Meditation, recovery meetings, work on the dissertation, fucking around on Facebook and a little bit on Instagram, meeting with sponsees (when they don't disappear), dealing with committee members who seem to take their gatekeeper role just a tad too seriously.
Today's I Ching, hexagrams 58 and 47, Joy (or Pleasure) and Oppression. One of the great mysteries of the I Ching is how to relate the two hexagrams when there are changing lines. Many people think of the first hexagram as the present and the second as the future, but this never or rarely works for me (unless, of course, I like the second hexagram, in which case I tend to prejudicially hope it is a symbol for the future).
It's more informative for me to not try to assign relative time to either hexagram. In fact, a lot of the time, the second hexagram feels a lot more like the present and the first one seems like an ironic commentary, or even a joke, or at least a tease. Or the first one might feel causal and the second one the effect. Or the other way around. Or inner and outer, so to speak, or hidden and obvious, or absolutely complementary and unified.
It makes sense of course that a symbolic "oracle" would not really have much to do with time- after all, to what degree do our dreams have to do with time? Or the unbidden and sometimes upsetting or at least surprising unfolding of our hidden psyches? No time involved there- all at once time, or not at all time, or now back to then, or just present and that is all there is.
The first hexagram today was Joy or Self-Indulgence, and it often rankles me just how unrelentingly Confucian the existing interpretations of the I Ching usually are. In Confucian philosophy, restraint and self control are very high virtues. Connected with this emphasis on proper action and control over one's emotions is an inherently misogynistic duality, where yin is called a "dark force" and is associated with "the feminine" and yang is "light" and associated with "the masculine." I think one of the only ways to translate Jung and many of the white European male perspectives on the I Ching (not to mention many other symbolic systems) is to abandon the conceptual framework of "feminine" and "masculine" as symbolic realms. Certainly there's plenty of ways to characterize a duality that are completely divorced from biological or cultural concepts. Light and dark are enough, probably, with the wisdom that also sees light as blinding, burning, drying, exposing of the rightly private, intrusive, loud and rattling and the dark as spacious, nurturing, restful, mysterious and intriguing, honest, healing and exalted.
The judgments in symbolic systems say more about the all too human creators of those systems than anything resembling reality. The generally "negative" interpretations of the swords in the tarot is another example.
Regarding this hexagram, since both top and bottom trigrams are symbols for a lake, the idea is naturally connected to whatever a lake represents- calm, fresh water, openness, reflection, re-creation, "safe waters." Lakes, as far as aggregate waters go, are twofold though- on the one hand, often somewhat human scale, a bit more majestic than a pond, but much more scaled to human activity than a roaring river or ocean, or even a stream, seemingly innocent but ominously often populated by nixies. But lakes are also places where many mysterious events occur- mythical creatures, spells, all kinds of magic, both constructive and destructive. I never spent much time with lakes, preferring either streams or the ocean. Movement has always appealed to me more than stillness.
But the dual traditional reading here- Joy, or Self Indulgence, is typical of this persnickety I Ching- the crotchety old sage who knows that pleasure is unreliable and contingent on an outside source and joy is a reliable and nourishing spiritual experience. The old idea of pleasure in moderation and joy only being edifying is all in line with both Confucianism and white male priesthood.
"In light frivolity, the center is lost; in hasty action, self-mastery is lost." -Lao Tzu
"Each of us is equipped with a psychic disposition that limits our freedom in high degree and makes it practically illusory. Not only is "freedom of the will" an incalculable problem philosophically, it is also a misnomer in the practical sense, for we seldom find anybody who is not influenced and indeed dominated by desires, habits, impulses, prejudices, resentments, and by every conceivable kind of complex. All these natural facts function exactly like an Olympus full of deities who want to be propitiated, served, feared and worshipped, not only by the individual owner of this assorted pantheon, but by everybody in his vicinity."
Jung -- Psychology and Religion
For the consciousness that values "self mastery" and clarity above all, Joy would indeed be very dangerous, although probably grudgingly admitted to the "necessary" moments of spiritual or moral development, "as long as it doesn't go too far and as long as it comes from within."
The changing bottom line in this reading comes with the attendant interpretation of "cheerful self-sufficiency," or "inner joy and calm acceptance." But, as it is the only changing line, it leads to the related hexagram, Oppression.
I absolutely resonate with this symbol much more than I do with Joy. Is it only what is, with Joy as a suggested skill in which to endure? Or is it the past? Is it the future? We want our oracles to give us information! The only information this gives me is information I already had- I am in fact exhausted, depleted, worn down, depressed and feel stuck in a situation that is entirely in the control of other people who are not generously disposed toward me at this time. By contrast, as is often the case with this oracle, Joy seems like a sarcastic comment.
A more linear reading might suggest that self indulgence has led to the situation where I am oppressed, and there would be some truth to this. Yesterday, for example, I worked on the dissertation from 5 am until 3 pm, and then hit a wall and decided I needed to take a nap. But the nap turned into what it often does these days- an unproductive, hardly restful anxiety fest where I rolled around groaning and thinking about how cool it would be to not exist. Essentially unproductive in a way that even reinforces itself and piles on. It feels like a miracle, in retrospect, that I got up, took a shower, and went to my Refuge Recovery meeting, after all of which I felt "better."
(which brings me up against the A number 1 pet peeve I have lately, which is shallow motherfuckers trying to tell me how to feel "better" or offering rainbow unicorn fucking bullshit as a way out of my wretchedness. It flames me so intensely because it is a fucking *betrayal* of trust, a juvenile abandonment of paying attention to suffering, a form of rejection. But I'll write about that another time).
My pal Wm Blake reminds me that "One Law for the Lion and Ox is Oppression." Oppression of the lion, I always immediately think, but probably of the ox as well. The superficial and cowardly idea of fairness or of cheerfulness is oppression, since both indicate also a lack of trust and a lack of the wisdom that knows that wretchedness is normal and does not have to have a purpose or lead to wisdom or any other thing. It amuses me when even heroes of mine, such as Pema Chödrön, want to "rescue" wretchedness as a gateway or opportunity of some kind. It may well be, and one can hope all one likes, but sometimes it is just fucking wretchedness period and is not productive or instructive in any goddamned way at all.
“Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected.
“But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction.
“On the other hand, wretchedness–life’s painful aspect–softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose–you’re just there.
“The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple.
“Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.”
- Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
Yes, they go together- by necessity. But we can soften in many ways without being wretched and we can experience the gloriousness of being without craving and addiction. Chödrön gets very close to the idea that wretchedness has a purpose (to make us "better" people), and while that may or may not be true, I am exhausted by the framework. "I got into recovery when the misery got too bad to bear," a lot of people experience and it's a phrase you hear in recovery a lot. I identify, of course, but it seems like One Law for the Lion and Ox to me.
At any rate, of course, there is wisdom in passing through Joy with equanimity, by relying on inner resources and reducing an emphasis on outward pleasure, and passing through Oppression with forbearance and ferocious strength. There is wisdom in self mastery. But to get there, it's not possible to bypass. It is a rip off and a cowardly failure of opportunity.
"Cheer up, man, you're just going through Hades is all! It could be worse."
Let us not forget that good old Percy is on a jaunt through Hades: let us not forget. Obviously, it's easy on such a trip to confuse the particular for the universal, so to speak. Personal experiences around love and loss, intellectual incapacity, ignorance of entire fields of knowledge, etc. have been particulars, the universal encompasses that whole experience and is about "more" than that particular ride. By analogy, think of a man engulfed in flames who yet has a rusty dagger driven to the hilt into his heart. In spite of the more globally inconvenient issue of immolation, this pathetic figure is probably more focused on that dagger, at least for a while. Do I wax dramatical?
Do you not know me but at all?
A brief chat with a friend of mine this morning was an opportunity to stand a little distance away from the conundrums and pains of the intimacy with and end of U as I knew U and recall that there is a "larger" trip going on that began back before I started this fuckin' blog. (Which was Monday, March 6th, 2017- so, only a little over two years ago).
Ulmus ulmus ulmus! It can't all be about Ulmus! How unfair that is anyway, right? Of course this is what we tend to do when we're in pain- find someone to blame. It is crystal clear to me that I am responsible for what I have been feeling. I like that ownership and I welcome it, because it means I am more at home in all of it.
There have been some encouraging changes over the past few months. I am still crazy paranoid and jealous, but now I at least have the distance to be able to say to myself, wow dude, that is batshit. This additional perspective, even though rudimentary, is extremely helpful. You'd think it would be demoralizing or something but in fact it's a moment of freedom for me to recognize, wow, I have gone off the rails. This very middle of the night, I awoke and the first thought I was aware of having was "I bet she slept with that guy when she was in Santa Fe." It just flashed into my mind, unbidden. And though I think it is untrue and more than that I want to be fully detached to the degree that I honestly do not give a fuck even if it is true, all of the emotional sequelae were there as if it were just a plain fact, and that has been one form of the batshitedness.
This is along the lines of the Moon time in life, when all is uncertainty, fear, darkness, mystery, when fantasies and delusions seem just as real as anything if not even surreal, more real.
