When I was in the hospital, only two parties other than my parents visited – my college roommate and one set of my daughter’s godparents. Others in the area knew I was there but other than a few friends not even a text or call for the three week stay. One individual speculated why my friends from Philadelphia, NYC, or even Boston didn’t visit. I wanted to respond- but you were here and you didn’t.

No need to go into the whys of all that. Frankly it was nice to have the peace and quiet. I’m also not really into get well balloons and teddy bears if you couldn’t tell by now.

A friend told me how he observed and detested the blatant careerism of the DC Metro area and he was correct. I won’t do the soapbox thing here but I wanted to compare this phenomena to an asylum. You have to leave it to see it for what it is. And it’s not just the DC area – it’s basically anywhere else where if you don’t somehow leave, you can’t see all the pitfalls of the place.

Plato teaches the allegory of the cave where someone who is preciously chained to a wall seeing shadows finally escapes and sees the real world that has been projecting those shadows. When the individual tries to tell the others who are still chained of this reality, they reject and even kill him.

That is the problem with the asylum mentality. All you can see are the walls surrounding you. And that’s how the perspective is truly warped. The talking in circles, the limited mindset, the infinitesimally small goals and dreams.

And that has its own costs and consequences. What ir exactly is, I can’t put my finger on it but I surmise it’s some type of emptiness that cannot be filled. That’s what happens when you spend too much time chasing and looking at shadows.