Assessing the Damage

What a terrifying thing to watch yourself be reeled in by something. Something you know very well for what it is and yet you can't look away, you can't take your knowledge and use it to save yourself much grief. Instead you watch, standing next to yourself, shaking your head as you fall. Today was that day for myself. I know orientation is a scare-them-and-save-them tactic. I know this. I've always known this. I will continue to know this. Yet today, day two of the drama and mayhem, I stepped aside and watched another me fall victim to this tactic.

How is it that one can be in two states at once? The first in full recognition and understanding of what is going on, why it is happening and that everything is just fine. The second completely falling apart, scared and unable to get back into just the one state, the first state. This doesn't seem logical. Nor sane!

Let's look at Mr Monkey for a moment. Today the first state, being the first state and not the only state, stepped to the side and Mr Monkey embodied it. The calm, collected Mr Monkey. He stood there, shaking his head in pity as I continued with myself, still having Mr Monkey, but not being solely Mr Monkey. Instead I had become mostly, or at least overwhelmingly, the crazed Chickens. Here's the real kicker. I managed to maintain Mr Monkey on the exterior and Chickens on the inside while in public despite being overwhelmingly Chickens and in the background Mr Monkey.

While we're on Mr Monkey and the Chickens, remove them as examples of my two states, and go back to just them. Today Mr Monkey had his own problems. He was filing away and the fan, you know that small one that he keeps on his desk off to the side? Well it accidentally got set on the rotating setting instead of the fixed settings. Papers went everywhere! Mr Monkey could really use a helper, but those damn Chickens aren't to be trusted.

And now I must go eat. I'm happy to say that I have managed (with the help of my friends, naturally) to bottle the crazy back up (as we know from Scrubs, you shouldn't let it all out at once) and go back to the first state. It's my only state right now. And I'm enjoying it.

Mr Monkey, here's to you. My hats off. Good job man, good job.