That is how my computer was acting until today. What I did is what I wish that we could do with the days of our lives: I reset it to a prior point in time. Microsoft has, in Windows, this nifty application: system reset. It will allow you to reset the computer's settings to a prior point, generally before a problem occurred so that it is as if that moment in time never existed. Imagine: we could reset 9/11 and all of the lives in the World Trade Center could have been saved; we could have avoided the costly war in Iraq that has killed over 1,000 American soldiers and sailors (not to mention American non-combatants and Iraqis, both in and out of uniforms).
I want a system reset for my life. I look back and see more FUBAR than can be safely described here. It is not all bad, but every life has its pain. Still, the pain is what makes us what we are. What does not kill me makes me stronger. Maybe the FUBAR is what sculpts us.
One of those words that came from the Second World War was SNAFU: situation normal all fucked up. Like FUBAR, this contribution to American English came out of the military experience of the WWII generation. It has so entered the standard vocabulary as to be accepted as normal English without regard for its profane roots. Glitch is somewhat different. It is Yiddish in derivation, coming from the word glitschen, to slide.
I am not really certain what I would do if I did have a reset for my life. Would I have changed anything? Probably my career choice. I would probably be teaching in Long Beach. Maybe my first marriage (but my daughters were born of that marriage), definitely my second marriage. The hard thing about saying that is that the present is a result of the past. It coalesced in a particular way to lead me to this particular place. Like an intricate lattice work of potential futures, held together by a vine that has snaked its way past the FUBAR into this moment. All of the flowers and fruits of that vine are the sum and total of the moments that have led me to this place.
It almost seems like a cavalier use of these terms to describe the moments of my life. It is the FUBAR that makes us stronger. We live in the face of the SNAFU and still arise again to make it right. It may be fucked up beyond all recognition, but it is the reality that we have. What light and grace shall we bring to recognize it anew?
Ah, but I am only a fool.
