Dagnabbit

Well, it happened AGAIN.
Someone writes something I agree with, I read it, and then... I decide to write them and compliment them.
The next damned thing that happens is that they write me and ask me to speak at a meeting!
Except this time.. the guy forwarded my post to 500 people, and one of THEM asked me to come and speak - to the 500 people!

Know what? I hate public speaking. I am really a very shy and quiet person in my home life. I like being in my yard. I like reading volumes of books. I like sewing and crafting and cooking. I like playing with my animals. That's pretty much it. If all of the TV stations went out, all of the computers went out, tomorrow, I could sit happily and write stuff like I used to - longhand on a legal pad. And never answer the phone, never talk to anyone. Sigh.

I don't get what people see in the whole "power" thing. I don't want to direct. I don't want to control. I don't really give a damn what other people do - as long as they don't bother me. I don't mind helping people occasionally - but those that REQUIRE endless help - and most of 'em do! - I would prefer never to meet.

My best friend says he wants to be a hermit. I laugh at him all the time. He could never be a hermit - he likes bright lights and being around people, being the center of attention. I don't. I could so easily disappear and never be heard from again, and fade with barely a ripple. I don't care where my name is on the brass plaques - or if it is there at all. I know full well that there will always be a bulldozer in the future to tear down the wall where the brass plaque is, or someone to say, "Do YOU remember who that was?" 100 years from now, where I was and who I was will not matter... because no one cares about history or making it any more. They all live in the "now". And that's so obvious because everyone makes the same mistakes, over and over.

So I'll go give my speech, rearrange my schedule, and have several hundred breathless people go "Wow!" and a handful be nasty and critical... and what they say, and what I say, won't matter, because none of them have the balls to grasp the nettle and do the work.