A Webber's Life

A Surfer's Lifestyle

I'm a webber. What can I say about it? … well … it takes me places. Its a new life I've found since my retirement … but I figure … it might be a new wave of things … for the future. I identify with one personality … on the ground … and another … who's a bit of a traveler … like thoughts … that I bring to my personality on the ground … to my ambitions … career … family life … and society. Its a growing experience.

I'm sitting at a cafe … on the ground … around here … people say hello … nod … stop for a few words … but I don't think they are seeing all of me. There's the other … my thoughts … tangible with friends all over the world … people I meet everyday … who share their lives … where they live … with me. It feels somewhat different from what I used to be … but I wish I could be clearer about that.

On the web … I'm not committed to fulfill … any one person's view of what I am … I am many things … and I think my webber friends … take it for what it is. There's a hint of romance sometimes … especially with photos … the sharing of intimate privacy … and I step into it … with greater liberty these days … and experience a close companionship … that's there for a day or two. But its a big world … and I find that same friend listed on other places … and realize where his/ her thoughts are taking them.

Its an opportunity to grow … in the lush cityscape of the web … and then I come back home … attend to my housekeeping … and then muse about the day … and then maybe … write about it. Its a little wobbly … like maybe learning how to surf in the ocean … I've never surfed in the ocean. But I was standing next to some surfers … some time back … on a beach near here … and I couldn't bring myself to simply distance from them. Its not entirely unfamiliar.

I'm asking myself questions like … ' what is true friendship?' … and finding that I'm getting into an argument about it … with my memories of friends … from my youth. Its causing a controversy with my value systems … but I'm thinking … I'm perfectly human. I run into acquaintances here … who continue to relate with the intensity of monkeys … on trees … whose instinct for survival is founded on groups … but have not cultivated a world wide group. They rely on the daily personal grooming … but have not learnt to groom themselves … as a webber.

I used to visit with a lady … in the British Isles … who desks a blog about her daily life … her son … husband … and dog. She writes about housekeeping … the laundry … recipes … gardening … handywork around the house. Its boring sometimes … and I tell myself its like a visit to my sister's house here. Then one day she talks about her husband's bike gang … and the conversation she had with him … that morning … as she lay in bed … and he was rummaging through the clothes cabinet … for his jeans. Like I said … the sister I never had.

On occasion I find that a fellow webber … comes close to my personal thoughts on issues. I look at the books they are reading … their movie lists … songs … write and then … I realize they remind me so much of myself … at a place I can't be entirely objective. As I get into the feel … and seek to understand it better … I look up the town on the map … google the images of the town … the school … the housing … the mall … cafes … beach … and then look up the local newspapers. In a way … I'm seeing what he's seeing … and realize … we are not very different from others.

I was doing something like that … on some sites in the Ukraine. Then when the Russians … went into a confrontation with them … I almost forgot that I had webber friends there. I thought abut it for a while … and realized the scope of passions … a person can bring himself to relate to … by the webber stuff I do. So I stopped the need for anxiety … took a philosophical view … added on to my perceptions about life in the Ukraine … and brought the reins to my concerns. The world is a big place. But there's this guy … whose mother gave him a hand embroided handkerchief … the day he left for the city … I hope he's alright.

On reflection … I figure I was always that way … and then I had thought that I was living my life … with half my mind pondering on the mysteries of the world and universe … daydreaming half the time … and I wasn't bringing myself to focus on where I am. I may have been too hard on myself … on that score … or to view relationships as having failed … or didn't go the way I thought. I'm not daydreaming today …but my mind has gone back to wondering about the mysteries of the world … perhaps in a real sense.

There's a fella down under … in Australia … who's a champion of Abo rights … to their ancestral lands … and whose webber links … spoke of the dreamtime … possibly at a time … before the world was created. I'm familiar with that dreamtime today … as ' Flanders Field ' … a name I gave … for the colorful paintings … that the artists in Dutch Flanders paint. Its a place of beginnings … in our minds. I think I understand better what Abo is about. The story is … that they are Dravidians … like me … from the Indus civilization … who migrated away after the collapse of the Vedic age.

Max Webber … the political scientist … whose theories were part of my study at the university … pointed to the way man defines his own organization and society. He is also the one … who thereafter observes and studies … the society he's living in. I'm pleased that the label webber … as lifestyle … coincides with his name. He would have found our lifestyle these days fascinating … I think.