Yes I know, I'm impulsive and prone to let me emotions carry me away! Despite my [gradually] growing maturity (I am already 54 years old), and my conscience effort to balance my emotions with my reason, those who now me know it isn't always so easy.
Maybe it's because I care so much? More likely because I never learned how to "manage" my emotions until very late in life, and hence the "tools" others learned in their youth and adolescence I'm still in the arduous process of acquiring. Whatever the reason, I reached last Friday, Eruv Shabbat S'Lach Lecha 5765 a watershed. The combination of confusion and conflict on almost every level of my existence became overwhelming:
- The "world" sees nothing really wrong with the blind hatred of the Islamic world towards everything Israeli and be extension Israeli. Those who know me realize that the "pragmatists" who turn a blind eye to the aiding and abetting of terror in their midst while loudly clucking about "how dreadful" are more despicable in my eyes than those insane individuals who actually blow themselves up
- The "inner world" of 'Left' and 'Right', of 'post Zionist' versus 'traditional Zionist' of 'Religious' versus 'Secular' is reaching a breaking point. True tremendous efforts are being made by the 'believing' side to reach out and make themselves understood, but ultimately in every relationship it takes two sides to come to a workable solution
- Finally my 'existential reality' of a 54 year old 'has-been' that apparently is no longer in demand (or even employable) added the "straw that broke the camel's [read my] back"
Realizing that I could no longer carry all these various emotional burdens and still retain my sanity, or continue without damaging my heart and who knows what other organs, I made a decision to "disengage".
Within three hours I "unplugged" YeshaSpeaksOut.org (it goes off line July 1st), Disengagement.org (ditto), GrowingUpInIsrael.org, Blogs4Biz.com as well as my autobiographical blog OneMansTruth.blogspot.com and my assorted essays etc. YoelBA.blogspot.com. Similarly I'll closed all my email accounts except YoelBA@gmail.com (I've been trying to close YoelBA@hotmail.com for six months without success. Microsoft simply will not let go of me! )
Now that my in-box is no longer filled with tens of submissions to the various blogs I moderated or published and my mind is freed to try and think through the major issue of "What now?" - "How do I make a living now?" Hopefully I'll have the emotional and intellectual resources to rise up and meet this very important very basic challenge.
After all this I can't not publish.... so I setup "Second Thoughts" to permit me to publish ideas, thoughts and opinions that I feel the need to contribute to "public scrutiny". If only my children read these musings (thanks Batya for a lovely word), I will feel justified. If friends or even strangers find my mosaic of eclectic posts of interest or even possibly 'enriching', all the better.
Yoel Ben-Avraham
Shilo, Benyamin
20 Sivan 5765
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