The Underlying Theme

One time a friend of mine named Jim and I were talking about a famous physicist named Richard Feynman. I pointed out that even though Feynman had played a pivotal role in the Manhattan Project, he had gotten kicked out of the Army for ‘psychological’ reasons. One of the things psychologists had worried about was that Feynman had honestly answered a question about feelings of being ‘stared at’ by saying that yes, he often did feel that people stared at him. I told my friend Jim that I’d always thought such feelings weren’t just subjective, but rather some people simply got stared at more than other people.

“I myself,” I said, “frequently get stared at by people.”

Jim laughed. More exactly, he guffawed.

“Mark, that’s you in a nutshell!” Jim said. “The fact that you think people stare at you is a symptom of how nuts you are. But the fact that you’re so comfortable talking about it is a sign that you’re not going to let your insanity drive you around the bend.”

Later that night we went up to the north side. We took my car and as I was driving, Jim was sitting all slouched down in the passenger seat. I asked him what he was doing. He just said he was conducting an experiment and wouldn’t explain further.

We took the streets to the north side: Archer to Canal, Canal to downtown, then Michigan avenue up to the Gold Coast.

As we drove north on Michigan, I stopped for some red light. Jim sat up straight and cursed, shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’ve been sitting all slunk down in the seat,” Jim said, “because I’ve been watching people in the cars next to us. And I’ve been watching people on the sidewalk. You know, you are right. People do stare at you. What the hell is going on? What the hell is up with that? How do you stand it?”

*

Even though my blog posts the last couple of weeks have been short and unprepared, I’ve found myself second-guessing myself more than normal.

I was going to type up a funny story about a friend-of-a-friend which would be a kind of follow-up to my unicorn post but I decided to skip it. I’ve got a couple of things to say about ‘refractory’ minerals and astrophysics that I’m hesitating to put up. And I am hesitating to put up more details about my Mom’s illness or stuff my brother and I are talking about.

I don’t know. Even though blogs are essentially anonymous, right now—maybe it’s because I’ve been so focused, so introverted, so insular, because of dealing with my Mom’s illness—I’ve been overly aware of this whole sense of “being stared at” and it’s making me think twice about the content of my blog posts.

And it’s not really like me to hold back on stuff . . .

Regardless of how anonymous blogging is (or isn’t!), I am making a conscious effort to remind myself of the lyrics of this old Rush song:

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role,
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to see
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme

Living in a fisheye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can’t pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend

All the world’s indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another’s audience
Outside the gilded cage

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to see
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme