Something must be done. There's nothing to be done. Something must be done.

My post yesterday was some lazy and fairly shallow and stupid shit, but I'm leaving it up anyway, as a reminder to not be dumb. 

I mean, the concept is okay. My outrage is legit. But it was a poor piece of writing. 

I have a lot of work to do for the PhD so of course I'm writing a blog post. It's okay, it's better than eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's and crying in the shower. Or spending hours on Facebook all the while getting more and more aggravated by how unsatisfying and crazy-making people can be.  

Imagine a hypothetical situation. You are in love with and deeply emotionally attached to someone thousands of miles away. You persist in trying to have a relationship with them via mediated communication. The relationship started online and unfolded via the actual exchange of more than 30,000 messages via Facebook Messenger. There have been wonderful, unforgettable times spent together, every other month or so. But the other person's computer went on the blink, and then they removed messenger from their phone, So the relationship continued to unfold via email, text messaging and phone calls. But then the other person's phone went on the blink and phone calls became frustrating, because they drop in and out, with long silences obliterating what they are saying. And email isn't workable for them really because it involves composing on a phone, which is aggravating. And text messaging isn't the preferred mode for you because it is such a small format. Thoughts are so encapsulated and short. And your own text messaging service is not allowing you to send pics, one of the playful and enjoyable ways you used to communicate with this person. 

Now also imagine that the other person is deeply involved in the intensive daily demands of parenting two beautiful children, running a household and to some degree maintaining an 11 year partnership with the father of the children. And imagine that there is no plan for the future involving you, even though you have made it clear you want a future. You haven't asked for any sort of fast move, disruptive or destructive change, but you do wonder if there is even the intention of the other person changing their life, exiting the 11 year partnership and becoming available. No fruitful conversations exploring these possibilities have been possible for a variety of reasons over the course of nearly a year of being involved. 

Given all of these realities (at least, I believe the facts of the case have been accurately and fairly stated), what is the appropriate emotional response on your part? Let's say you feel anxious, somewhat despairing, confused, occasionally imagine you are dispensable or feel back-burnered or like an afterthought, find yourself wondering why you remain emotionally vulnerable and heavily invested and consistently available and committed under these circumstances. You have also been criticizing and judging your emotional set as being overly dramatic, out of proportion, too attached, codependent or what have you. Quite often, you live with a constant ache of missing this person, wanting to interact with them and finding that text messages sometimes make the loneliness worse, not better. 

But when it is all laid out, aren't sadness, despair, anxiety, doubt and frustration proportional to the situation? Or at least justified. Maybe the emotional experience gets over-heated sometimes, or exaggerated. And it's quite fraught for me, since I am prone to beating the shit out of myself for being "weak" when I am lonely or miss someone. But given the lack of availability, the distance, the lack of a plan or intention for a future and the lack of effective means of communication about any of these things, I guess I would say to a friend of mine who laid all of this out and who was wondering if their emotional life were proportional: "yes, yes I would be feeling those things also. How have the two of you even managed to sustain this for almost a year?" 

It's darkly humorous, in particular, the ways I have tried to ameliorate the probably proportional responses to the situation using recovery and spirituality. Pathologizing normal and "healthy" desires for clarity, commitment and security. Looking for ways to be "comfortable with uncertainty," where those grand Buddhists are all about "all life is uncertain, security is an illusion, let go and be in the moment." That's great and I do honestly think it's a wonderful way to develop. I also think the situation has been very fertile ground for examining my codependent tendencies. 

However, in a larger sense, what if these approaches are merely rationalizations? Excuses for tolerating an increasingly unsustainable, unresolved and painful reality? Or what if both aspects are true. It's valuable to let go and be comfortable with uncertainty, it's valuable to examine one's behavior for the old codependent compulsions *and* it's valuable to take oneself seriously enough to acknowledge that the situation sucks, is painful and may not be a situation one wants to be in anymore under the current terms. 

