People Amaze Me

I searched for a clever quote to start this post, but I wasn’t able to find one really.

The truth is that the title of this post is multi-faceted. No quote I could find could possibly encapsulate the dual nature of what I’ve got going through my head right now, so I won’t even try. First, let me tell you a little anecdotal story from my day.

Now, I’ve got no sense of understanding of Ron Paul supporters. These people put all their political support behind a bat-shit insane crackpot with less of a chance to get his party’s presidential nomination that I do of converting to the Republican party, but yet, there they are, supporting him. So, it came as no real shock to me to hear some dumbass Ron Paul supporter in my American Political Parties class make the asinine statement, regarding the Republican presidential primary in Florida, that Paul would finish ahead of both Giuliani and Huckabee. The statement was supported by the fact that the number of undecideds in Florida’s last tracking poll were 30%, though he just didn’t seem to bother to see that these people aren’t undecided between all the candidates, but moreso between the three main candidates, and even more so between Romney and McCain. This has been proven by the fact that, as I write this, with 26% of the districts reporting, Giuliani and Huckabee both lead Paul by double digits, thus proving this man’s inability to function in reality.

However, then the conversation in class shifted to “switcher issues”, which are issues that, if a politician doesn’t support them, will cause a voter to choose somebody completely different as their choice. Now, some common “switcher issues” are abortion and capital punishment. In fact, both of these issues are “switcher issues” for me, as it makes sense to have view similar to mine. At least one would think that. However, this very same Paul supporter then said that his “switcher issue” was gun control. In fact, his stance is that any attempt by a politician to limit the weaponry that he is able to have access to at all would cause him to vote for somebody else. Now, I don’t think it is hard to see why, upon hearing this, I turned to my classmate sitting next to me and said “That motherfucker scares the shit out of me”. I mean, with the common sense to support Ron Paul, and what I can only imagine is a fucking arsenal sitting in his closet, this kid is one step away from being in the first line of my obituary, and not in any way that I want him to be. The level of naive, ignorant people that I run into amazes me.

However, I promised that this post was multi-faceted, so let us visit the other facet of people that amaze me.

Now, as probably comes as no shock to anyone, I am in therapy. I spend 50 minutes, every two weeks, conversing with a very kind and learned therapist who I trust to help me get through many, many issues that I have. However, my biggest issue, the one that actually drove me to therapy in the first place, is anxiety, both generalized and, more specifically, social anxiety. I had reached a point in my life where I couldn’t look a new person in the eye, thus making the act of interpersonal communication difficult. However, through work with my therapist and an amazing group of friends, I’m getting better at that.

So, the reason that people amaze me in this regard is that, through all the shit I’ve been through, I have some of the most loyal and caring friends a guy could hope for. Even when I felt so low that I didn’t think I deserved a single goddamn friend, they were there and making sure I was doing alright. With nothing at all in it for them, these people, my surrogate family, have taken care to make sure I was ok through one of the toughest patches of my life, and now, as I come through it to the other side, I can really take the time to appreciate what I have.

And that, my friends, is why people truly amaze me.