I think a lot about the things she might say. That is to say what she ought to say if she wasn't who she was, which is an impressive degree of selfish. The woman is literally unable to see past herself, or at least she was when I so needed her not to be. "Come here" I imagine her saying, "tell me what's wrong". She would sit next to me on my bed, towering above me looking downward with a facial expression that was part playful and part inviting and radiated warmth. If I close my eyes I think I can feel the warmth coat me like liquid chocolate. I imagine it feels warm to know you are loved.
In the absence of such relief though what is left is an arctic chill which over time freezes your own warmth shut. The absence of that love is not the real damage, the real damage is found in that you never learned how to value yourself. You never learn how to look inward and like what you see. Dr. Freud tells me that that which is external becomes internalized when you are young. That your parents voice becomes your own inside your head. I wish I heard so many different things in my head than the relentless beating of the drum of self hatred.
"Son, pain is a part of life. If I could stop you from feeling any pain I swear to you I would but the truth is I can't and I guess maybe it's better that I can't. What's important for you to undersstand is that no matter how badly something feels or how much it hurts the nature of pain is that it is temporary. It will pass and you will survive. You are so smart and so strong and life may try to knock you down but it won't ever win because you are a survivor. It is who we are son. We get bruised and beat down and sweaty and wounded and tired and sometimes when things get their worst we even feel like giving up but you know what baby? We never do. We keep fighting, we keep trying, we keep on keeping on. We never lose sight of who we are even when it might be easy to do so. We treat people with kindness even when they make us mad or treat us badly. And what gives us strength to all of these things is love. Love is what keeps us going and I want you to know right now and forever that no matter what happens to you, no matter what mistakes you might make or pain you may endure, no matter what other people think of you or say about you, no matter if things are good or bad or somewhere in between, I will always be your mother, you will always be my son and I will always love you with all of my heart. Even if you tried to change that you couldn't. So take your time, be mad at me, talk to me or don't talk to me, it's up to you. When you are ready I will be here for you, I will always be here for you. I love you."
I think then I might be able to sleep.
Good Times
Friday, December 13, 2013
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
What do you do when you find yourself more and more becoming ordinary? As each day pushes me further and further from youth I find myself a vessel for cliche emotional cargo. The change is not really welcomed but yet I'm strangely rather tolerant of the whole thing. Strange because I've so often prided myself on being odd. I despise predictability. I guess fundamentally the idea that our behavior is so cause/effect seems to equate to meaninglessness. I can't construct that link right now but it exists on an emotional level for me.
What is scary about moving further and further away from youth is the ever increasing limitations of realism. That by growing older you become more and more cognizant of the possible and the "real" and less and less focused on that which should be, that which you desperately want to be and that which you know down in the most vulnerable part of your soul must be. Whereas a child thinks in dreams and potential, the adult sees only the difficulties and struggle in the way of progress. I feel fundamentally like a failure. I have accomplished almost nothing worth accomplishing. This fills me with disgust and leaves me unable to even contemplate the worth of my own existence. This is tempered only by the inextinguishable impulse to search for answers to the question "why" which in this case tells me a psychological pattern is at work. Namely that my mother made her love so conditional as to condition me to believe the only way to be worthy of love was to accomplish amazing things. I think the child in me sees a need to hold myself to this insane standard of accomplishment in the hopes that...
The feeling has gotten worse. It's grown steadily since last week. I'm exhausted. I don't have energy for anything. I want only to sleep all day.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
writing this blog: an action motivated by one of four possible things
"In summary, all of the far-flung activities of the adult person are motivated by the energy of the life and death instincts. Anything that a person does is either (1) a direct expression of an instinct, in which case it would be a simple id object-choice like eating, sleeping, eliminating, and copulating, or (2) it is motivated by a combination of instincts, or (3) it represents a compromise between driving and resisting forces, or (4) it grows out of an ego defense."
- Calvin Hall, A Primer on Freudian Psychology
Quite a succinct summary of human behavior. What's funny to me is just a few pages prior to where I took that quote there is a passage in which the author is beginning his ascent to the previously quoted summary and he dismisses another possible explanation by saying it would't be economical and science likes economy. Whatever is true or not about the above statement, it is undoubtedly economical.
Unlike myself actually. My use of words has precedent only in the confederate states of america's printing of currency and there is I fear a similar phenomenon of inflation. In any case here I am again and tonight I am moved to speak about what is happening in Cairo.
I wish to preface my commentary with a brief but gratuitous explanation of how I heard the news of what's happened in Egypt myself. I've settled comfortably into my nocturnal summer routine and as I was laying down to sleep yesterday I found myself, as I often do, watching Morning Express with Robin Meade. It is something of a guilty pleasure because oh my god is she gorgeous but I rationalize it by telling myself it's news. Which it is...mostly.
Anyways so as I'm going to sleep I hear the military in Egypt told the President to step down or they would remove him. I wake up and they removed him. It's a fascinating occurrence because it is such a clear example of the conflict between idealism and pragmatism in democracy. Here you have a country which two years ago demanded democracy and thanks to the alliance of the military with the people were given a shot at it. A constitution is written, elections take place, a president is elected and a year passes. What appears to be a majority of Egyptians feel too little has been done in the way of creating democratic institutions and allowing for a broad spectrum of viewpoints. So they take to the streets again and again the military sides with them.
Certainly it's not a precedent you want if you are a fan of democracy. The military intervening on a bi-annual basis to assert its authority over the civilian government. However it appears that absent this action democracy would have also been endangered, perhaps more so. Our own history is filled with examples of authoritarian and anti-democratic actions on the part of our chief executive. Washington put down a rebellion between winning the revolutionary war and assuming the presidency. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, pushed through a conscription act, an income tax not to mention the 13th-15th amendments under dubious legislative circumstances. And yet these actions undoubtedly saved democracy in our country.