It's weird how the self help and recovery movements conspire to shame and guilt people for having ordinary feelings of loneliness, sadness, frustration, confusion, anxiety and anger. "Negative emotions," those sunny New Age folks call them. One is tempted to say "I am emotionally unwell" when experiencing these feelings. But what if the situation truly fucking sucks? Would a person not be emotionally unwell if they were pretending to be "fine" and trying to force themselves to be all Buddhist and unattached? To have true equanimity of course is a beautiful thing. I am occasionally able to access it. That wide, expansive feeling of Julian of Norwich. 

versus

But more often than not, a snarl is gathering on the horizon that will not be mollified, meditated away or ignored. What is happening, where are we headed, how can the most mutually supportive, loving and non-destructive choices be made and where's the greatest good for all involved? It has begun to feel like, rather than learning to live in uncertainty, we are perhaps more often avoiding facing, untangling and dealing with reality. No relationship, no matter how strong the love, can live on avoidance for very long, in my opinion. On the other hand, pushing too hard to "figure it out and decide" is trying to get the relationship to live on anxiety, which is also unsustainable. 

The real conundrum is more like: where is the middle way here? How can one proceed cautiously, lovingly, compassionately and carefully in the face of these things? Where is the patience required that is also not merely denial and delay? It goes to some delicate skill. I have traditionally been unskilled in these scenarios. 

What would a skilled person do? 

more on loneliness

I wrote this in an email to the loml this morning:

The realization of outsider loneliness takes it to what feels like a core place. Whenever I get these insights, and there have been several in the past, I eventually emerge wiser and more functional as a result. The first crushing blow to my ego was probably in my 20s, when I realized I was nothing all that special, artistically-- in particular that I completely lacked the resilience, willingness to suffer and pay dues, and belief in myself in the face of rejection that it takes to persist, either in writing or music. The next crushing blow to my ego was when I realized I was alcoholic, probably as early as about 1994, but it would take 10 years for me to get sober. It was also a real immolation when my persona burned down to the ground at Desert Academy and everything I was pretending to be proved to be transparent to the Board and almost fatal for me. The next crushing blow was when it slowly began to dawn on me that I was not skilled at romantic partnerships, intimacy or communication. I had always felt this weird pride about all of that. As the disasters continued even after I got sober, I realized au contraire, lots of humility to develop there. 

This one shoots through all of the above, as you can see easily in a second's reflection. What is the least tolerable part of working on being an artist? Loneliness. Core of alcoholism? Loneliness. Motive to develop a ridiculous strawman hollowman scarecrow public persona? Loneliness. Thing that gunks up relationships? Loneliness. So this is the kind of thing they mean when they say, okay, those other things are symptoms, This is a core issue. Causal, not conditional. 

So it's good to face it, it's just challenging, of course. It's not like one can encounter the monster under the bed of 56 years and be blithely aha! welcome, how nice that I know the shape of you. 

***************************************************************************************************

So I'm reflecting more on that existential identity. "I am a lonely person." It's been true in many settings. And it's all bound up by also feeling like a weirdo. I have sometimes tried to romanticize or revel in the weirdo status, but I have never or rarely gotten to a place of acceptance with it. I don't know. Is this the wrong country for me? The wrong era? The wrong planet? 

There are plenty of ways that I also have valued my outsider feeling. I think I have intentionally exacerbated and magnified it at times. In Santa Fe, being intentionally East Coast raw and skeptical of New Age things. In schools, being rebellious. Etc. It's a way of managing the constant feeling of not belonging, for sure. Just make it so that you obviously do not belong. Why not? Nothing to lose, since you already feel that way. 

The thing is that I have long yearned for belonging. I think this is just the way we are. Community is a beautiful thing. The brief stretches of time when I have felt connected and like I belong have been glorious. Even if it is just one facet of myself that rarely gets connected up with others, but finally finds a forum for a little while. The botany part of me, for example, in conversation with botanists. This is a good example, because the vast majority of the time, people seem to find my fascination with cacti to be weird. And now that I have been in the PhD program, they often seem to find the research that I do to be utterly either inscrutable or unimpressive. 

