Fifteen and acting like it

Today marks 15 years since I went into total abstinence from drugs and alcohol- got sober- started this strange other life. Or it started me. At the Big Book study meeting I go to every Wednesday evening, we were talking about the paradox: the universe gets us sober, keeps us sober (some people call it God- I do not)- yet there is a lot of "work" we have to do to get sober, to stay sober. It's only a stark paradox if one forgets that there is no difference between the universe and me, in any significant sense. 

The Buddhist path to recovery has had me considering more regularly that I am not the one who is sober, because I don't exist, so to speak. It certainly feels like I exist, especially in misery and suffering, or the dull fact of boredom, or the electrical fire of anxiety. But, instead of the gentle, nurturing and surrounding feeling of a loving God, the past year or so has more been characterized by relief through emptiness. 

I'll take it wherever I can get it. 

Anyway, as I turn 15, it becomes more and more clear to me that the serious issues I have now are with sexual, romantic and intimate relationships. These have always been a thorn in my side, since a very young age- maybe 13 or so, maybe younger. Most of the major suffering, sense of hopelessness, desperation, isolation, abandonment, exhilaration, joy, rightness and solidity of my life is attributable to romantic involvement. From the first girlfriend (where the two of us were talking about getting married and having children after being together for four months, when I was 17), to my current life, the longest stretch of time that I have been single has been nine months. 

Slowly getting into relationship recovery over the past two years, after a while of being engaged in it (no pun intended) back in 2010, has been eye opening. It's also been interesting to see how all of my relationships, even the non-romantic ones, such as those with colleagues, friends, people in AA or CoDA, etc, have been problematic for years. More on all of this going forward into year 16 of sobriety, where the new intention is for emotional sobriety and well being. 

I saw Dr. O for the first time in six months today, and told him I was not feeling resilient in the face of the loss of U, eye surgeries, prostate cancer, the challenges of finishing the dissertation. Contrary to what many people say about "Big Pharma" he did not suggest any new medication. In fact, he said it sounded normal and situational for me to be wrecked a lot of the time right now. He recommended I take it easy, he reduced the dose of buproprion to 150 mg extended release a day, and he referred me to a counselor. "You need to talk this stuff out more. Check back in, and if your circumstances have improved but you are still feeling awful, let's talk about meds." I found this incredibly reassuring on many levels. I have been beating myself up a lot lately for having feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, resignation, hopelessness, fear and resentment. The appointment and his advice puts it in perspective and helps me get a sense of my current situation. 

As I have been saying, sometimes maybe whistling past the graveyard, the emotional turmoil that I am in these days seems proportional to the combination of health issues, grief, constant failure at the PhD and loneliness. 

Meanwhile I embarked on a deep cleaning of my place this morning, and have a lot more of that to go. Getting ready to move at the end of July. I guess if I'm preparing at the beginning of April, I'm ready to get moving. I felt a certain amount of rebellious anger at depression this morning, recognizing the ways in which I have been under water the past few months. Barely, functionally dysfunctional. 

By the basic rule of three degrees applying and two degrees departing, today also marks the beginning of my second Saturn return, with Saturn at 20 degrees 15 minutes Capricorn and at 23 degrees 17 minutes in my natal chart. The mythology around the first Saturn return is heavy indeed- limitation, restriction, The Tower collapsing because of unstable structures, tough transitions, accepting heavy responsibilities, etc- largely due to its timing around age 27 to 29 or so. In fact my first Saturn return roughly coincides with my trip to inpatient rehab. So it's a very special sobriety anniversary this year, and I think the second Saturn return will be good for me. There is less mythology around the second (or third for that matter), but the positive elements of structure, taking stock, taking inventory, consolidating, getting ride of broken or useless things, protecting myself and finding ways to engage in being a hermit all sound okay with me, considering the wildness and weirdness of the Pluto mythology that's been in the air. From Hades to Chronos, maybe a good thing? Let's hope I don't look too appetizing. 

I've been reading Gorski's booklet, a transcription of an Adult Children of Alcoholics talk he gave in 1993, called "Addictive Relationships: Why Love Goes Wrong in Recovery." While he is awfully black and white concerning matters of the heart that in my opinion by necessity are messy, confusing and often painful, I'm being challenged by his framework- which is basically a recycling of John Bradshaw and, extending further back in the lineage, to Erik Erickson. 

