(The side comment about being a guest in my own house will probably generate some future posts, because it has been a pattern since...age 10?)
The State of the Blog:
Who knows? I do notice that I have tended to censor myself lately. So it's good to reflect on that.
I am fucking enraged and hurt, still, over the events that unfolded a few months ago. In particular, in spite of my strong desire that this not be the case, the utter classlessness, passive aggressive cruelty and manipulative weirdness of A's couple's selfie on FB (she knows me and my extensive FB life and the dozens of friends we have in common-- she knew I would see it-- people have said "don't take it personally," but fuck that, it IS fucking personal), for example, still gets to me (obviously). Smug, lacking in compassion, cold, narcissistic, childishly "rebellious" and creepy. The kind of thing only a dedicated asshole would do. (And then, of course, it occurs to me that I invested in the shitty low value stock of a dedicated asshole for almost 6 years, and that's a pleasant set of realizations as well).
Other things I have refrained from writing about: my continuing struggles with mood, my severe and sometimes crippling or completely paralyzing doubts about my PhD projects, my anxieties about financial insecurity, my feelings of resentment toward various people who are *not* A or her new fuckboy, etc.
Even on an anonymous blog, I am inclined to try to keep my look good. To post about emotional sobriety, tools for getting off the victim vertex, all of this deep spiritual and psychological wisdom and so on. It's okay, since a lot of that is also happening simultaneously, but really, honestly, I am just as much a fucking mess now as I was March 1st. Both are true-- but the look good is much better served by avoiding talking about the darker stuff.
This goes right along the lines of the tendency I have had in the past of lying to my therapists. Being dishonest about what is really going on with me *on an anonymous blog* is perfect somehow. Just as much as all of the liberating spiritual work, or really a key part of the whole process, is just cutting the bullshit and getting as real as possible.
One of my musical heroes, Cecil Taylor, recently had a horrible thing happen where he won the $500,000 Kyoto Prize, but a guy he had hired to do repairs on his home stole all of the money. This is a hilarious account of a press conference with Taylor that is 100% accurate.
But something that caught me off guard was when someone asked Taylor what he wished for the man who stole his prize money and Taylor's one word response was "Die." I think of the spiritual and creative life as one of progressively finding ways to become better, to let go of attachments, to forgive and move on, to be liberated. But a big part of that "positive thinking" is a fucking trap that just plays right into my old Presbyterian "Nice Guy" upbringing. In fact, the ugliness and directness of just wanting people who have fucked with me to suffer is also who I am, as raw and human and real as that is. Taylor, typically, didn't pull any of the sort of idealistic Coltrane love and light "spiritual" rhetoric. What do you want for someone who ripped you off? Die.
Simple.
I have a friend in AA who, almost every time he sees me, he asks "How are you?" and if I answer "I'm good!" or "I'm fine!" and so on, he says "You're full of shit. You're not fine. What's the real deal?" I know if I am avoiding him there's something I'm carrying that I don't want to tell anyone.
My motto: "I'll figure it out myself and fix it. Meanwhile I will pretend I already have it figured out. Have to keep my look good!"
Fuck that.
Much more effective than spinning my intellectual wheels and coming up with cute formulae for growth and healing along self-help lines: an honest, regular check in on what my authentic emotional life is. While of course I have experienced more equanimity, peace, clarity, even moments of forgiveness and happiness, the simple truth is that an honest, direct assessment is much more raw.
Anger, resentment, bitterness, retributive fantasies, ill will, outrage, disbelief, rationalization, evil dark spellcasting, hopes for eventual schadenfreude, sadness, sorrow, remorse, guilt-- this is what is on the menu much of time.
That's just the way it is, at Post 101.
Sounds like a pretty human menu, honestly. The important thing is to focus on broadening your diet and perhaps selecting one entree or appetizer that you're NOT going to eat any longer. It's easier to eliminate items by slowly and methodically replacing them with new recipes. Just keep chewing.
ReplyDeleteCreating a Feast for the Soul By Adding to the Menu Bit by Bit to Broaden One's Diet
ReplyDeleteThis, in response to the 11:47 AM comment that made me want to stand up and cheer:
In 2004, Jim Harrison wrote an article for the New Yorker about a 37 course lunch he ate in France "that likely cost as much as a new Volvo station wagon." Fully expecting to be criticized, he offered a defense at the outset. "My response...is that none of us 12 disciples of gourmandise wanted a new Volvo. We wanted only lunch and since lunch lasted approximately 11 hours we saved money by not having to buy dinner." Sometimes creating a feast for the soul takes a long time and costs a great deal, but as long as we leave the feast neither drunk nor thirsty, it's all good, to paraphrase Aristotle.