I have not intentionally sought areas of culture that are outre or obscure merely to seem interesting or whatever. I love Cecil Taylor's music. I love weird art. It loves me back. Etc. 

Not Belonging

The itinerary for spring travels ended up being El Rosario, Loreto, Puerto San Carlos, Isla Magdalena, Todos Santos, La Paz, Loreto, Puertocitos, San Diego, Pasadena, Death Valley, Panguitch Utah, Glen Canyon, back home. It was a shorter trip than I thought it would be but I also ended up covering a lot more ground in the United States than I thought I would. 

Stenocereus eruca, the creeping devil cactus, Puerto San Carlos BCS

The field work and data gathering portion of the trip was much quicker than I thought it would be also, thanks to a statistical protocol I was sent by a colleague that greatly reduces the amount of boots on the ground field data one needs to collect. I was on Isla Magdalena for three days, instead of 10. I appreciated that. 

Isla Magdalena 

In general, I am burned out, finally, on Baja California. Many signs of this burnout, but in particular, my feeling of being eager to be done with it when I am there. I used to never want to leave. I just need a break, I think. It's still one of my favorite places on Earth. 

The biggest set of reflections that have been on my mind all center around loneliness and not belonging, not fitting in and not being part of. I had a lot of alone time of course on my travels to think about these things. Many things occurred to me. 

— I have rarely felt, at any time of my life, that I belonged where I was. This is a very common sentiment among alcoholics and addicts. I am no different in this regard. I learned how to pretend at an early age, and have often found myself in weirdly hollow and unfulfilling situations as a result of my chameleon nature. It is only my outside that changes. The inner feeling of not belonging remains. 

— The enduring feeling of my life has been loneliness. I have been lonely when a boy, as I grew up, in adulthood. I have been lonely when alone, when with a partner and when with a crowd. I have been lonely in school and out of school, in work and on weekends. Loneliness is the characteristic emotion and sense of things of my entire life. I have found myself lonely within recovery programs, even while surrounded by people who completely talk and think the way I do. 

— The only moments in my life when the enduring experience of loneliness has lifted have been either when I have fallen in love or when I have entered comfortable solitude. The issue with the relief of loneliness provided by falling in love is that the loneliness creeps back into my sense of things. I often end up having the nagging feeling that my partner would laugh me out of the room if she knew the real me. I have tended to under-communicate in the past. As a result I do not feel heard or seen. I have often chosen partners who are preoccupied and forgetful or who have attention deficits, obviously as a strategy to explain away my loneliness. "It's not about you, she's just forgetful and busy." When someone else takes the time to get to know me and truly pays attention, it is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling, and it can even cause anxiety. 

— The most enduring relief from loneliness has been solitude. But it takes me time and some discomfort or even a kind of spiritual agony to get to solitude. It's a long walk through loneliness to get there. Once I am there, however, I feel completely at ease, peaceful and unconcerned about this whole conundrum of my social relations and my place in human life. These are the stretches of time I am so hungry for when I go camping and hiking, or traveling in general. Again, traveling is a way to justify not belonging, since, of course, while traveling, by definition, you don't belong. 

Anyway, it looks to me like my addictive behaviors, codependent sex and love addiction and a lot of other sources of my suffering come from trying to find some relief from this bottomless loneliness. I was extremely lonely in the partnership with A and I am sure she was too, since I disappeared. 

It's especially painful to seek company as a remedy for loneliness but then not experience much understanding or connection with that company. I'd rather just get to solitude than have loneliness reinforced by oblivious presence. One of the big challenges of the current relationship situation is that it combines physical absence with attentional unavailablity. I spent months trying to manage that challenging intersection and saw clearly while on my trip that it was okay to just let go. It is what it is. 

In addition to loneliness, switching states is very challenging for me. Going from connection to solitude is not a transition with which I am very resilient. I try to hang on to the connection or I try to hang on to the solitude. It is interesting to work on just being more resilient. It's connection time. It's solitude time. You can shift. It won't kill you. 