So I apologize that the analysis just given is really no better than some shitty cable news show but it is interesting to contemplate and there is not much to know about it yet. What's left is to wait and see what happens.
Good Times
- Calvin Hall, A Primer on Freudian Psychology
Quite a succinct summary of human behavior. What's funny to me is just a few pages prior to where I took that quote there is a passage in which the author is beginning his ascent to the previously quoted summary and he dismisses another possible explanation by saying it would't be economical and science likes economy. Whatever is true or not about the above statement, it is undoubtedly economical.
Unlike myself actually. My use of words has precedent only in the confederate states of america's printing of currency and there is I fear a similar phenomenon of inflation. In any case here I am again and tonight I am moved to speak about what is happening in Cairo.
I wish to preface my commentary with a brief but gratuitous explanation of how I heard the news of what's happened in Egypt myself. I've settled comfortably into my nocturnal summer routine and as I was laying down to sleep yesterday I found myself, as I often do, watching Morning Express with Robin Meade. It is something of a guilty pleasure because oh my god is she gorgeous but I rationalize it by telling myself it's news. Which it is...mostly.
Anyways so as I'm going to sleep I hear the military in Egypt told the President to step down or they would remove him. I wake up and they removed him. It's a fascinating occurrence because it is such a clear example of the conflict between idealism and pragmatism in democracy. Here you have a country which two years ago demanded democracy and thanks to the alliance of the military with the people were given a shot at it. A constitution is written, elections take place, a president is elected and a year passes. What appears to be a majority of Egyptians feel too little has been done in the way of creating democratic institutions and allowing for a broad spectrum of viewpoints. So they take to the streets again and again the military sides with them.
Certainly it's not a precedent you want if you are a fan of democracy. The military intervening on a bi-annual basis to assert its authority over the civilian government. However it appears that absent this action democracy would have also been endangered, perhaps more so. Our own history is filled with examples of authoritarian and anti-democratic actions on the part of our chief executive. Washington put down a rebellion between winning the revolutionary war and assuming the presidency. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, pushed through a conscription act, an income tax not to mention the 13th-15th amendments under dubious legislative circumstances. And yet these actions undoubtedly saved democracy in our country.
So I apologize that the analysis just given is really no better than some shitty cable news show but it is interesting to contemplate and there is not much to know about it yet. What's left is to wait and see what happens.
Good Times
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Now Transmitting Directions for a Leap of Faith
"...one reason why the ego fails to develop is that too much of its energy is tied up in its defenses. This is a vicious circle. The defenses can not be given up because the ego is inadequate, and the ego remains inadequate as long as it relies upon the defenses. How can the ego break out of this cycle?"
- Calvin Hall from A Primer on Freudian Psychology
Knowledge is power they say, and it is. But it is a broad power that releases slowly over time. The conscious mind is like a large ship which turns slowly. Real change brought about by conscious will takes a massive and continuous expenditure of energy over a long period of time. When I think about this I feel simultaneously hopeful and overwhelmed.
Other powers exist though. Let me tell you for a moment about Shostakovich 7. There are an always growing number of masterpieces on my bucket list of pieces to listen to. It is comforting to me to consider the number of great works which exist on this planet which I have not yet experienced. I have purposely delayed listening to Beethoven 8 and Mahler 3 and the list goes on and on. I save them like wine in a cellar and when the occasion arrives I pop open a bottle and really listen to it. That's the thing I want to sit down and listen to something. Not listen while doing another thing but just listen. I popped open Shostakovich 7 the other night and had my first drink.
I have been particularly excited about this piece because I have heard stories about the Bernstein version with Chicago from various sources that have described it as an unbelievable performance. I remember reading a book in high school which listed it as the only true perfect performance and Bernstein himself regarded it as one of his three best recordings. So I was excited to get to know it.
It is an enormous work, roughly an hour and a half. The first movement alone is nearly a half hour. It begins with this exclamatory but sort of ordinary sounding introduction. It's almost as if it represents life before some traumatic event which when reflected back on is remembered as naive and innocent and vulnerable. This makes it hard to fully enjoy the big moments in the beginning. You feel like you're watching someone in a moment of ecstasy with the knowledge that their life is about to come crashing down on itself.
From there the first movement peels itself apart, becoming thinner and thinner until really just a single folk sounding melody remains. This melody is passed about and repeated and eventually begins to transform itself as the first dark presence of the piece is felt. There is a rhythmic stability imposed which permeates throughout the climax of the first movement and becomes at times relentless in its aiding of the agony expressed. Like an aid to the evil committed it pushes it along and props it up, gives it structure and clarity.
The totality of the agony conveyed is unapproachable by words. It is disjunct and relentless and projects a level of destruction which is difficult to absorb. While this section is not easy to talk about, it is I think the emotional heart of the piece. Everything that comes before it is leading to it and everything after an attempt to understand, heal and rebuild from it.
The remainder of the first movement again winds itself down layer by layer until only a thin texture remains. The remaining movements move through alternating stages of healing and further grief and in the triumphant moments of the final movement there even seems to be some kind of answer. With Shostakovich there is always so much beneath the surface to be considered. He was a man writing as both an artist and a survivor. He had things to say and yet was terrified to say them. He learned to conceal his true message beneath that which was necessary to keep himself and his family safe.
The power of this music is different than knowledge because it is penetrates deeply into experience. I have the sensation of being filled with it as I listen, propping me up higher and taller. It has the effect of turning the mind, conscious and unconscious, towards a new sight. It points us in a new direction or it shocks us out of an old way of thinking or it reminds us of something important, perhaps even revealing what is truly important. This is, in a limited and incomplete account, why I love music. It is a complete human experience. Two pieces have sustained me during these past few weeks of self imposed psychological demolition, Mahler 6 and Shostakovich 7. I feel immensely grateful for these courageous and talented men who were able to bottle a bit of their lives and their understanding and transmit it for the benefit of humanity. I feel a connection to these men which is strong and large and sustains me, it is a pure love. Not something which comes easy.
