I have a little time here before I have to go to a doctor's appointment (that I now wish was later so I could go and in-person try to set these health insurance people straight... I mean, find out why they're evidently not processing the expenses I'm submitting to them... I'll try not to bite any heads off in the process).
The idea for today's post just came to me this morning (I've already been up 2 hours, even though I still have mask on my face and have to finish otherwise cleaning up).
***
I know that the USA (I'm talking culture here, not politics) is not the worst by any means in this realm, but it's still mostly true that society doesn't really care why any particular individual ends out on the losing end of life. What matters, for the most part, is that one does (or does not) end up so. And that is the final basis for judging the person; everything else is pretty much secondary.
Somewhere in my studies of civil society (another, more recent, era of my life) I heard about Henry Dunant, the founder of the International Red Cross. Everyone knows about this organization (and the sister Red Crescents), but the life of the founder wasn't as fortunate, in the long haul, as was his brainchild, this organization. Although he was born into wealth and high society and was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize during his life time (vs. posthumously) he died a pauper in obscurity, having failed in business along the way.
Of course that analogy is not a very good one, because I never did anything so fantastic like founding the Red Cross. Not even close. And I wasn't exactly born into wealth and society either (although I also wasn't born into poverty).
Still the world is an unforgiving place and mainly just recognizes success (as it defines "success") and doesn't care why success was or wasn't reached, except maybe as an object lesson of what to or not to do.
So what do modals have to do with this? Glad you asked.
***
In my situation it would be very easy to sort of settle into an imaginary world of modals:
If I had known ..., I would have done...
If they had been more ..., I might have responded with ...
In hindsight, I should have done...
Instead of ... I could rather have ...
If I were a rich man, duh-duh-duh... If I were a biddy-biddy wealthy man... [Fiddler on the Roof]
Yeah, right, and I also don't have any ruby red slippers [Wizard of Oz] either.
At this point in the game, though, it doesn't do much good to speculate on what might have/could have/should have/would have been, except perhaps now to think through things to try to reconstruct them as true to to reality as possible.
What I mean by that is that as I remember the events of the past (using various artifacts and written documents as aids), I've over the years created a kind of meaning to everything in general and specific things in particular, and considering counter possibilities might help in that reconstruction, especially concerning the meaning making part, the interpretative aspects. After all, although I'm not a historian, I've studied enough of history to know that our reconstruction of history is colored by our living in the present, even though we might try to avoid that.
So I try to think through various conclusions like this:
I'm interpreting this event (with whatever level of certainty applies to that particular event interpretation), and if it's true, then hypothetically I could have tested this theory out back then by doing X. Then in my mind I try to imagine how such a scenario would play out and if I can't really see it playing out according to that interpretation, then I scrap that interpretation or at least put it on the back burning pending further confirmation, if such exists.
I mean, I don't want to paint my problems or those who I see as contributors to my problems, inordinately black; I want to give them credit where credit is due for whatever good things they do, say or seem to be. Sometimes this is hard because I still have some emotional ties to the events, even though the emotional bonds to those in the more distant past has lessened with time, unless something about it continues in the present. This might be true, for example, for family-related things.
I hope you can see from the my previous posts in which I discuss texts from the standpoint of how they might relate to my experiences. I tried to be fair and use clear delineations as to what pertained to or didn't pertain to my situation and those involved in my past. I won't say I'm perfect and those who are the subjects of my comments would probably balk, and perhaps vehemently so, which would not be completely unexpected under the circumstances.
On a day to day basis I try not to live in a modal world, but live in the present and try to plan for the future (which currently means "tomorrow" as in Tues., Aug. 10, 2010). But for the purposes of writing about my past I need to, to a certain extent sort of live in a model world, as I try to piece everything together in a way that might be even more logical then I experienced it... which I hope compensates for you not having the complete experience of living in my shoes these 50 years. In order for the condensed version of my life to make any sense, I have to have some tools to make it clearer. That does involve some interpretation, but I hope you will at least give me credit for trying to be reasonable in my interpretations.
I need to go now.
~ Meg
