'But every time you fall you get yo' ass in a sling...'

Would someone explain to me, please, how not being able to sleep or think straight, feeling sick all the time and having your entire mental and psychological state depend on the next email or text message from your pedestal-seated beloved is considered not only a normal part of life but wonderful enough to write endless stories and songs about? I let it happen to me nine years ago, and even the memory scares the living hell out of me. I didn't fall into that pit by accident, I jumped without a parachute and was naive enough to think I could land unscathed. Fortunately I managed to climb out, but it took a very long time and made me all the more determined to avoid a repeat performance.

That accounts for why I've locked all past tender feelings, and the possibility of any future ones, away in an emotional strongbox and will never let them out again, but it doesn't help me understand why some people, having come to the end of one relationship, are so keen to pair off with someone else without taking time out to consider what they've learned. Is being alone really so frightening that they'll 'hook up', as the young people say, with a new partner before the scars of severing their ties with the previous one have healed?

While it's true my atttude to these things at times appears more Vulcan than human, I'll admit I'm not as much of a solitary creature as I always thought I'd be. At times I get very lonely, more so than I ever believed I could, but I'd rather put up with that than risk getting involved with the wrong person just to avoid it and face a world of pain when it all blows up in my face. The single life seems like the lesser of two evils and, unlike Mae West, I'm not brave enough to pick the one I never tried before.  

 

'One of us, one of us' (gooba-gobble...)

To what extent are those of a particular religion, race or minority obliged to be spokespeople for that group or culture? Several of my online correspondents are Jewish, and one or two of them have a deep interest in matters relating to the Holocaust. I wonder how much of this is due their own family history or a 'shared' memory of something that had a disastrous effect on others of the same faith? 

Similarly, many women, LGBTQ people and those of other races or religions have fought for recognition and equality through the years. Should those who come after them feel a duty to carry on the struggle even if they don't have any direct experience of the discrimination or prejudice their forebears suffered? 

I ask this as someone with a disability who's been lucky enough not to have to spend my whole life thinking of myself as disabled. It's a part of who I am, yes, but it doesn't define me. I went to school with several kids who grew up into the sort of people who defined themselves by what they weren't and, as a result, were encouraged to have no higher ambitions than to become statistics. 

I saw even more of this during the years I 'worked' as an advocate for people with disabilities. Yes, you're entitled to this payment, that subsidy or whatever, but is that really all you want? My enthusiasm and idealism for the job evaporated very quickly because I couldn't relate to many of the situations I had to deal with. I could empathise as easily as the next guy, but I felt like a hypocrite because I'd never experienced any grave social injustices first hand. Or maybe I had, I just chose not to let them bring me down. I bumbled through an unremarkable life as best I could, I made do and mended and I adapted where possible. That was all I felt able to do at the time, and I had little or no desire to rock the boat.

Since I began to use a wheelchair, arguably thirty plus years too late, I've come to understand I should have made a lot more noise, and educated myself better about what my needs are and how to meet them. For every new opportunity I may explore, there's at least one obstacle that those with functional lower limbs, or more advanced wheelchair skills than me 'umble self, won't have to face. I'm very, very late to the equal access party. Or, if you like, I've come in halfway through the service and have to read the words out of someone else's prayer book because I didn't have the foresight either to bring my own or pick one up from the back table on my way through.

If I am to live out the rest of my span in the manner to which I hope to become accustomed, I owe it to myself to learn all I can about what's available to me and make the most of it. My circumstances are not what they once were, and I now have the opportunity to play more of a role in the grand scheme of things than I've ever allowed myself to imagine before. I have the freedom, the resources and the will to make that happen. What I lack is knowledge, experience and skills. As Socrates once said, 'true wisdom comes to each of us when we realise how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us.'