Good Times
- Calvin Hall from A Primer on Freudian Psychology
Knowledge is power they say, and it is. But it is a broad power that releases slowly over time. The conscious mind is like a large ship which turns slowly. Real change brought about by conscious will takes a massive and continuous expenditure of energy over a long period of time. When I think about this I feel simultaneously hopeful and overwhelmed.
Other powers exist though. Let me tell you for a moment about Shostakovich 7. There are an always growing number of masterpieces on my bucket list of pieces to listen to. It is comforting to me to consider the number of great works which exist on this planet which I have not yet experienced. I have purposely delayed listening to Beethoven 8 and Mahler 3 and the list goes on and on. I save them like wine in a cellar and when the occasion arrives I pop open a bottle and really listen to it. That's the thing I want to sit down and listen to something. Not listen while doing another thing but just listen. I popped open Shostakovich 7 the other night and had my first drink.
I have been particularly excited about this piece because I have heard stories about the Bernstein version with Chicago from various sources that have described it as an unbelievable performance. I remember reading a book in high school which listed it as the only true perfect performance and Bernstein himself regarded it as one of his three best recordings. So I was excited to get to know it.
It is an enormous work, roughly an hour and a half. The first movement alone is nearly a half hour. It begins with this exclamatory but sort of ordinary sounding introduction. It's almost as if it represents life before some traumatic event which when reflected back on is remembered as naive and innocent and vulnerable. This makes it hard to fully enjoy the big moments in the beginning. You feel like you're watching someone in a moment of ecstasy with the knowledge that their life is about to come crashing down on itself.
From there the first movement peels itself apart, becoming thinner and thinner until really just a single folk sounding melody remains. This melody is passed about and repeated and eventually begins to transform itself as the first dark presence of the piece is felt. There is a rhythmic stability imposed which permeates throughout the climax of the first movement and becomes at times relentless in its aiding of the agony expressed. Like an aid to the evil committed it pushes it along and props it up, gives it structure and clarity.
The totality of the agony conveyed is unapproachable by words. It is disjunct and relentless and projects a level of destruction which is difficult to absorb. While this section is not easy to talk about, it is I think the emotional heart of the piece. Everything that comes before it is leading to it and everything after an attempt to understand, heal and rebuild from it.
The remainder of the first movement again winds itself down layer by layer until only a thin texture remains. The remaining movements move through alternating stages of healing and further grief and in the triumphant moments of the final movement there even seems to be some kind of answer. With Shostakovich there is always so much beneath the surface to be considered. He was a man writing as both an artist and a survivor. He had things to say and yet was terrified to say them. He learned to conceal his true message beneath that which was necessary to keep himself and his family safe.
The power of this music is different than knowledge because it is penetrates deeply into experience. I have the sensation of being filled with it as I listen, propping me up higher and taller. It has the effect of turning the mind, conscious and unconscious, towards a new sight. It points us in a new direction or it shocks us out of an old way of thinking or it reminds us of something important, perhaps even revealing what is truly important. This is, in a limited and incomplete account, why I love music. It is a complete human experience. Two pieces have sustained me during these past few weeks of self imposed psychological demolition, Mahler 6 and Shostakovich 7. I feel immensely grateful for these courageous and talented men who were able to bottle a bit of their lives and their understanding and transmit it for the benefit of humanity. I feel a connection to these men which is strong and large and sustains me, it is a pure love. Not something which comes easy.
Good Times
Monday, July 1, 2013
to change or not to change
Here is the fundamental question I think for which we turn to psychology for an answer: Are humans capable of change? At some point in our lives we find ourselves baffled by the seeming incongruity of our actions with what we believe to be our desires. We choose partners that are no good for us, we engage in destructive behavior, we fail to accomplish the things we believe we want most in this world. Upon realizing these behaviors we then find ourselves engaged in the daunting task of #1 understanding them and then #2 setting out to change them.
The Dr. Phil/Asshole-Ignorant Reneck approach is to advise people to "just do it". Now I do believe there is tremendous power to the idea that our minds create reality. That we are the authors of our own reality and that the thoughts we think play a paramount role in shaping our lives. So consequently it follows that if we exercise strong determination in our thoughts we can have an important effect on our lives. The problem though is when this "just do it" approach fails to account for the various complexities and nuances of the mind and how it can come to be corrupted. When a person finds themself in real trouble in their lives, whether its addiction or self destructive behavior or mental illness or whatever, I believe what is largely happening is that their mind is in conflict with itself. One part of the mind wants one thing and another a different thing and these forces become engaged in mental violence against oneself. So to simply advise someone to lift themselves up by their own boot straps is to fail to account for the complex nature of the human mind.
For Freud he believes these conflicts are the result of clashes between either the id and the ego or the ego and the superego. For Freud the id represents sort of our animal instincts towards pleasure. Things like the desire to eat food when hungry or to feel relief from pain or to have sex when aroused. The id wants these things and when we fail to choose to act on them, the id and the ego find themselves in conflict. The ego is the driver of human decision making and thus responsible for action. The ego is sort of deputized by the id according to Freud to carry out the wishes of the id through the process of identification. The ego learns through time and experience how best to achieve the goals of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain and thus allows a person to become increasingly good at them. However the ego is also influenced by the superego which represents sort of a persons moral code, which Freud believed to be inherited form one's parents and environmental authority figures. So while the id may seek sexual gratification and the ego may recognize rape as a means of achieving that gratification, the ego is restrained by that impulse by the superego which instructs the ego of the punishment that will occur if that action is taken.