When he was invited to give the talk, he was asked to focus it on his idea of the answer to this question: "What is normal in a relationship?" His first approach was to go back to a more fundamental question: "How many people in America come from basically functional families?" His definition of a functional family:
"A functional family of origin is a family unit or home that basically equips a child with the necessary emotional, intellectual, and relationship skills to deal with life as an adolescent and as an adult. In a functional family, we learn to recognize what we feel, put labels on our feelings, and then tell other people about the feelings. Conversely, we gain the capacity to care about what others feel, to listen to their feelings, to respond to them. 

A functional family also prepares children to cope intellectually with the world. It teaches them to think clearly and accurately without major denial. It teaches them to see reality more or less for what it is. And, finally, a healthy family teaches children how to relate in a productive manner through relationships with other human beings."

He estimates that about 20% of people have a functional family of origin. So any effort to find healthy and loving relationships is truly an effort to be abnormal in our culture, not normal. It is to find ways to be abnormally functional, "healthy" and capable of intimacy. I put the word "healthy" in scare quotes because I dislike the connotations. This is where I mildly depart from a lot of the black and white proclamations of Gorski and other helpers- I think it is perfectly alright to be dysfunctional and functional, both. I think, realistically, we are a mix of unskilled, unconscious patterns and skilled, capable responses which we have practiced. I think being in love with someone is bound to be messy and painful, and I don't think that is "unhealthy" or dysfunctional. I think some of the most beautiful, alive, vital and transforming experiences of my life have happened in that mess, chaos, intensity and mutual seeing with another human being. The recovery community can be intensely cynical and dismissive of romantic love. 

At the same time, we grow and become more capable of reliable, trustworthy and true experiences. So to say, well, this is healthy and that is unhealthy- I find that emotionally shallow, shaming and an all too easy judgment to make when one is not in the maelstrom of fucking loving someone to goddamned death. I want to be capable of the whole range of love and feeling, but I also want as many skills as I can practice. U asks me, are you sad? I can't tell you how tempted I am to say Oh no, I am FINE. Just fine. How are you? But instead, I say, yeah, I am sad. Not asking you for anything, U, just telling you. Being honest. It's not yours, but our friendship is. 

It seems like it is shaping up to be an interesting year. 

fucking miserable

How's that for enticing clickbait, dear readers?

It's funny that, given the circumstances, people seem surprised when I say I am unhappy. I guess most people don't really want to know. And those close to me are probably sick of the same old same old. I will say this: I am consistent. It is a consistent unhappiness. Reliable and loyal. By my side. 

I have been feeling surges of resentment and anger lately, and I'm reminded that, in Chinese medicine. it's liver season, and the liver is the seat of anger. Supposedly, all the "toxins" (basically alt medicine's equivalent of "demons" or humors") start to clear, but in doing so, one experiences greater than normal levels of irritability and anger, up to and including red eyed fire breathing rage. 

This does happen to me fairly reliably every spring, so who knows. 

There's some kind of weird resignation phrase that has been scrolling across my Jenny Holzer mind a lot lately. "You love someone you can't be with. Big deal. It happens all the time. It happens in a lot of people's lives. That's the breaks kid."

I do find it oddly reassuring. In a despondent, Casablanca-ending sort of noble way? Or something. 

It's CoDA meeting time, so this will be brief. I do see the shrink in a couple days, and I'm toying with the idea of starting Zoloft. I can be on that combo my counselor last year called "Welloft." We shall see. I have had a great many days where simply taking a shower or sort of working in a very slow and painful, desultory way has been excruciatingly difficult. 

Often lately I just want to stay in bed and not get up. Like, all day. Definitely the down turn of the wheel. 

And I can say that I am actually doing better than I was two years ago. I have had a whole flood of memories of the soul killing awfuloness of two years ago the past few weeks, since anniversaries are important to me. I wish I had a shit memory. I wish I weren't sentimental, too, and especially seeming to get emotionally attached to people who just are not sentimental. Or hide it well. But yeah probably just are not. 

