubt that on Monday morning, I will get up and go to work just like so many other people do, and do the best I can, not working soley for a paycheck, but also for the knowledge that giving your best effort brings meaning to a person's life regardless of the positives and negative circumstances he or she may perceive around him. If I were in my mindful therapy group, I would declare that doing so is the only way to the transcendence the poets and philosophers are always seeking.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
An Introduction....and Obama.
Okay, I've decided to give blogging another shot. I have tried before and for this reason and that one, I have not managed to stick with it consistently. Of course I could say that this time will be different, but then again that's what they all say, you know? But there are several reasons why I believe that this time will actually in fact be different. One reason is that my life situation is a bit more stable than before. It is downright routine these days. Not having a "crazypants" to deal with every day certainly stablilizes things.
Another reason is that I have this mostly unexpressed need to express myself in writing. When I don't do it, I feel unfulfilled no matter what else I may be doing. I find myself carrying on an uncounscious narration about everything that goes on in my life. It's as if I cannot believe people can properly understand my true essence unless I write it down. The flip side of that is that it is more than a little scary for people to understand my true essence. It is sort of like being psychically naked if people know my true opinions and thoughts on certain subjects, especially as I suspect that my opinions on some subjects are not the ones shared by the majority.
But in any case, the mission statement for this blog boils down to this: It is Charlie Parramore's attempt to express himself truly and honestly and in so doing, examine the sundry topics in life I find most interesting. I want to do more than write about them casually. I want to examine them to the core. I want to turn over the moss-covered stone deep in the forest and examine the lichen on the bottom of it in infinite detail. I want this blog to be the window through which I view the world and if anyone happens to read my words, the window through which the world sees me most clearly and honestly.
I have decided to promise myself only one blog posting a week. If it happens to be more than that, then so much the better, but if not, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I hope that in this way I will not crush myelf under the weight of my own expectations.
With this introduction now stated, let's get a few basic facts about myself out in the open: I am thirty-six years old. I currently live alone. I am blessedly single again although impatiently waiting the paper that proves it to come in the mail. I have a girlfriend that I'm totally in love with and very happy about it. I work as a mental health counselor at Valdosta State Prison. If nothing else, it is a unique way to earn a paycheck. I suppose readers will have to learn more details about me as we go along.
So those are the preliminaries out of the way.
I feel led tonight to write a few words about how I personally feel about the election of Barack Obama. In my life I have been interested in politics on a sporadic basis. I've always had a keen interest in the goings on of the world, but have never felt as galvanized by a political event as I was by this election. In past Presidential elections, I might have liked one candidate or the other, but was always kind of luke-warm about the one I did prefer, and felt that I would be affected very little on a personal basis whoever won. However, in this election, I felt passionate about Obama. I first heard of him after his fateful speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004 and read his book, The Audacity of Hope well before he ran for President. I have never felt that I identified with a political candidate's ideas and world-view as closely as I did Obama's. Something about the way he spoke and wrote connected with me.
I do think that society as well as people in general should be wary of someone who projects charisma as it is common characteristic of many dictators and cult-leaders, but even though Obama possesses charisma in spades, it also seems abundantly obvious that he is also a very decent and honorable man. This fact is proved best of all in how he ran his campain. While the McCain campaign attempted to blaspheme Obama's character with outlandish and baseless claims that he cavorted with terrorists and radicals, Obama remained above the pettiness, attacking McCain on the issues alone, remaining cool and unflappable to the very end. There was little doubt which candidate embodied the ideals of what a President should be and thuse he was elected.
There is no way to know what the next four or eight years holds for the country and for Obama's Presidency, but I have to believe that the fact that his campaign and election invoked so much passion and inspired so many people that it has to give him a positive boost that no other President in recent memory has had.
I am just glad that I have grown open-minded enough over the course of my life to appreciate what he stands for. There might have been a time when my upbringing and the influence of my environment might have prevented me from appreciating Obama and what he means to our country as well as how we are perceived around the world. The President-Elect certainly has a plate-ful of problems to deal with and ample opportunity to prove himself. I suppose we shall all see what happens now.
Another reason is that I have this mostly unexpressed need to express myself in writing. When I don't do it, I feel unfulfilled no matter what else I may be doing. I find myself carrying on an uncounscious narration about everything that goes on in my life. It's as if I cannot believe people can properly understand my true essence unless I write it down. The flip side of that is that it is more than a little scary for people to understand my true essence. It is sort of like being psychically naked if people know my true opinions and thoughts on certain subjects, especially as I suspect that my opinions on some subjects are not the ones shared by the majority.
But in any case, the mission statement for this blog boils down to this: It is Charlie Parramore's attempt to express himself truly and honestly and in so doing, examine the sundry topics in life I find most interesting. I want to do more than write about them casually. I want to examine them to the core. I want to turn over the moss-covered stone deep in the forest and examine the lichen on the bottom of it in infinite detail. I want this blog to be the window through which I view the world and if anyone happens to read my words, the window through which the world sees me most clearly and honestly.
I have decided to promise myself only one blog posting a week. If it happens to be more than that, then so much the better, but if not, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I hope that in this way I will not crush myelf under the weight of my own expectations.
With this introduction now stated, let's get a few basic facts about myself out in the open: I am thirty-six years old. I currently live alone. I am blessedly single again although impatiently waiting the paper that proves it to come in the mail. I have a girlfriend that I'm totally in love with and very happy about it. I work as a mental health counselor at Valdosta State Prison. If nothing else, it is a unique way to earn a paycheck. I suppose readers will have to learn more details about me as we go along.
So those are the preliminaries out of the way.
I feel led tonight to write a few words about how I personally feel about the election of Barack Obama. In my life I have been interested in politics on a sporadic basis. I've always had a keen interest in the goings on of the world, but have never felt as galvanized by a political event as I was by this election. In past Presidential elections, I might have liked one candidate or the other, but was always kind of luke-warm about the one I did prefer, and felt that I would be affected very little on a personal basis whoever won. However, in this election, I felt passionate about Obama. I first heard of him after his fateful speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004 and read his book, The Audacity of Hope well before he ran for President. I have never felt that I identified with a political candidate's ideas and world-view as closely as I did Obama's. Something about the way he spoke and wrote connected with me.
I do think that society as well as people in general should be wary of someone who projects charisma as it is common characteristic of many dictators and cult-leaders, but even though Obama possesses charisma in spades, it also seems abundantly obvious that he is also a very decent and honorable man. This fact is proved best of all in how he ran his campain. While the McCain campaign attempted to blaspheme Obama's character with outlandish and baseless claims that he cavorted with terrorists and radicals, Obama remained above the pettiness, attacking McCain on the issues alone, remaining cool and unflappable to the very end. There was little doubt which candidate embodied the ideals of what a President should be and thuse he was elected.
There is no way to know what the next four or eight years holds for the country and for Obama's Presidency, but I have to believe that the fact that his campaign and election invoked so much passion and inspired so many people that it has to give him a positive boost that no other President in recent memory has had.
I am just glad that I have grown open-minded enough over the course of my life to appreciate what he stands for. There might have been a time when my upbringing and the influence of my environment might have prevented me from appreciating Obama and what he means to our country as well as how we are perceived around the world. The President-Elect certainly has a plate-ful of problems to deal with and ample opportunity to prove himself. I suppose we shall all see what happens now.
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