So is Freud onto something here? Is internal conflict the result of the collision of these competing forces? It doesn't feel quite sufficient to me but I am not fully able to articulate why. I know from my own experience that there are forces within me that are controlling my actions which are not conscious. I do not recognize them to be mere pain/pleasure instincts but rather they feel to me to be self destructive forces. Freud might call this the death instinct, which he purposes along with the life instinct as the two main forces of human behavior. I found it fascinating that Freud found himself contemplating the same ancient time as Robert Pirsig, another author whose thoughts have impacted me deeply, in considering the earth just before life came into being on the planet. For Pirsig the context for this exercise in imagination was a recognition of the force which propelled matter in a stable inorganic state to reconstitute itself into the chaotic and instable form of life. Specifically Pirsig cited this is an example of nature violation the second law of thermodynamics which says that all energy is winding down like a clock to a stable form, or to paraphrase all life is moving towards death. Why then, Pirsig asked, would nature in such a state of stability prior to life move against itself towards a less stable form of energy? For Pirsig the answer was Dynamic Quality which is our nature.
What's interesting is Freud sees the same process and is sort of dismissive of the phenomenon of life creation and dwells instead on the difficulty life had in coming into existence in that context of death. He said that at first it took a great amount of energy to create life and that the life which was created was very short and simple organisms. Freud postulated that the energy force creating life had to keep creating it in the beginning because the force of death would act so strongly upon it. Eventually he said, life developed the ability to create itself and evolved over time into more and more complex states allowing for much greater lengths of resistance of death. What he took from this though is that we have within us that force which wants to move towards death, towards stability and inorganic matter.
Isn't it interesting that these two great thinkers firstly stumbled upon the same thought puzzle so to speak and secondly that they came away with such different conclusions. It is reminiscent of Yin and Yang, two opposing forces, creating and destroying. Maybe that's the real source of internal human conflict. Maybe what is fighting within us is the simultaneous forces of life and death. We are at once filled with the desire to live, which for me includes things like learning, growth, joy, love, transcendence, passion, helping other people, teaching, kindness and the impulse to create, and the desire to die, which for me includes things like anger, hate, numbness, the desire to hurt others, to destroy, to disrupt and confuse. Perhaps what prevents us from resolving these conflicts is a failure to recognize the reality of the death instinct. It is so contrary to life and what we are, that maybe we repress its existence in order to avoid the pain of confronting it.
That too seems incomplete...
I know that for the past decade I felt like a mind divided and to paraphrase Lincoln in the corniest way possible, a mind divided against itself cannot stand. Perhaps this is what the buddhists talk about when they speak of the great deaths. The mind wages war against itself until one side is vanquished, and then from there rebuilding can occur. I have been afraid for sometime of the destruction that might be caused by my own mental war. I feel something difficult to explain and I'm sure it sounds crazy. I feel a sense of responsibility in ensuring my unconscious self remains under control. To borrow in part from Freud I feel like it is the responsibility of my ego as the arbiter of my decisions to not allow my unconscious to become free. I feel perhaps out of nothing more than infantile narcissism that my unconscious is powerful and dark and that it is capable of massive destruction. I also believe it may be capable one day of greatness but in its present form I am afraid of it. It seems angry to me. Like a volcano bubbling beneath the earth's surface. But I feel this responsibility to guard my own unconscious not out of fear of consequences or punishment but rather out of a love for people around me. A general love of people. One of the interesting dichotomies of my personality is that I have a genuine affection for people and a desire to help people both as individuals and in the collective, but I tend to regard human behavior quite sadly. We are all so propelled by these powerful unconscious forces that it mostly seems like we have no chance to change. Like we are outgunned by a factor of a million. But I have seen great change. I have embodied great change myself. Perhaps what is needed to unify the forces of a personality is not all that different from what is needed to unify the divided people of a country, an outside force to work against. Or maybe it's even possible to unify the mind in pursuit of something wholesome and pure, I believe that has been the case with music in my life at times.
So while I am currently in the trees and consequently unable to see the forest, the plan is to keep acting as if this change is occurring and see where it takes me.
Good Times.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Building a Fence
I began therapy last week. I've had two sessions so far, both have been superficially uneventful but beneath the surface there is a great deal of movement. It is something I am aware of physically in the shifting patterns of my eye twitch and my panic attacks and the various physical manifestations of anxiety I experience. It is something I am aware of emotionally as I have found myself near tears twice in a week and generally I feel rather out of control in regards to my emotions. Powerful feelings seem to possess me and take command of my decision making mechanism (what Freud would call the ego, I'll get to that in a moment) leaving me with an overall mix of excitement and fear. I'm excited in that these explosions of emotion represent to me a thawing out of a part of myself which has been frozen for roughly 10 years. I'm fearful for the same reason. What is coming lose within me I see as a great potentiality. It is my true self and I find myself confronted at last, after years of putting it off with the task of figuring out what the hell I really am.
What I know is that I am different. I am strange...odd, the sort of person that people are drawn to pay attention to but aren't sure if they should smile or snarl at. One thing I understand about these feelings that are returning to me is that as they were preserved so to speak, frozen they are feelings of my younger self. As I feel them I am flooded with memories of having had them, like putting on an old familiar jacket. A familiar memory that has accompanied an equally familiar feeling is the deep wish that I wasn't different. In recent years I have taken to defending weirdness, even exalting it as a virtue. And while it is true now that I do generally find "weird" people significantly more interesting than "normal" people, and while I can make an impassioned case on behalf of us weirdos everywhere by citing case after case of people who have changed the world...I still wish deeper down that I wasn't weird. It is terribly lonely and as much as you are afraid of us I assure you it is exponentially more frightening to be staring back at the room full of puzzled and concerned faces knowing they are all united by their recognition of your oddity.
