The Thinker by RodinSlept in late this morning. Perhaps it’s just my body telling me that it needed some catch up, although I recently read that lost sleep like time is lost forever and that you cannot “catch up” on sleep and yet, if you go to bed early and sleep in late, what could be it but catch up?

Lots on my mind this morning. How do I choose which of the many thoughts swirling in my head should be written about? Should it be about money? Should it be about the environment? Should it be about parting? All separate but somehow like a vine they intertwine. I know. I’ll take a stab and see if I can make sense of that which my brain seems to be dwelling on this overcast Sunday morning.

Parting. Whilst sitting in a grouping listening to one after another of my colleagues speak I was suddenly acutely aware that I no longer enjoyed being here. I felt a sense of discomfort not with what was being said but with my feelings. Betrayal came to mind. How could this be? This is the group that I started. The dissonant and discordant energy was exactly what I wanted, no make that thrived on: contentious, mind disturbing, thought provoking, irreverent – political correctness be damned. It was all there. How could I now no longer want to be part of something I created?

This niggling thought followed me around all day yesterday and here it is again this morning. I am reminded of how people who break out of their bearings are often criticized for being “too good for their britches” – an observation often lobbed by the status quo at a usually successful friend who no longer spends time with them. I can understand that.

Not that the situation I speak of has anything to do with any newly acquired riches. Rather it has to do with a dull but insistent knocking in my cranium, each dull thud sending a message “…these are not your people.”

Indeed the rhetoric is palling. It assaults my values and frankly I am tired of the same old same old Robin Hood mentality that the rich are corrupt and should be taxed (even more)that seems to dominate these meetings. There is more. At one time there was a balance present and the bantering back and forth was fun, sharpening not only the tongue but one’s own appreciation of and respect for how others think.

With time the members changed. Being the lone wolf is not only no fun but it sinks you into a funk. I am not there to change anyone’s mind – that was never the intention. There are still some who present opposing views with some forethought and intelligence. I do not have to agree to enjoy a mind expanding experience.

No. That is not the reason my brain is going thud, thud. Lately, on my drive home from these gatherings I cannot help but question the knee jerk reactions that are being presented … and you know, even if they were knee jerk with substance, it might be ok. But its mostly rhetoric that is riding high on hype and for that I have little tolerance.

There is a side of me that says that I should soldier on and another that keeps telling me to surround myself with like minded people. These are not them.  Have you ever found yourself in such a situation?  Is it outgrowing your friends, associates, colleagues – your position?   Has your thinking changed?  Your circumstances?

I’ll sleep on it but I think that I am at a fork in the road and right now it is the road that takes me on a different path that beckons.  It is sad.  This was my baby – somehow, I don’t think I will be missed.  Oh, the money and environment?  I’ll save that for another Sunday … the sun is just beginning to peep, time to go out and have some fun!