Changed the Locks Three Times

My new headphones came in the mail. They are Sennheiser HD280Pros. They are massive and roughly double the volume of my head. I'll see how good they sound in a few days and compare them to Sterling's Sonys.

I am going to talk about relationships. Not mine, of course--haven't had one in years--but those of the people around me. I've watched quite a few of them implode over the past few months. It's like I'm running between trenches in World War I as bullets fly and mortar shells fall all around me and blow my comrades into tiny heartbroken pieces. I feel like I'm going to get some survivor's guilt out of this.

I would like to think I am progressive in many things--politics, instrumentation--but as far as these issues go, I'm old fashioned, black and white, binary. Fall or don't, and it's a matter of intuition. Consequently, certain things do not make sense to me: things such as undefined relationships, aborted reunions, and "I dated him even though I knew he was going to hurt me so we could get it out of the way and be friends" don't make much sense to me, and in fact strike me as ill-advised for the most part.

"But you've never been in such a situation before, so what do you know?"

There are probably at least a few people I know who would pull that card. And it's valid; I've not been through much, relatively speaking, at least not first-hand. What I do know of these dynamics is they cause meltdowns, and have done so recently within my immediate vicinity, figuratively speaking. Which seems to support the conclusions I'd originally arrived at. So I continue to hold my ideals as they hold me (sometimes they're the only things that do). Though if "Just" is the song from The Bends that best describes all the people I know, the one that best describes myself would probably be "High and Dry." Ideals are lousy company, and one can't devour or ignite them in times of hunger and cold. Not that one could do so with people, either. Well, one could, it would just likely get one institutionalized.

Still, there are people out there who can actually sustain these seemingly absurd dynamics, and that unnerves me. It's disquieting to think that people can differ so much on such a fundamental issue as basic human affection. If we can't take that commonality for granted, what could we not disagree and quarrel and bleed one another dry over?