As I said before on the surface the sessions have been uneventful. I have began to recount to this recent acquaintance (my therapist) the various trials and tribulations of my life. The first session focused largely on my anxiety and its hypothesized genesis, namely having been beaten by my step father for roughly 3 years. I'm sure reading that sentence is as uncomfortable for you as it is for me writing it. In recent years I have developed the tendency to sort of hit people over the head with that detail of my life as a way of shocking them away from prying to close to me. In my current state I again find myself reverting to older feelings and in this case I feel weird and burdensome for disclosing that reality, even to you the hypothetical reader. At my near core I feel a strong desire to apologize to you all for being weird, for saying things like that out loud. The second session was even less eventful on the surface of things. It began with a discussion of the previous week and included a guided meditation.
Beneath the surface though I feel tectonic shifts in my emotional awareness. I believe these shifts to be occurring not so much as a direct result of therapeutic methods but rather as a result of some dynamics intrinsic to the act of going to therapy at all. Those being #1 I have sought help. The mere act of seeking help is an enormous one for me because I fundamentally don't believe I deserve help. Another uncomfortable thought but there it is. #2 The relationship which forms between therapist and patient is built upon massive trust. The knowledge that she is legally and ethically prohibited from revealing things is helpful but of course there is a personal relationship built. It is comforting to me to know that she has standards of conduct which act as firewalls against my general propensity to destroy relationships. #3 The act of speaking things out loud to a person is in and of itself cathartic and helpful. It is not enough but it is something. I've come to believe generally in life the more we find the courage to make ourselves vulnerable the more we grow and the closer we get to some kind of lasting happiness. I am proud I have done that a bit in my first two sessions of therapy.
So having gone that far I am presently occupied with the task of building an intellectual fence. At least that's what it feels like. The fence is made of ideas and my understanding of them which will allow me to hide from anything too uncomfortable that may arise as a result of therapy. Meaning I'm coming up with ways to call bull shit on the whole field of psychoanalysis. In my hyper-analytic mind that means voraciously consuming major works in the field of psychology, researching contemporary responses, applications and criticisms of those works as well as major movements in the field. At the present I am reading a primer of the major theories of Freud. I started to read The Interpretation of Dreams a couple years ago but I found it to be laborious. Scientists always have to defend every step they take by fortifying every inch of ground they've covered by defining terms, summarizing previous studies both supportive and at odds with their view, and then mounds of evidence. I don't mind the evidence so much, particular in dream theory but it just takes so long to make a simple point. So I've started with a primer on Freud, got another on Jung in the pipeline. I've been reading Man and His Symbols by Jung for a couple weeks, pecking away here and there. I had begun this post with the intention of talking through my understanding of Freud thus far but I've filled enough of your screen with my self-indulgent bull shit for one sitting. Perhaps I'll return to Sigmund another time. I should probably start saying something half way interesting to the rest of the world out of civility to any god forsaken readers of this drabble out there.
Then again if this therapy thing maintains its current trajectory perhaps I'll also resume the writing practices of 10 years ago. In those days I believe I was capable of intellectual stimulation delivered in an entertaining manner. Then again I was probably just trying to get laid, or as Sigmund might say my id was working to achieve a release of tension in regards to the sex instinct which result in a release of psychic energy to the ego which manifested itself as my silly little ramblings, right Dr. Freud.
Good Times.
What I know is that I am different. I am strange...odd, the sort of person that people are drawn to pay attention to but aren't sure if they should smile or snarl at. One thing I understand about these feelings that are returning to me is that as they were preserved so to speak, frozen they are feelings of my younger self. As I feel them I am flooded with memories of having had them, like putting on an old familiar jacket. A familiar memory that has accompanied an equally familiar feeling is the deep wish that I wasn't different. In recent years I have taken to defending weirdness, even exalting it as a virtue. And while it is true now that I do generally find "weird" people significantly more interesting than "normal" people, and while I can make an impassioned case on behalf of us weirdos everywhere by citing case after case of people who have changed the world...I still wish deeper down that I wasn't weird. It is terribly lonely and as much as you are afraid of us I assure you it is exponentially more frightening to be staring back at the room full of puzzled and concerned faces knowing they are all united by their recognition of your oddity.
As I said before on the surface the sessions have been uneventful. I have began to recount to this recent acquaintance (my therapist) the various trials and tribulations of my life. The first session focused largely on my anxiety and its hypothesized genesis, namely having been beaten by my step father for roughly 3 years. I'm sure reading that sentence is as uncomfortable for you as it is for me writing it. In recent years I have developed the tendency to sort of hit people over the head with that detail of my life as a way of shocking them away from prying to close to me. In my current state I again find myself reverting to older feelings and in this case I feel weird and burdensome for disclosing that reality, even to you the hypothetical reader. At my near core I feel a strong desire to apologize to you all for being weird, for saying things like that out loud. The second session was even less eventful on the surface of things. It began with a discussion of the previous week and included a guided meditation.
Beneath the surface though I feel tectonic shifts in my emotional awareness. I believe these shifts to be occurring not so much as a direct result of therapeutic methods but rather as a result of some dynamics intrinsic to the act of going to therapy at all. Those being #1 I have sought help. The mere act of seeking help is an enormous one for me because I fundamentally don't believe I deserve help. Another uncomfortable thought but there it is. #2 The relationship which forms between therapist and patient is built upon massive trust. The knowledge that she is legally and ethically prohibited from revealing things is helpful but of course there is a personal relationship built. It is comforting to me to know that she has standards of conduct which act as firewalls against my general propensity to destroy relationships. #3 The act of speaking things out loud to a person is in and of itself cathartic and helpful. It is not enough but it is something. I've come to believe generally in life the more we find the courage to make ourselves vulnerable the more we grow and the closer we get to some kind of lasting happiness. I am proud I have done that a bit in my first two sessions of therapy.
