jake's mystery

jake jacobs lived across the street when i was a kid. we were Best Friends. i can't picture clearly the faces of my family members but i can close my eyes and see jake jacobs, with his darkish skin and his droopish eyes and his runny nose. we read about "indian blood brothers" somewhere and we performed the ritual. his blood ran through my veins. we were Best Friends.

but we were only Best Friends in the morning. jake jacobs would come to visit me, his Best Friend, and we would have fun until not long after lunch. then, we'd find ourselves embroiled in argument, likely squabbling over whose army men should be wiped out and whose should triumph. i don't remember the nature of the actual arguments. i remember the result: jake jacobs would resign his post as my Best Friend or i would revoke it; often both at once.

jake jacobs would leave my house and we'd part as eternal enemies, never to share a smile again.

but the next day we'd once again be Best Friends, and he'd bring his soldiers over, accepting and bearing apologies, for another half-day of spirited and consequence-free miniature combat simulation.

after all these years, through all the things that have changed in my life, with all the tables that have turned, and all the fortunes that have changed, and all the things that turned out opposite of how i predicted or hoped, my friends are all still jake jacobs.

perhaps this is my strength and perhaps it is my downfall. i cannot hold a grudge. i can remain cold in the face of those who do not bring apologies for trade, but even must i imagine reconciliation upon their lips, my forgiveness is very real, for all my daily jake jacobses.

and if after all these years, through all the things that have changed in my life, with all the tables that have turned, and all the fortunes that have changed, and all the things that turned out opposite of how i predicted or hoped, my friends are all still jake jacobs, and i, an un-ordinary person capable of sweeping, drastic, and effectual personal changes, remain at the core the same person i was when i was 8...

... how can i expect anyone else to ever change anything at all?

and yet, some people do change, yes?

yes?

i can't be anything but ordinary, can i?

a conundrum that fills me with questions. to consider myself anything but ordinary is not only hubris but worse: statistical error. but the way i craft and mould and bend myself to my will seems anything but ordinary. to accept that i possess an unusual skill or an un-ordinary will is to concede un-ordinariness and with this concession, to accept the notion that others are incapable of similar life changes.

and that is a dim view of things.

so i must choose: the mathematically improbable world where i enjoy membership in an elite cabal of extra-ordinary reality tunnelers, or the world where i'm quite ordinary, and thus everyone has the ability to effect change in themselves. but the evidence is not with the latter choice, unless we assume that everyone has the ability but few have the desire, which, again, does not hold with the evidence.

and still, i can not accept the notion of uniqeness. i shall not resolve the issue in an exhausted stream-of-consciousness blog posting of 1am: i've grappled with this at full brain power and found myself in a twisty little maze of passages, all alike.

but i'm writing again. and i'm feeling again. i'm me again.

as i always have been. all is forgiven.