ONE MORE CONCLUSION THAN THE SUPREME COURT REACHED TODAY
One thing that's helped me get out of my angst this month is that I haven't tried so hard to be empathetic to everyone I meet and know. I was getting bogged down by the sheer power of everyone's desire to do what they wanted to do, and that became immense. One person needed a play produced, another needed someone to sing on their record, someone else needed someone to do a proper paste-up for an ad they were placing in the Village Voice, someone else lost their job and needed someone to talk to, some promotional campaigns needed to be organized (many of them mine), and all of these things -- well, I could do them all, and I tried to, because I knew how much it hurt to not get the help I needed when I needed it, and I swore I'd do whatever I could, whenever I could.

That ethic has largely served me well. I have done a lot of amazing (to me) things. I have made a lot of excellent friends, many of whom return these favors when I ask. But I don't ask very often. Maybe that's part of why I started a weblog, instead of rewriting what I think isn't a very good novel (my summer project, now shelved, although with current events I might revisit it as an excuse for solitude) or forcing together an acoustic album with only a half-dozen good songs or whatever. This page you're reading might be my way of occasionally asking for help. Or learning to.

One thing I made a point of getting back to in my head while I was in England, and since I got back, was to be patient, keep my batteries from getting too drained, and let inspiration and positive energy come on its own time. I don't mean to be all hippy-dippy about it - I don't trust any solution that can't be explained logically, step by step - but it really does kind of work that way. You can bring the problems of the world on your shoulders, and they will crush you like the planet-sized issues they often are.

The facts are often ugly.
Lying, cheating dumbasses win elections.
Crime often pays.
Wars continue.
Cancer and AIDS remain uncured.
Jim Carrey is, unbelievably, the highest-paid performer in the entertainment world.
And I am not.

Many of these problems will still exist tomorrow. But maybe, just maybe, one or more of them might get fixed between now and tomorrow morning. (I hope someone else is working on those last two as hard as I am.)

My point is, people have immense capacity to accomplish things. But that capacity is not limitless. If the problems other people have get to you and cripple you, then you're no good to anyone. All you can do is all you can do. Never forget that.