So having gone that far I am presently occupied with the task of building an intellectual fence. At least that's what it feels like. The fence is made of ideas and my understanding of them which will allow me to hide from anything too uncomfortable that may arise as a result of therapy. Meaning I'm coming up with ways to call bull shit on the whole field of psychoanalysis. In my hyper-analytic mind that means voraciously consuming major works in the field of psychology, researching contemporary responses, applications and criticisms of those works as well as major movements in the field. At the present I am reading a primer of the major theories of Freud. I started to read The Interpretation of Dreams a couple years ago but I found it to be laborious. Scientists always have to defend every step they take by fortifying every inch of ground they've covered by defining terms, summarizing previous studies both supportive and at odds with their view, and then mounds of evidence. I don't mind the evidence so much, particular in dream theory but it just takes so long to make a simple point. So I've started with a primer on Freud, got another on Jung in the pipeline. I've been reading Man and His Symbols by Jung for a couple weeks, pecking away here and there. I had begun this post with the intention of talking through my understanding of Freud thus far but I've filled enough of your screen with my self-indulgent bull shit for one sitting. Perhaps I'll return to Sigmund another time. I should probably start saying something half way interesting to the rest of the world out of civility to any god forsaken readers of this drabble out there.
Then again if this therapy thing maintains its current trajectory perhaps I'll also resume the writing practices of 10 years ago. In those days I believe I was capable of intellectual stimulation delivered in an entertaining manner. Then again I was probably just trying to get laid, or as Sigmund might say my id was working to achieve a release of tension in regards to the sex instinct which result in a release of psychic energy to the ego which manifested itself as my silly little ramblings, right Dr. Freud.
Good Times.
Monday, June 10, 2013
draftback
I started this a couple weeks ago and didn't finish it. Didn't want to let it die forever in my draft folder...
My thoughts tonight have turned towards the destruction and delusion of the self. I consider this an evolution in my personal ethos born from the experience of the past several months. I think often lately about something I said in an extremely rare fit of massive over confidence; I was speaking to some friends and I blurted out with anger that I was ready to conduct professionally. I believed it at the time and in full disclosure I do experience these cycles of self confidence and self hatred which at the apex of the cycle lead me to the conclusion that I am one of the best conductors on the planet. Of course at the worst they lead me to the conclusion that my mere existence on the planet is a drag on the species and the most moral thing I could do with my life is stop living. Nonetheless the memory for me encapsulates a former version of myself which has been destroyed in the past few months.
The story as I tell it begins with the boring details of my own wallowing and bemoaning of the fact that I begged and prayed unsuccessfully for 10 years that an accomplished conductor would take an interest in me. Then suddenly beginning in mid-March of this year I had within a 3 week period of time validation from several conductors I respect highly. One of them even offered to teach me and so I made my way to him and what followed was the destruction of that previous self described previously in my memory.
This man is a marvelous musician with a powerful artistic voice which is simultaneously exhilarating, compelling, inspiring and terrifying. It makes you on the one hand want to drop to your knees and worship him while on the other hand leaves you feeling eviscerated and embarrassed. It just leaves no room for anyone else. And that's what a good conductor is supposed to do I think, to make you feel like their interpretation is the only possible correct one in the universe. What accompanied this feeling and magnified the terror aspect of it was an encyclopedic knowledge of the craft and most relevantly the score. Any score really. We talked through scores of works he was studying with his students, works he was conducting with his group, works I was planning to conduct which he had no problem reciting off hand as if he had just finished writing it. There was a breadth and depth to his knowledge that stripped my silly talent naked and then laughed at me.
But of course that way of looking at things is the problem isn't it? Rather than view it as some terrible process I should see the beauty and the purposefulness of it. Out of that destruction came a rebirth and I know that to be true. I appreciate it deeply and am grateful immensely to have experienced it. It was the first bit of genuine conducting training I've ever received and while it painfully revealed the scope of my ignorance it also left me for the first time feeling as though I know which direction to travel. What happened though is I think best described as a genuine destruction of self, or at least some part of my self. This person with confidence and a sense of being ready to conduct professionally was suddenly stopped cold and instead I became consumed with humility and awareness of the work to be done.
Then I saw a video of a man speaking about the fundamental human delusion being that of the self. Really I think he may have been speaking more about the narcissistic self which elevates our own fears, priorities, desires, opinions and values above all others.
My thoughts tonight have turned towards the destruction and delusion of the self. I consider this an evolution in my personal ethos born from the experience of the past several months. I think often lately about something I said in an extremely rare fit of massive over confidence; I was speaking to some friends and I blurted out with anger that I was ready to conduct professionally. I believed it at the time and in full disclosure I do experience these cycles of self confidence and self hatred which at the apex of the cycle lead me to the conclusion that I am one of the best conductors on the planet. Of course at the worst they lead me to the conclusion that my mere existence on the planet is a drag on the species and the most moral thing I could do with my life is stop living. Nonetheless the memory for me encapsulates a former version of myself which has been destroyed in the past few months.
The story as I tell it begins with the boring details of my own wallowing and bemoaning of the fact that I begged and prayed unsuccessfully for 10 years that an accomplished conductor would take an interest in me. Then suddenly beginning in mid-March of this year I had within a 3 week period of time validation from several conductors I respect highly. One of them even offered to teach me and so I made my way to him and what followed was the destruction of that previous self described previously in my memory.
This man is a marvelous musician with a powerful artistic voice which is simultaneously exhilarating, compelling, inspiring and terrifying. It makes you on the one hand want to drop to your knees and worship him while on the other hand leaves you feeling eviscerated and embarrassed. It just leaves no room for anyone else. And that's what a good conductor is supposed to do I think, to make you feel like their interpretation is the only possible correct one in the universe. What accompanied this feeling and magnified the terror aspect of it was an encyclopedic knowledge of the craft and most relevantly the score. Any score really. We talked through scores of works he was studying with his students, works he was conducting with his group, works I was planning to conduct which he had no problem reciting off hand as if he had just finished writing it. There was a breadth and depth to his knowledge that stripped my silly talent naked and then laughed at me.