In the midst of all of this, I have to muster my intellectual sharpness to do my best in the dissertation writing, and I do believe that has been the biggest challenge of this passage- that it is bad timing, so to speak, coinciding with a purely intellectual exercise. Stark contrast with the roiling emotional life. Sometimes a welcome antidote, but usually just a true challenge.
Here's a couple things that I have learned though that crystallized only recently for me and that I may well forget, who knows.
1. The failure of my long term partnerships in the past has been at least partly, if not largely, due to my lack of commitment, lack of choice. I pretended to be committed and to have made the decision. I never truly wanted to, nor did I. I always had one foot out the door and an exit strategy. I know now with certainty that one of the features of a successful longer term partnership is to unequivocally, flat out, wholeheartedly CHOOSE the other person. I like the thought that I may well apply this the next time.
2. You can't bullshit your way to a science PhD. I have tried to cut corners in some ways on the dissertation analysis, mostly in tiny little picayune stupid ways that seemed insignificant to me, but my committee members disagree. Cross every motherfucking t, dot every godforsaken i, button down every transparent thing and do it in the fewest number of words possible. That is the big challenge now and something I have never tried to do in life, ever.
So, the trip through Hades has its benefits, as painful as the causes may be.
Some women whose perceptions and experience of the world I respect have said to me that I am one of the very few cis hetero men who "gets it." This is in regard to rape culture, marginalization of women, the extra added intimidation and social pressures on women, the damned if you do, damned if you don't social judgments of mothers, slut shaming, bodily autonomy and a whole host of other issues related to women's experience.
One of these women asked me recently how I have become as aware of these things as I have. What did I do? Why did I care?
I have been trying to figure that out ever since. It's been a weird path, unfolding on social media, mostly. I have angered a lot of men. For only one example, a guy called me a "ball traitor" and said I was just trying to get "free sex" by advocating for women. I wanted to say something about how all the sex I have (especially since I put my sex life into recovery) is free already, and was free when I was kind of a dick, but I didn't. Many men and some women have accused me of merely virtue signaling, rather than attempting to communicate something of substance. Some women have found my attempts to speak about the oppression and marginalization of women to be mansplaining, or overly attached and an attempt at speaking for them. I've learned a lot from all of these interactions, along the way.
I've definitely learned to spot, in myself and in other men, the whole arena of self defense, equivocation, what if and what about ism, denial, and territoriality. I've also gotten better at spotting the ways white male privilege erases identity and the lived experience of other people. I've become a lot more aware and respectful of epistemological privilege. I've faced some harsh call outs and criticism and have had to get past my own wounded pride and hurt feelings many, many times. I've lost a few friends over the whole deal.
Why I care is simple- I'm fanatically devoted to women. I love women. Men are all right, I suppose. But Women's Lives Matter. Since I was roughly pubescent (so to speak) I've been like Dante drawn to his Beatrice. I admire women, I love the way they think and write, I love their minds, their bodies and their hearts. I respect their power and their wisdom. I have long been an equity feminist, and I think I absorbed a ton of that second wave feminism growing up in the 1970's. When women started speaking to me about their suffering, my knee jerk feminism started to be fleshed out in more real terms.
How a transformation happened in me from basically being on board with equity feminism "as long as it didn't go too far" (somewhat along the lines of all those people who believe in "man-hating feminism") to actively participating in dismantling the patriarchy and being committed to overthrowing white cis het male supremacy is still somewhat of a mystery. I know that a series of wise and patient women have explained a lot to me. I suspect that the deep truth of authentic and enduring love for U, and some dawning realization of the kind of world I wish she lived in, probably has something to do with it.
The project has been one of listening to, validating and identifying with (as much as possible) women. Not just nodding and commiserating, but getting into as much of a neutral place as possible to get as much immediate understanding of women's experiences as possible. The process has taught me that we have two ways of engaging in advocacy. One way is to be the good ally, agreeing with the principles of a cause, but only sensing the suffering that drives that cause in an analogous way, by comparison with one's own experience. This is better than indifference or outright antagonism, but it falls short of having much real power.
I think of it as moving from being an ally to being an accomplice. Instead of supporting change, I want to participate in meaningful ways. One of the first things this whole process has brought home for me is how important self determination is for marginalized groups. One of the strongest acts of service I can do, as an older white male, is just step aside. Get out of the way. I'm sure if there's any other way I can be useful, I'll find out. But for too long, liberal allyship has been rooted in the white savior, the male protector. I think self determination holds the real key to fundamental change.
