Something wicked this way comes...
Posted by: Archimedes on Apr 02, 2009 - 07:45 PM
archies_thoughts
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I feel like something is afoot. I don't know if it's bad or good, but I just feel like the air is electrified. Everyone seems to be feeling it in one way or another. Everything seems supercharged in my neck of the woods. Things are happening in rapid sucession, projects are ramping up, homelives are hectic and active for me and those that work for me. Everything seems to be just supercharged for some reason in all aspects of our lives.
I feel like I'm waiting for that crack of lightning, like it's just building up enough of a charge to really set off something big. I don't know what it is, but it just feels like everything around me is crackling with energy lately.
The part I hate when I feel like this is that I can feel it, but I don't know what it is...and I don't know how to prepare for it. I'm a logical person, believe it or not. If I see something coming, I'll usually adjust plans to compensate for it, or to enhance it if it's something that's benificial. I've had feelings like this before. It's that feeling of "waiting for the other shoe to drop", but this time it doesn't feel as "bad" as that. But I do feel like there's some kind of change in the air and I can't put my finger on what it is. I just know that whatever it is, it's much bigger than me since I can see its effects on others around me as I observe their lives, which are equally as hectic as my own, and we all seem to be like we're struggling for air - just to catch a breather.
The last time I felt similarly to this, although the feeling of foreboding I had was not pretty then - this time it's just kind of supercharged, not necessarily bad, was when I was working for the Fortune 500 company in Virginia. I don't remember if I related that or not. It was at the height of the dot com bubble, just before MCI-Worldcom went belly up. I was working for a company that was a service provider for the big telecommunications companies like Lucent, Alcatel, MCI-Worldcom and others. It was about that time that everything seemed to get more and more charged, like something was in the air, but it was more like a storm cloud gathering and I could almost see it.
I used to drive out to Front Royal and up onto Skyline Drive pretty frequently to "escape" the madness of the hustle and bustle of living and working in a major metropolitan area. And I remember driving back from Front Royal with my wife and she noticed I was quieter than usual and seemed pensive. She asked me what was wrong, and I said, "I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, like something that's going to be ugly in nature is going to happen that's going to change our direction".
MCI-Worldcom had just run into serious trouble and suddenly the attrition rate at the company I worked at had risen to about 35%. And I mean NOBODY was spared the affects. The VP of marketing was suddenly let go without so much as a warning to the rest of us. Half of the upper management left in short order to "pursue other opportunities" and a host of other people were getting axed regularly and replaced.
A month after I'd made the statement, I'd had a particularly rough day and was unpleasant about it with many of the upper management. And I hated my boss, the person who had taken over for the Director of Information Technology from a guy I LOVED to work for. This new guy was a twit and I couldn't stand him. He and I were always at odds. Made working at the company a miserable experience. Anyway, I'd shown a bit more aggrivation than usual...and came in on Monday to find that I was terminated.
Thankfully, I'd paid for my car in cash, so I had a good set of wheels. And my wife had put away several thousand dollars in our savings. That added to the compensation that they owed me allowed us to live comfortably for several months while I looked for work. Eventually, it was this event that radically changed my direction and brought me back to Maine - that's a wholely different story, and one I think I've related before.
But in any case, the feeling I have now isn't dissimilar to that except that it doesn't necessarily feel bad or ugly. It's not like a storm cloud brewing. Or maybe it is, but it's more like a really hot summer day when you're hoping for something to clear the air and you can smell it. It smells like metal and leaves a tang on your palette. I just feel like there's some kind of dramatic shift occuring...I just wish I knew what it was.
I also get the feeling that whatever it is, it's beginning to have its affect on a large scale. Kind of like my views on God/the Universe, I feel that it's neither benign nor molevolent, it just is, but it's exerting pressure. I was watching the news this morning and there was an armed robbery of a convenience store in Washington State. This is nothing new - we're rife with crime in the U.S. What made this different was that the robber had brought his nine year old girl with him and that he was obviously NOT a robber as he walked it while surveillance cameras were running, and most everyone knows they are, walked up to the counter with his daughter beside him and a coffee in his hand and a candy bar in his daughter's hand and then pulled out a handgun and levelled it at the clerk and demanded the cash in the drawer.
Now again, aside from his daughter being present, this still isn't terribly out of the ordinary. But what I can say is that I *felt* the charge right through the T.V. I could feel this man's desperation. I could feel him being squeezed by the universe and the things going on around him and he'd simply cracked. The words that were most haunting were those that he spoke to the clerk...
"I'm out of work. My daughter has to survive."
These aren't words spoken of someone who's turned to crime as a matter of choice. These are the words of someone who has exhuasted all other possibilities and is either unable or too proud to take assistance. And I think it's a sign of the times, scary though that might be. I think we're all at a tipping point, some closer to the edge than others. It was later revealed who he was and also identified that he'd been out of work for several MONTHS.
I just feel like this is driving us all to the edge. And for some reason, over the course of the last couple of weeks, it seems to have picked up in intensity.
Maybe I'm just full of it. I don't know. But if I'm right, then something big is about to happen, like a rubber band getting ready to "snap back". I could just be mental...and frankly, I'm not sure if I hope I am or not.
Just a side note. You can all call me nuts later if nothing comes of it. I've been called worse. :)
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