But of course that way of looking at things is the problem isn't it? Rather than view it as some terrible process I should see the beauty and the purposefulness of it. Out of that destruction came a rebirth and I know that to be true. I appreciate it deeply and am grateful immensely to have experienced it. It was the first bit of genuine conducting training I've ever received and while it painfully revealed the scope of my ignorance it also left me for the first time feeling as though I know which direction to travel. What happened though is I think best described as a genuine destruction of self, or at least some part of my self. This person with confidence and a sense of being ready to conduct professionally was suddenly stopped cold and instead I became consumed with humility and awareness of the work to be done.
Then I saw a video of a man speaking about the fundamental human delusion being that of the self. Really I think he may have been speaking more about the narcissistic self which elevates our own fears, priorities, desires, opinions and values above all others.
letting my conscious mind tire itself out...
Some very rough thoughts emerging from reading Carl Jung's "Man and His Symbols".
1. The starting point for consciousness is that it became necessary to ensure that we are not overloaded with information. We select the important information for conscious thought and the rest remains in the unconscious. This is an evolutionary adaptation and it is a new phenomenon. Jung describes it almost like it's a beta version of the newest software. He says it's buggy and prone to malfunction. It's new and we're still getting used to it.
2. A friend was describing a computer hard drive he bought recently which is separated into two sections. One section is a higher quality storage system which is less prone to problems and the other is a more standard hard drive with moving parts that can break. The hard drive adapts to user patterns over time and stores the most commonly accessed information in the safer higher quality portion of the hard drive in order to protect it. This seems to me to be a crude form of consciousness. The machine is processing the information and the sorting it based on importance, as determined by usage.
3. When a composer writes a great piece of music they connect with something powerful in the unconscious. When a conductor conducts a great piece greatly they connect with that same powerful force in the unconscious. Therefore it seems possible to transmit and communicate the unconscious directly. What remains is a mystery is whether all the performers of a piece are connecting to the same unconscious force and the implications of that idea. Very confusing for me to think about at this point.
4. Is it that I believe my unconscious is smaller and less powerful than others or is it that I'm afraid to find out? Is there even a such thing as "my" unconscious or is it all the same thing? If it's just one big unconscious then the concept of universal identity doesn't seem so far fetched does it. If you strip the self away are we all the same consciousness and therefore all the same being, like cells making tissue or tissue making organs? Do cells and tissue and organs have consciousness then? Is that what the buddhists mean when they say the buddha resides everywhere?
1. The starting point for consciousness is that it became necessary to ensure that we are not overloaded with information. We select the important information for conscious thought and the rest remains in the unconscious. This is an evolutionary adaptation and it is a new phenomenon. Jung describes it almost like it's a beta version of the newest software. He says it's buggy and prone to malfunction. It's new and we're still getting used to it.
2. A friend was describing a computer hard drive he bought recently which is separated into two sections. One section is a higher quality storage system which is less prone to problems and the other is a more standard hard drive with moving parts that can break. The hard drive adapts to user patterns over time and stores the most commonly accessed information in the safer higher quality portion of the hard drive in order to protect it. This seems to me to be a crude form of consciousness. The machine is processing the information and the sorting it based on importance, as determined by usage.
3. When a composer writes a great piece of music they connect with something powerful in the unconscious. When a conductor conducts a great piece greatly they connect with that same powerful force in the unconscious. Therefore it seems possible to transmit and communicate the unconscious directly. What remains is a mystery is whether all the performers of a piece are connecting to the same unconscious force and the implications of that idea. Very confusing for me to think about at this point.
4. Is it that I believe my unconscious is smaller and less powerful than others or is it that I'm afraid to find out? Is there even a such thing as "my" unconscious or is it all the same thing? If it's just one big unconscious then the concept of universal identity doesn't seem so far fetched does it. If you strip the self away are we all the same consciousness and therefore all the same being, like cells making tissue or tissue making organs? Do cells and tissue and organs have consciousness then? Is that what the buddhists mean when they say the buddha resides everywhere?
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Dr. Laura
So if you have not seen the show In Treatment my god are you missing out. HBO canceled it after 3 seasons because it didn't get very good ratings but it is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life. It is about a therapist named Paul and in the first season you pick up with him as he's just taken on 4 new patients (Alex, Sophie, and a couple that comes to therapy together Jake and Amy) and a year into therapy with a patient named Laura. Paul is a remarkable man, brilliant and perceptive and a great practitioner of awareness. He is insightful and cares deeply for his patients. His marriage however is falling apart and the first seasons (what I've seen so far at least) revolves around the destruction of his marriage, the corresponding difficulty in treating his patient Laura who is herself brilliant and has fallen in love with Paul, and Paul's attempt to sort it all out in his own therapy with Gina, a former supervisor with whom he has a complicated past. The show it absolutely genius and touches on so many universal themes that it positively captivates me.
One thought that has stuck with me is how deeply mindful and aware both Paul and Gina are in their sessions. The perceptiveness is so high, they are keenly aware of everything the patient does and try to expose the meaning and significance in every minute action, universally to the annoyance of the patients. On the one hand this is impressive and admirable and I see this behavior in Paul and Gina as admirable. On the other hand I find it interesting that their awareness if always confined to express itself as analysis. The thought occurred to me that perhaps the great tradition of western thinkers has been successful at enlightenment when it has been because of its practice of deep awareness and has fallen short it when has because of it's limited engagement with the present in its narrow focus on rational thought and analysis.
Furthermore as a hyper-analytical thinker myself I was moved deeply by the scene which I have transcribed below. Here Laura and Paul are talking and Laura is absolutely refusing to concede that her feelings for Paul are anything less than real and powerful and important. She is an amazing character. Unbelievably intelligent and persistent and emotionally confident and damaged and beautiful. It's better to see the episode for yourself and the actors are unbelievable, which adds several dimensions of beauty to the art but the transcript itself I think still contains sufficient thought provoking and moving substance so as to warrant consumption:
.........