Anyway- bring on those 12 promises of CoDA, and thank you! Uh. Any time now. Checks nonexistent watch. Whistles. Sighs. 

Dumbass or Smartyface?

Lately, it's been a manic alternation between those two extremes- feeling like I am completely benighted, unskilled, ill-equipped, totally sailing in the dark; then feeling sharp, insightful, knowledgeable, capable and competent. This is the weird pendulum of the PhD experience for me, especially throughout the dissertation writing process. Although, more accurately, probably 80% of the experience has been that dumbass impostor feeling. My internal critics have been having a field day as I try to hack my way to the finish line of this weird five year hazing process. 

The above figure is the result of the worst case climate change scenario projected out to 2070, for my study species. The red areas indicate range contraction and the very light green areas indicate range expansion. Under this particular scenario, the species loses 53% of its suitable habitat over the next 50 years. This is similar to the population viability assessment I did (and will have to redo), which shows a species very vulnerable to extinction. Not that surprising, given that it is an island isolate under unique climate and soil conditions, and is basically stranded out there. 

Onward to the molecular phylogeny of the group I am studying, finishing that up. Also doing some fancy historical biogeography  and divergence time estimates for the same group. The analysis shows most likely routes of dispersal and radiation of the species, probably from mainland Mexico across the Gulf of California to Baja, although some taxa may have gone up around and then descended into Baja from the north. I have all of the data and almost al of the analysis, and I'ma good portion of the way into the writing, so it's all moving along.

The main thing is to just keep showing upm, even when the critics in my head are telling me my data is shit, my research is shit, my mind is shit andmy whole dissertation is shit, shit , shit. Keep showing up and putting every effort into all of it in the face of all that self-doubt. It is this repeated encounter that I avoided for 30 years, not going to graduate school. 

Daily meditation, twice daily most days, 20 mins in the morning and 20 at night, has been helping tremendously. A friend of mine in Refuge Recovery gave me a zafu, and it seems so official now. Meditating is sometimes the very last thing I want to do but I have been practicing anyway. At first, ten minutes seems to take forever, but now 20 go by fairly quickly. 

CoDA stepwork is still around step one- We admitted we were powerless over others-- that our lives had become unmanageable. I have been doing a written inventory of all the different ways I have tried to have power over others, how I have tried to manage in all of my relationships. It's a long history and clearly a series of failures rooted in unskillful means and impossible expectations, the core of codependent behavior. It's great to get it all down on paper and see the patterns, but it's slow going and painful. 

The thing that wakes me up at 2 or 3 in the morning currently is not having a job or situation for the fall. Now that I finally emerged out of the species distribution modeling chapter that had me in its clutches for months, maybe I can set aside an hour or two every day to putting all of my job materials together and looking. I'd love to find a post doc doing research somewhere. We'll see. 

Meanwhile it's spring, I'm horny af and have no outlet for it, so it's interesting watching that energy ebb and flow. I'm sick of a lot of the weird cycles of thoughts in my head, but I am trying to apply friendly, compassionate and kind openness and patience to myself. It's not easy for me- I have really been noticing how harsh I am to myself, my own worst enemy by far. Sometimes it seems just as bad as it was years ago. Other times it feels like enormous progress., A similar pendulum to the whole dumbass/smartyface thing. Maybe there's a time in my life at some point with more even keel, stable, peaceful sailing. 

That time is not now. 

Joy and Oppression

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."  

The Tower and The Moon

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. 

From Ally to Accomplice

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. 

Limerence, trash fires, progress

It's amusing to read some of the psychological lit about limerence and note the ways in which the mind tries to categorize and classify experiences of the heart- usually dismissive, reductionist, overly simplified. One of the issues with a lot of psychology is that the emotional life presents as a problem to be solved, rather than a richness of experience to be creatively cultivated. My own experience of counseling has been that I present some kind of seemingly unendurable pain and the counselor and I set about finding ways to alleviate that pain through rational thinking, behavioral change and other methods. 

Psyche revived by Cupid's kiss. Note: revived.

I have never had a counselor say to me "your pain is completely proportional to your experience of the world and let's find some ways for you to explore it, engage with it, take it seriously enough to spend some real time with it. There may in fact not be a solution, but just a growing familiarity." 

