The Healing Process...

Posted 03-27-2011 at 11:06 AM by Mr.E

Tags 1972 27' overlander, alumadillo, grace

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As you read in the previous post, Derrick, my bar-keep from The Corner steps up! Actually, let me back up a bit...

This social-worker comes into my room about a day after I get out of the ER and introduces himself. It's basically a question and answer session... him getting to know my situation and see how he can help to get me back on my feet and into rehab. Now before I go on, you need to have a picture of the University of Chicago mind-set.

You see, the UofC is considered to be the best-of-the-best in many fields, medical in particular, (at least for my purposes of explaining things here). And in being the best-of-the-best, you can imagine that there is an air of privilegedness. For, in order to 'BE' at the UofC, you have to be top of your class, you have to have access to funds, and you have to be a ninja! Because they're going to put you through the ringer and if you ain't got it, you ain't gonna make it. It's the best-of -the-best! Period. And that also means that you most likely live in the land-of-cerebral-masturbation known as theory. Academia or as I call it Academentia, as the longer you stay in Hyde Park, the more isolated you become, the more removed from the realities of the outside you become. It's a bubble.

And it's not to say that they are not so proud as to be insensitive to the larger world in-which they live, no far from it. In fact they are all fascinated with the outside world, its peoples and its happenings. They seek to understand.

And it is this curiosity that has won me many many quality relationships with UofC Alums over the years, and my having had these wonderful experiences is what I think got me admitted in the first place. They understand that genius is not tied to access and they know that they are privileged in having that access, and humble in that knowledge and use of it. They are gracious.

Now, with that picture in your mind, you should see there is a chance that my situation could be lost in translation from the Actual into the Theoretical. Or into their language.

So, back to the social-worker. In the in-depth Q&A process... I didn't fall into any of their academically astute, thoroughly complete set of variables. I have no mailing address. I workamp across America, I am medically uninsured, I have next to zero contact with my family, I am poor, and there is no place for me to go. All of what I called 'friends' then, before what actually happened, are all too self-involved in their lives, their families, their careers. And who could blame them? They have no responsibility for me anyway. That's my job, so tough-beans. I am on my own. The social-worker is taken aback and visibly concerned. What is he going to do with me? Why am I even here? How is it that this is really the case?... etc... must have all been spinning in his head.

We go back and forth on options he suggests... things like 'if' i could get a room someplace... 'if' I would get back into society... 'if' I would take a more stable job... and 'if', 'if', 'if'...

I explain some realities he hadn't considered offering... and if he would entertain the theoretical idea that I am a Mr.E... where all is right as rain, that I am, and being that I am, it is ok for me to be me. Mr.E. That's who I am, Mr. Evan A. Ellefsen, a mystery not only to myself, but to so many others as well. A mystery, a Mr.E, and all I am is my ministry. For those who know me on a personal level, you have heard first hand some of my rambling babbles, my ministry if you will. And for some of you, I am quite entertaining, and for others, it can get a bit heavy at times.

Now, there are those that presuppose, that they know me. That somehow, they know what I have and have not processed repeatedly, over and over in my mind, and the situation in which I find myself is the situation in which I find myself. These they's know it so well in fact, that they have tons of useless sh*t advice to offer on what I should, could, ought or might do to get back in the game. They say, "you're good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn-it, people like you", and as all fine and good as that is, it is the one and only thing I posses. It is to this point exactlly... What "I SHOULD DO..."

Before that cool breeze of realization hit me, I was at a place that held no direction, just a repeating loop of bullsh*t and only I could break the cycle that it represented, I had to stop procrastinating and act. I had to be me, do me and learn that the me that is, is a verb. An action. A process of taking the abstract into reality, the theoretical into action. I can not martyr my self for some idealized concept of the paradigm and how it aught to exist, because it can only exist as I think it aught to, only in my mind, my world. All these others have their own paths they must follow, and those intersecting moments along the journey are happenstance, coincidences, luck, fate or fancy. Take and give freely from each of these experiences, and hopefully, learn something in the process. Either way, in the Buddhist conception of self, there is no self, hence no me. Only attachments to desires exist. There is no permanence. I will get old, I will get sick and I will die. So will you. So will everything. And... all those material attachments you have to 'stuff', will be taken from you by moths, rust and thieves. So, enjoy that short term lease when it's your turn to play with your borrowed 'stuff', remember, you can't take any of it with you. For me, that means my camp gear and all of its paraphernalia...

And that is when the Universe speaks and a flood of affection and concern for my well-being opens up and people start flooding my room.

As you can imagine my surprise, you can't even imagine the look on this fellows face! It just put his theoretical mind into an actual, reality based reality...that he may never recover from.

To me, it is the serendipitous serendipiting!

Why?

I don't know, but I hope you read it back a few posts... cause it says it better than this attempt.

Call it the Divine.

Call it what ever you want.

It just is.

And I am truly blessed.

(We'll get to my bar-keep next post...)

"Hey Bar-Keep! Can ya refresh my ice-cubes!" as per some other patron... See: http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=qr5PZuE_vaU

Cause hey man, ya know I luv ya brother... It applies here, too... So THANKS, more!