# Chapter 177

Another classmate had died. He was a quiet one. So quiet that after 12 years of school together, I still did not know him very well. I don’t like what that says about me, but it is accurate and true. Still the same self-absorbed person I was 50 years ago most days. Living in my own world inside my head. Wishing that it were easier to think of others, care for others, reach out to others, if not for Brenda I would be a hermit on an island, mentally in another universe.

Not sure why it still surprises me that another classmate has died, we are all pushing 60 years of age now - an unbelievably old age to us just a few short decades ago. And here after his life has ended I find out that Gregg was a veteran, that he served on aircraft carriers in the Navy, that he lived not all that far away from where we grew up, and yet I haven’t seen him once in the 40 years since we graduated from school. Ok ok maybe me living in five different countries in that time span had something to do with that, but I suspect on good evidence that if I had never left I hometown, I still would not have seen him a single time, because I am all into me.

This selfishness has a cure, and yet we seem incapable of focusing on others with deep regularity and intentionality. There is always that underlying primary concern of how does this affect me, what about me, what about my goals and objectives. Shesh this is disgusting.