Starbucks Purgatory

So I can't be upset.  I talked to one of my best friends last night. He lost his house, many of his possessions, and just about any semblance of a normal life for the foreseeable future.  Through it all, he's been upbeat, and keeps on movin' on.  No tears, no complaining, just manning up and taking it as it comes.  I admire that.

For me, the power outage we've had has been somewhat therapeutic.  You realize what you need, what you don't need, and all those things we have that don't actually matter when it comes to survival.  If you've got water and shelter, you're just about halfway there.  Get some warm clothes and the occasional meal and you can actually live.  Sure there's no Facebook, no internet, and not a whole lot of comfort, but in reality, you can look forward to seeing the sun rise on the following morning.

I can't say that all this has had a transforming effect on my personality.  What I can say, however, is that it's served to reinforce those things that I knew deep down were integral parts of my personality.  More and more each day that passes I am sure that my values and core beliefs in what life should contain-those possessions that are needed and those that are not, how you see the world, and such-are correct and can be upheld.  In a lot of ways, I believe I would be happier living with less, on a mountain somewhere with the bear minimum.  Something about that gives me energy and makes me feel truly human.

I digress... Before this goes too deep into something about life and the human condition, I'll get back to the title of this post.  I'm sat in Starbucks-again-as I have just about every day since we've lost our power and water.  Mostly it's to get warm, check emails, and just veg out.  With what I've stated in the above paragraphs, I'm noticing more and more the trivial crap that goes on in the world as I sit here.  So funny how just a week ago we were all banding together, moving toward a common goal of sorts, and now, just like it was the days before the storm, we're back to the bullshit.  Just an observation and I'm not sure I'm getting through to my point (having coffee names and people yelling about politics in my ear as I write this has derailed my train of thought more than a few times).  Still though, this all makes me think about how nice it would be to get out of all this and live as we were intended to live.

So, here I sit in my little Starbucks Purgatory, yapping away on my keyboard and pondering life.  I wonder if this is what the founder of Starbucks had in mind when he set up shop...