Maybe a counselor has taken that approach but I ignored it because I myself have been looking for anodynes. 

There's also the whole area of flat out self care. A friend of mine wrote about a relationship breakthrough, in trying to extricate himself from a clingy partner, where the phrase was "I could do that, but it wouldn't be good for me." I've been trying that one on and experimenting with it, and it's especially interesting to note areas of resistance. In many ways, I don't want what's good for me, clearly, but in other ways, I feel like it is a bypass of something important, a deeper good for me than the immediate. 

Anyway I have been confronted with a lot of anger in myself lately and no outlet for it. Also a lot of sadness, and sometimes despair. No outlet for that either, really. Some conversations have been good. Mostly, the dark and painful places where I am meeting myself are solo, and there's no legitimate way to connect around the experience. It is what it is. 

The new CoDA meeting that I started is picking up steam, fortunately. We had three people on the first night, eight people last week and five last night. We're putting together the script for the meeting chair, we decided on a varied format based on the week of the month we are in, we decided to get medallions and incorporate that into our routine, as well as a newcomer packet, etc. There are times when CoDA provides that one or two second hit of total serenity and clarity that I am powerless over others and that my anxiety, anger, despair and lack of peace all goes back to various ways that I am either trying to have power over others or letting them have power over me. Even just one or two seconds of clarity around that can be a valuable reset. 

Nothing is simple with me. I try to force things at my peril. 

730 days between total misery and now

Or somewhere in there. It took Valentine's Day 2017 and the sig other being on the phone at our house with her new boyfriend when I got home from my AA big book study for me to melt into a puddle and realize I had been depressed for a long time and decide to get help. I went to ASU counseling, did the intake, alerted the intake counselor to my suicidal ideation, worked up a safety plan. Started counseling and CoDA shortly thereafter. March 10 will be two years in CoDA, which has helped me enormously. Freedom is an amazing thing. Of course, being madly in love with an unavailable woman during 18 months of that has offered many, many opportunities to practice relationship recovery skills. Still does. 

I have manifested a middle position regarding U, which is holding gratitude, love of all "kinds" and friendly kindness for her while practicing "non-attached appreciation" and not expecting to see her. The two of us have had several inexplicable, synchronicitous (?) experiences involving each other, a pleasant mystery that I feel no need to explain. The kind of strength that it takes to remain present but unattached would have been utterly impossible without CoDA and I'm grateful. 

The main thing up for old Percy now is the tremendous boredom of finishing the dissertation combined with the crushing anxiety of not knowing either when the defense will be nor what will happen after this process is over. The dissertation has become boring because I'm just reshaping a ton of analysis for the molecular phylogeny that I have already done a few times and then writing it up. I have grown weary of the science writing style where the first three to nine pages have a fairly comprehensive lit review with approximately 50-80 citations, and then there's the usual other formal elements. I mustered a lot of energy for the first two chapters, but these last two, which oddly enough are the most publishable, are truly challenging. 

But at least this collapse of motivation is resulting in much shorter and more concise chapters, which should be a relief for both my committee and myself. I was in the middle of doing a workflow yesterday, to do some congruency tests of the DNA sequences I'm working with and I couldn't figure out the software and it was the absolute last straw. I'm done analyzing. If anybody wants some other aspects, they can suggest them in the review. 

The future is murkier than Tempe Town Lake. My preference would be to do a cool post doc somewhere like a botanical garden with a research program. Either related to plant evolution or conservation or both. Those are rare. My second preference would be a nice job at a primarily undergraduate institution, where I would teach and still be able to do ecological research. My third choice would be adjuncting somewhere, and/or Maricopa Community Colleges (pretty good pay and great benefits) and/or teaching high school again (which actually would pay much better). I love teaching high school but I worry about the work load- it is always such a fucking brutal schedule. Adjuncting is too these days. I know adjuncts at ASU who are teaching 5/5/3 just to survive. Big nope from me. I guess I could do it for a couple of years while pounding the pavement for a post doc. Who knows. 

The big challenge right now is searching for opportunities while finishing the PhD draft and teaching human anatomy. It's a lot. 