Not belonging has taken a series of very strange forms over the years. A memory I had recently is one of those powerful, very painful moments, even though the setting was quite trivial. I was on my lunch break from the Barnes and Noble Sales Annex in Manhattan, where I was a warehouse clerk. I was 19. I went to an Italian deli and I used a precious few dollars to buy a meatball parmigiana sandwich. I took my little sandwich outside on 18th street somewhere near 5th Ave and I unwrappd it from the butcher paper and I started eating it. And the thought completely possessed me: "You don't know how to do any of this. You don't know how to do this life, this planet, this culture. This city, being a human. You don't know how. You'll never know how. You'll always be an outsider, outside even the other outsiders. The best you'll ever be able to do is fake it." 

It was a truly surreal moment because there was no reason for it. I was just being a New Yorker, by outward appearances. 

That's just one example of many, probably hundreds, where the same narrative and the same sense of never being able to get this life right, not belonging in it and never being at ease in it unfolded. Most of the people with whom I tend to spend time probably have this exact same sense of being from another planet. Of not really getting the way things work here. Of always having to figure it out and then pretend. 

Sky, Thorndyke Primitive Campground, 9000 feet, Death Valley

puerto de ilusion

In La Paz, BCS. I love visiting here. I even thought I might want to move here. I'm glad I got over that fantasy though, as I think it would be very challenging to live in Mexico, for a lot of reasons I won't get into here. 

I am having epiphanies out the wazoo along this trip, but none are able to be articulated yet. I'l just post pics for now to keep this thing on life support. 

Days, one and two

Trekking down the Baja peninsula for the 20th time in 25 years, thinking about taking a break for the next year or two or three, as I will have all the data I need, I think, after this trip. It's the Velveteen Rabbit of peninsulas at this point. The astonishing beauty and wildness has become familiar, but the dysfunction, inconvenience, language barrier and other challenges have also become familiar and somewhat tedious. I think this is de rigeur for PhD programs: find something and someplace you love and then get so familiar with the subject and place that you end up hating it. Never hating it when it comes to Baja or the flora, but needing a break, definitely. 

I used to take about four days to get as far south as Loreto, but the last two times I've done it in two. Day one across the incredibly boring bottom of the American West on I-8, and then the crossing at Tecate, not just a political border, but a portal into a completely different emotional, intellectual, spiritual world. Winding down through the Ruta del Vino (signs for which wags have changed to Puta del Vino) down the Pacific coast on the paved road through endless industrial farming areas, each little town along the way threadbare and filthy and blasted by factory farming. It takes about 5 hours to go the 200 miles between Tecate and El Rosario. I used to stay in Tecate or camp along the Pacific north of Ensenada on day 1, and then wrangle this unpleasant drive on day two. It's so odious to me now after so many times that I do it all in one day. 

Along the Sea of Cortez, south of Mexicali through San Felipe, they have been slowly paving the road. This cuts a huge amount of time and is a much nicer drive, but there are still 20 miles of bone jarring, dusty, unpaved rocky road. I would do it in a heartbeat if everything inside Isabel (the car) didn't get coated with a film of white powdery dust. I do it on the way back, often, because I can just clean everything when I get home. I have learned the hard way that it's no good spending three weeks down here with everything covered with pulverized rock. 

Anyway it's great to be out of Hades. My semiannual emergence into the upper world, to the archipelago that has been my study site for 4 years. Coming up on a total of six months spent there, a few weeks at a time, twice a year. I may even have too much data. Well, one thing I have learned is that there is never too much data. 

street art in Tecate

el zocalo, Tecate

the transpeninsular highway features many roadside memorials to drivers killed along the way

Fouquieria columnaris

Cylindropuntia ganderi subsp. catavinensis

Intrepid Isabel

Palo Adan flower

The Vizcaino

Ferocactus peninsularis vizcainensis

Hotel Santa Fe in Loreto

May we all be as happy as this washing machine