They’re always just content enough to know that I’m still sitting around here, somewhere.
That I’m always around just in case they have a need for me. Or they get bored. Or they’re abandoned.
Otherwise, I’m looked on as that volatile fire plug that will either spark fireworks…OR…that powder keg that will blow up in your face without warning. I guess they think it’s wiser to keep their distance and just…watch…and use only ‘as-needed’.
More often than not, I would have to say they’re exactly right.
But no, that’s not it. No one really cares. No one really cares about anyone else in this world, unless of course there’s something to gain. I think it’s the way society has been programmed over decades and decades of subtle societal abuses and prodding and mental wiring. It’s become a survival mechanism of sorts. I don’t really blame any one of us for it.
It’s just the way it has become and it’s just the way it is.
But that doesn’t do anything to change my thinking when I sit here alone, staring out the window, watching the clouds roll on by, the hawks and crows dogfighting over the telephone poles, hearing the neighborhood dogs howling at a wisping nothing in the wind. The realization doesn’t soften that pinch inside.
Believe it or not, I’m not a fatalist and I’m not defeatist. I’ve just been corralled into a world of reluctant acceptance for the way things are. Sure, those things will change over time, as all things do, but most likely it will never be so in my lifetime or in any of the lives of the next several generations.
What else can I do? What else can anyone do?
Everyone else seems to have forgotten who I am. I never lost sight of myself, and I still know exactly who I am. I know exactly what I am. I never lost that sight and vision. But then I have to sit and wonder, “Why is it so easy to be forgotten and discarded?”
It’s because no one really cares in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe that this world is inherently hateful or spiteful – far from it.
It’s that it just doesn’t care.
We can say ‘it should be different’ and we can say ‘it should be better’ all goddamn day long, but it won’t be, and it won’t matter.
The world just does not care. Why should it?
Besides, it can’t.
It’s a primal drive and a primal urge. I think it’s actually an evolutionary need more than anything…Every ounce of caring for someone else is an ounce of caring that’s needed for self-preservation.
“Take care of your own self first” is one common way to put it.
“Mind your own business” and “Stay in your own lane” also come to mind.
No matter how you cut it, the only real, millennia-tested way for any animal to preserve itself, grow stronger and evolve into its next great ‘form’ is to take care of itself first – and only itself.
It’s aggravating and it’s angry and it’s even contentious, but I don’t believe it’s anything personal. And that is the most difficult pill to swallow when life incessantly batters you with anger and pain and hate and sadness, all of it formed into a brittle, hollow egg shell, cracked every-which-way just begging for that one last ‘smack’ to shatter it all.
But, no matter what, the world just does not care.
It’s always been so easy for people to write me off as intimidating and mean and nasty without ever having spoken a word with me – without even having met me. If I had to put a point on it, I’d say it’s mostly because I carry a determined and serious demeanor…at least that’s what I’ve been told. Mind you, that first impression comes without even a simple ‘hello’. It’s nothing but a knee-jerk reaction to the man they perceive to be standing in front of them. A stereotypical image they processed with zero support data subconsciously intended for self-preservation.
My ‘aura’ keeps folks at an apprehensive arm’s length before they can get close to me – and run any risk. Still, rarely does anyone take even a couple seconds to figure out what it is they’re actually seeing in front of them. Those rare few who do are always relieved at what and who they find, and I must say pleasantly surprised by me.
I’ll give you a great example.
Over the years, I had many animated discussions with the guys on the shop floors. I cared enough about them to at least give them the chance to vent.
I cared more about myself because it gave me a chance to vent right back.
No, I was not a horrible person toward them.
No, I was not errant in my efforts as supervisor and manager.
No, I did not insult or belittle them. I gave them the exact treatment they were seeking when they came into my office. Still, I was seen as a bad guy by the “neckties” for a perceived “rough and inappropriate managerial style”. I was just being me, but even still, my last employer began a tireless campaign to find a way to oust me. Fortunately for me, they were never able to fire me for even one of their fictitious, trumped-up accusations because not a one had any truth or even a glimmer of merit to them.
The thing that has always bothered my bosses more than anything was the plain and simple fact that no matter what – no matter how heated and contentious any situation got – I had and I held the guys’ respect.
Because I had – and still hold close – the audacity to care.
That’s what an “intimidating and mean and nasty person” I was. So much for first impressions.
I always told my guys, “Don’t be pissed off at me for what you think about me or what you heard about me…be pissed off at me for what I do to you, not for what others say I’ll do.”
Then one fine day, after twenty years as the Labor Relations Manager, I resigned my office.
After twenty years, they went right ahead and tried to replace me without a second’s thought, a single word and with no hesitation. They did not care about anything I had ever done. It just did not matter. They did not care. It took them a few years to finally replace me…and even that was after they decided that my title was completely unnecessary!