I did start a new CoDA meeting here in Tempe, 6:30 to 7:30 on Tuesday evenings, selfishly to fill the gap in the CoDA meeting schedule. My favorite meeting is an hour drive and 40 miles round trip. It was the very kind, solution oriented and non-judgmental people there who got me going on CoDA, so I enjoy going back. But I needed a meeting here, and the room I snagged is one block from my apartment. The church where the meeting is was willing to take 50% of our donations for the first six months as rent, so that's great. The first meeting was last Tuesday and there were three people there including me, but I think it will pick up. 

Refuge Recovery is helping enormously also, especially the daily meditation practice, whether simply paying attention to the breath for 20 minutes or using a guided meditation. There's a kind and supportive community forming around that meeting and it feels good to see the same people every week, for whom this particular path seems to be working. 

A mid-February much, much better than two years ago. 

Mantic/ROmantic

"mantic (adj.)
"relating to or pertaining to prophecy or divination," 1836, from Greek mantikos "prophetic, oracular, of or for a soothsayer," from mantis "one who divines, a seer, prophet; one touched by divine madness," from mainesthai "be inspired," which is related to menos "passion, spirit," from PIE *mnyo-, suffixed form of root *men- (1) "to think," with derivatives referring to qualities and states of mind or thought. Related: Mantical (1580s).

romantic (adj.)
1650s, "of the nature of a literary romance," from French romantique, from Middle French romant "a romance," oblique case of Old French romanz "verse narrative" (see romance (n.)).


As a literary style, opposed to classical since before 1812; in music, from 1885. Meaning "characteristic of an ideal love affair" (such as usually formed the subject of literary romances) is from 1660s. Meaning "having a love affair as a theme" is from 1960. Related: Romantical (1670s); romantically. Compare romanticism.

romance (n.)
c. 1300, "a story, written or recited, of the adventures of a knight, hero, etc.," often one designed principally for entertainment," from Old French romanz "verse narrative" (Modern French roman), originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from Vulgar Latin *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from Latin Romanicus "of or in the Roman style," from Romanus "Roman" (see Roman).


The sense evolution is because medieval vernacular tales usually told chivalric adventures full of marvelous incidents and heroic deeds. In reference to literary works, often in Middle English meaning ones written in French but also applied to native compositions. Literary sense extended by 1660s to "a love story." Meaning "adventurous quality" first recorded 1801; that of "love affair" is from 1916. Romance novel attested from 1964."

(all of the above from the Online Etymological Dictionary, where I spend a lot of my time these days)

Funny that "mantic" and "romantic" of course have no etymological connection. 

Anyway, I've been having conversations with Amrit Brar's Marigold Tarot a lot lately, and I find the cards to be perfect for the darker shadows of my psyche. 

It's been interesting becoming more familiar with a new deck after years and years of the Rider-Waite. I have had a few other decks in the past- The William Blake Tarot for example, which is super cool, and the Thoth Tarot, which is creepy. But I am really resonating with Brar's images and mood. 

I'm also back to more in depth meditations on the I Ching's unpleasant messages. It's funny how the I Ching is a bit of a scold, a disciplinarian, a critic. Last night, for example, I thought the hexagram "Inner Truth" was great, until the yang lines all dissolved except for the top one, leaving "Disintegration/Collapse/The End of the Relationship." 

These extremes of wisdom and folly, equanimity and agony, have been characteristic of the past two years in many ways. 

I did finally finish the draft of the species distribution modeling chapter and email it to my chair and the committee member who specializes in same. I am very glad to be done, but I expect they will both take a hatchet to it. It is extremely challenging to do ecological work within the short time frame of a PhD. I have renewed respect for ecologists who use sophisticated statistical methods, but I also have an increased skepticism regarding the robustness of the analyses and the reliability of the findings. 

I am ready to launch right into the last two chapters- the molecular phylogeny and the estimated divergence time/ancestral state reconstruction/biogeography chapters. I expect these will be shorter and more publishable. 

Interesting to note that it was exactly two years ago that the "month of total silent treatment" started with A. I still feel a knot in my stomach when I recall that time. By March 1, I would have all my stuff in storage and that was that. Catastrophe that still feels traumatic now. I'm hoping I have a chance to work through it and let go. The hexagram "Disintegration" above is exactly what it felt like. Wilhelm translates the Chinese as "Splitting Apart." 

