In the 21rst century, when we have supercomputers, cell phones with more processing power than all NASA had to get a man on the moon, with all kinds of tools and instruments to clean up signals or translate messages, signals still get crossed or garbled.
i learned that this weekend.
i took a message, didn't process it properly and paid for it with my ego.
it wasn't anyone's fault, other than my own.
I could spend about an hour (or 10 paragraphs) explaining why i skipped the whole process of input...decode...assumption/confirmation...final analysis....output and then consequence. I have a grabbag of excuses and reasons, and some, could pass for damn good or acceptable.
But i refuse to do that.
life doesn't work that way. simulations, training, classrooms have the luxury of that. but not here.
i screwed up, dropped the ball. there's no place for explaining.
and here's the kicker.
I still wade through the whole damn thing, going over in my head what i did wrong, and damn it, I know what i did wrong.
time to fucking move on, but it is never that easy. not when you know there is pain involved, an investment of yourself (something you haven't done in so long that you feel like you could wear a cowboy hat and work at Westworld next to Yul Brynner) and there's contradictions in your life that keep you awake.
No more hurt, the sharp sting of realizing you've made a mistake and become a fool, or the alternative is an ache that rivals the dull roar of an exposed nerve in your tooth. Either way, you scream and wonder about it.
moving on is the hard part. leaving behind what you gave your all for (friends, the hope of friendships, finding love) is nigh impossible. Like amputating a limb; the loss is too great because of the attachment, and you know damn well the phantom limb will haunt you.
all because of being optimistic, all because of a mixed signal that resembled hope.
Choices:
A.Stagnation. stay in the foxhole, hide, avoid the fire outside and rot within.
B. Move on. Climb out, take some shrapnel and try to gain some ground. get somewhere.
Easy as a True/False question on paper; hard as hell when it is you and your heart and there's blood on your hands.
kinda wish it was simplified like in the movies. in war movies, some veteran runs up to the rookie, yanks him out and shoves him forward, cursing and screaming until instinct and the right thing to do kicks in. Either the rookie buys it or he makes it. Either way, it is the right thing to do. the right way to go. (Make's the Vet's life easier; there's no guilt from a casualty when it was the right thing, the only thing to do.)
Wish it were that simple.
Amazing, we live in an HD world and the signal quality within is barely better than what Marconi created....sad, really.