Domain

I'm a ping-pong ball. Not so much by choice but by indecision and lack of preparation. I am fortunate enough to have people in my life that care about me. At the very least they appreciate I'm a minimal burden with a very high standard of respect and consideration for privacy. I don't contribute more than a low-key element. I don't disrupt or lash out. My tolerance threshold is severe. Being so cool fits well with the perpetual role of the guest. I don't believe my loved ones are intrigued so much as they aren't bothered. The good can be appreciated easier that way. And somehow I've developed this resource as a survival trait while I figure myself out. I'm aware it's become a habit and pray that the awareness itself is a sign of the finite span of this time in my life. Regardless, I acknowledge it's something that others can offer. It's a great something and most people call it home. But it's theirs. I want mine.

I am not an honest man. I reserve my judgments and live by them behind a generally closed exterior. I believe what I believe about people and let my actions generally dictate a path of least resistance. I refrain often. I do not believe faith in the general sense is necessary. I won't go so far as to call myself a cynic. I respect the less favorable outcome of the moment, and of the actions people take. I've witnessed enough of them in myself to see it reflected in others. If I'm training myself, I wonder why I would do that. Regardless, the closed circuit of my emotions has some steam to vent, some blood to let and this activity isn't suitable as a guest.

Building a home is a chance to make a statement about your life. It will reflect your strengths and weaknesses. It will become your sanctuary from the world's demands. It can fortify you and give you the peace needed to focus on whatever is most relevant. At its best, a home can be a haven for those you choose to protect and nurture. This purpose is a sign of some serious power, an indication of the stability of your existence. There is no place like home, because there is no place capable of accepting you as its master otherwise. A host's patience wears thin no matter where you go. You become integrated in their process, affected by their approach to life, unable to draw your lines less you seem ungrateful. Many people don't realize the value of independence until the bonds of dependence have made their restrictions clear. Even then they are hard to anticipate. The lack of a personal fortress, where within one can grow self-aware and cunning, means diminishing returns on the minds expanse and the maturation of its ego. A person without dire need to sustain himself will watch TV and let it take him somewhere since the guide-rails of entertainment are so much more convenient.

It's easier not to do. But not better. Being a guest for too long is an injustice upon itself, worse if the person fails to realize it. Shame will reap from his ignorance and harvest his soul.

I've found a writing contest I have enough time to prepare for. The deadline is in May an the fee is only $15 to submit. I'll be writing it as a guest, dreaming of being the host and mounting a counter-offense against all the absurd misconceptions of status that otherwise cause a foul contempt at my own promises. If I can't write a short story, I don't exist. This nature . . . It's the closest thing I have to a home, where my voice is the authority and the lines make sense.