From James DeKorne's Gnostic I Ching: 
Whenever we go deep enough toward the core of a sub- personality, we find that the core -- which is some basic urge, or need -- is good. For practical purposes, this can be considered an absolute. No matter how many layers of distortion may surround it, the basic need, the basic motivation, is a good one -- and if it becomes twisted, it was because of not being able to express itself directly. The real core -- not what the sub- personality wants, but what it needs -- is good. A basic purpose of the coordination phase is to discover this central urge or need, to make it conscious, and to find acceptable ways in which it can be satisfied and fulfilled. And, provided we have sufficient understanding and skill, it can be satisfied -- if not fully, at least enough to maintain the process of growth. 

James Vargiu -- Subpersonalities

Other People's Decisions

I think one of the hardest things about this trundle through Hades for good old Percy is that it has been precariously affected, repeatedly and chronically, by the decisions of other people. Many things have occurred that are against my will. For one thing, the starkness of this has made me much more aware of how often in the past I have, for better or worse, gotten my way. There's a line in an otherwise not very good Helmet song that goes "all the good that never comes, from always getting your way." And I'm feeling it. 

All the good that you discover

In people that you hate

Draw them close and pencil thin

Then they're easy to erase

You've got it down just feed them lies

And watch them starve to death

Keep them crowded and short of air

Then you can take their last breath

I'd rather be insulted by you

Than someone I respect

If I don't share the same view

It's just my birth defect

All the good that never comes

From always getting your way

For a couple of years now, the decisions of others have had a huge impact on my life. My ex, A, decided she was sick of me and had fallen in love with another man and basically evicted me from our home. My progress in my PhD program is entirely contingent on the decisions of my committee members. U could have chosen to restructure her life to get us into the sunlight but decided not to. Or could have decided she had the psychic endurance to stay in the shadows, but decided she did not. My own passivity was *MY DECISION* not hers, and I "could" have bailed anytime along the way for my own very good reasons. (Of course, I never wanted to bail, at least not for very long. I wanted to do what we were doing forever, if we couldn't be in the open. Pathological or not, them's the facts).  Her husband's passivity also affects my life-- he "could" decide he doesn't want to be in the situation he's in, as well as she "could," but then I am reminded of the statistic that only 25% of people who have an affair leave their partnerships as a result and this seems so sadly human to me. Understandably human. 

It's been very important for me to realize that I am under no obligation to allow the decisions of others to fuck my life up. Their decisions are theirs, and I am a free agent (within reason) to make my own decisions accordingly. For long stretches of time stuck here in Hades I have assumed without reflecting much that I just have to find a way to arrange my life around the decisions of others. I am realizing that this is my own passivity and is a delusion, and if people make decisions that fuck with me I can just change my own course and not drag out suffering for the decisions of others. 

I am experiencing a lot of anger the past few days arising out of my hurt feelings of being thrown over for an existing situation that I have a lot of judgment about. I haven't expressed that judgment directly very often, out of respect for the people involved. It is a weird reality, respecting someone's choices completely, understanding the reasons, respecting the person making the choice 100%, but simultaneously thinking they are...unnecessary?... choices. Yes, it is possible to do both at once. 

I am finding ways to deal constructively with the anger within a context where there is no communication. U has completely shut down any direct communication between we two at this time without explicitly setting a boundary, but by just acting out a boundary, so there's no room for conversation. It was not possible for her to make space for a conversation we could have benefited from in the past week because of circumstances out of her control, and so the communication came down as an edict, a unilateral decision of hers via a few text messages. So be it, what the fuck ever. I must continue to try to remember that her choices are not mine, and after a certain point, my life does NOT have to be impacted by the decisions she makes. 

Anyway, back to work with me. A hair's breadth from finally getting the draft of chapter two of the diss off my desk. Met with committee chair yesterday and he had completely forgotten that I sent him the draft of chapter one way back in mid October. This pisses me off no end and seems unprofessional and stupid in the extreme, but there's no way for me to express that, of course, other than firing him and getting another committee chair, which I just do not have the energy for right now. 

Fuck, basically. Not liking any of this. Is the converse of all the good that never comes from always getting my way, having some good come from never getting my way?