They felt no need for anything more than a “Get out!” to me, and that after twenty years of loyal service to the company, me seated opposite the United Auto Workers on behalf of their company. None of it mattered to those couple of people who believed that privilege and a string of letters after their name was more important than anything else in business.
A silver spoon, a neck tie, a board of directors’ seat or an elitist social club will never a wise man make.
They just never really cared. It's that simple.
I have always been opinionated and strong-willed and I will always fight for what I believe to be ‘right’. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m really not such a bad guy. And I can confidently make that statement, not because of what I think of myself, but because of what the guys thought about me. The guys are the only thing that ever really mattered to me. Far removed from the miracles they could work with the professional skills they possessed, they are what mattered to me.
It’s damn near impossible to progress in anything without even a little support and encouragement. It can be done, but it’s hard as hell when all of the support has to come from within yourself. It all has to come from inside because no one else really cares beyond their own wants and needs to give it. Every turn that feels like a failure must be met with your own, personal reassurance that you’re still going to make it. Daily affirmations take on a whole new radiant energy. Sometimes you just feel that you’re only kidding yourself. But no matter what, you still just can’t give up trying. At least I can’t. And sometimes, that radiant energy can lead to a great many gleaming city streets to explore…right alongside the dark, dank rotting alleys in between them.
I’ve said many times before that when you have a special look or quality, people want you. They want to be with you. They want to be around you. They want to say they know you. They want to fuck you.
I worked long and hard, pounding miles upon countless miles down on an elliptical machine and out on the roads of the peninsula. I took myself from 285lbs all the way down to 185lbs inside of two years.
I dropped down to size 32 jeans and comfortably wore size S shirts. Anything larger felt like a tent and it wouldn’t show off my accomplishment. I wanted people to see that I was no longer ‘fat Francis’ and I had become something completely different. Not someone different. Something completely different. I never realized that distinction at the time, but it nevertheless existed. And notice they did.
Some were jealous, especially the guys that knew me in high school.
One guy in particular told me “I can’t believe Frank is wearing skinny jeans!” He said this to me as we stood at the bar on a crowded Saturday night talking. This was the kind of kid who during those school years, could have any girl he wanted. He played football. His family had money. He was trim and fit and a good-looking kid. But now he was overweight and obnoxious as hell. He had gambled away most of his money, lost too many jobs to count, and wasted the rest of his money on coke. Still, when the songs played and the girls started dancing, he expected they would fall all over each other just to stand next to him. Didn’t work quite the way he wanted.
The girls came over, yes. The girls wanted to talk and dance, yes. But now, they wanted those things with me, not him. The girls wanted me, not him. He went nuts with just the thought of it. That kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in his world. Why would any girl want ‘fat Francis’ instead of him? That kind of ‘negative support’ came at me from all directions and it fed my want and desire to get better and do more than ever before.
Being wanted by even just one person in that way can work wonders in your mind and your confidence. It did for me. But they never wanted me. They wanted what I could give them. They wanted what I could do for them. They never really cared in any way, except for the things they wanted from me to improve themselves.
I was able to put up with all of that because it felt SO good to be wanted and admired. Feeling good is good enough. To a certain extent, that is.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with liking the way your body looks. Nothing at all. It only ever seems to be labeled a matter of ‘narcissism’ by someone who does not like the way they look. I never thought myself better than anyone else or a notch above, but I was proud of how far I’d come and I was not afraid to show it. No one ever should be either.
It led to modeling for me, and for the next five years, I modeled and reaped what I thought were fruits of the labor. This was real, paid and published modeling, not self-posted internet pictures called “model shots”.
Like everything, it had to end, and once my bad hips and legs blew up completely and I could no longer walk or run or ellipticize or even workout the way I had become accustomed, the fruits began to rot on the vine. One by one, all of the benefits fell off and away from me. They fell down right in front of me so I could always still see them, but just out of reach so I could never touch – or feel – them again.
And just like that, and once again, no one really cared anymore.
Because no one had really ever cared at all in the first place.
No one wanted to be with me anymore. No one wanted to be around me anymore.
No one wanted to say they knew me anymore.
No one wanted to say they fucked me anymore.
There was no longer any benefit for them in any of it. Not a one in their eyes any longer. That’s a painful pinch.
Anymore, I think that Bukowski had it right all along.
“Don’t waste your time on people.”
They’re just not worth the hassle they give you.
Maybe I am a fatalist.
Maybe I am a defeatist.
Neither means shit to me or anyone else. After all, I am the writer and I wrote this, but you are the reader, and you read it all the way to the end.
Whether you were going to read the whole thing or not, I never really cared, and neither should you.
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