Laura: I know that as a therapist you tell yourself that it's part of therapy to find out why I'm in love with you and how that's linked to my past and all that. But isn't that always the way it works Paul? Doesn't our past always determine who we fall in love with? So what if you can trace it back to the withholding mother, the narcissistic father, the parent who's missing in action, does that make our love any less real?
Paul: But sometimes circumstances are, let's say, less than ideal...
L:I know that. I know you can delude yourself into a thing. Only I am not deluded. Not about you. Not about how I feel about you. Why I feel it, there's always gonna be an explanation but that I feel it is irrefutable. I don't know how to convince you anymore Paul... I mean you think that I've idealized you, that I've convinced myself of some fairy tale, that I've idolized you. You think this is a case of a miserable patient sitting in front of her therapist imagining that you're my superman...perfect, savior, mentor, I don't see you that way at all.
P:How do you really see me?
L:I see you the way you are. Your imperfections. You're not at ease with your body, with your profession, with who you've become. I don't know much about your life, but I imagine you're not happy at home. Something in you is restless, damaged, there is a yearning there and I know it when I see it. And I want you just the way you are. Damaged and restless. Yearning, warts and all.
P:So you can fix me.
L:God you can be such a fucking prick when you wanna be you know that...
P:(interrupting) So I can fix you then?
L:(long pause) You know um, next month I'll be thirty. And I've been thinking to myself, I've hated myself for thirty years. It's enough I don't want to anymore.
P:Why do you hate yourself?
L:You're surprised?
P: I've never heard you say it before.
L:Well I guess you save the best for last.
P:That's the best Laura? That you hate yourself?
L:I don't know Paul, I don't know. You're surprised? It's something people realize about me after an hour.
P:I didn't realize it after an hour. I didn't know it after a year. It's not easy for me to hear you say that.
L:Maybe you should try to find out why it's so hard for you. Maybe you should see someone.
P:Yea, been thinking about that. Seriously um I think the reason it's hard for me to hear it is because I know that you have so many reasons to love yourself. So many things to be really proud of yet you choose to ignore them why?
L:Haven't you ever hated yourself?
P:Yea. I guess I did. Once. When I was a kid, my mother she was in pretty bad shape and I took care of her. But uh I couldn't, I couldn't save her from herself you know. I guess I hated myself for that.
L:Was she sick?
P:She was in a difficult emotional state. I thought that I could pull her out of it. I used to cook her all these elaborate meals. She wouldn't eat them. I couldn't understand it. Like every kid I thought it was my fault. I thought it was something I had done, something I hadn't done. Maybe I could do something else.
L:But you know that's not true.
P:I know that now, yes.
L:Have you forgiven yourself.
P:I think so. It took a long time.
L:How does that feel? I mean, really I'm curious.
P:It feels like a relief to tell you the truth.To know that that burden is gone. The burden of blame. And to know deep down, that it never belonged there in the first place.
L:Hmm. Maybe that's why you became a psychologist. To help others with their burdens.
P:Yea. Maybe.
L:So you're a product of your past too. (long pause). So uh (smiling) will that be cash or check?
One thought that has stuck with me is how deeply mindful and aware both Paul and Gina are in their sessions. The perceptiveness is so high, they are keenly aware of everything the patient does and try to expose the meaning and significance in every minute action, universally to the annoyance of the patients. On the one hand this is impressive and admirable and I see this behavior in Paul and Gina as admirable. On the other hand I find it interesting that their awareness if always confined to express itself as analysis. The thought occurred to me that perhaps the great tradition of western thinkers has been successful at enlightenment when it has been because of its practice of deep awareness and has fallen short it when has because of it's limited engagement with the present in its narrow focus on rational thought and analysis.
Furthermore as a hyper-analytical thinker myself I was moved deeply by the scene which I have transcribed below. Here Laura and Paul are talking and Laura is absolutely refusing to concede that her feelings for Paul are anything less than real and powerful and important. She is an amazing character. Unbelievably intelligent and persistent and emotionally confident and damaged and beautiful. It's better to see the episode for yourself and the actors are unbelievable, which adds several dimensions of beauty to the art but the transcript itself I think still contains sufficient thought provoking and moving substance so as to warrant consumption:
.........
Laura: I know that as a therapist you tell yourself that it's part of therapy to find out why I'm in love with you and how that's linked to my past and all that. But isn't that always the way it works Paul? Doesn't our past always determine who we fall in love with? So what if you can trace it back to the withholding mother, the narcissistic father, the parent who's missing in action, does that make our love any less real?
Paul: But sometimes circumstances are, let's say, less than ideal...
L:I know that. I know you can delude yourself into a thing. Only I am not deluded. Not about you. Not about how I feel about you. Why I feel it, there's always gonna be an explanation but that I feel it is irrefutable. I don't know how to convince you anymore Paul... I mean you think that I've idealized you, that I've convinced myself of some fairy tale, that I've idolized you. You think this is a case of a miserable patient sitting in front of her therapist imagining that you're my superman...perfect, savior, mentor, I don't see you that way at all.
P:How do you really see me?
L:I see you the way you are. Your imperfections. You're not at ease with your body, with your profession, with who you've become. I don't know much about your life, but I imagine you're not happy at home. Something in you is restless, damaged, there is a yearning there and I know it when I see it. And I want you just the way you are. Damaged and restless. Yearning, warts and all.
P:So you can fix me.
L:God you can be such a fucking prick when you wanna be you know that...
P:(interrupting) So I can fix you then?
L:(long pause) You know um, next month I'll be thirty. And I've been thinking to myself, I've hated myself for thirty years. It's enough I don't want to anymore.
P:Why do you hate yourself?
L:You're surprised?
P: I've never heard you say it before.
L:Well I guess you save the best for last.
P:That's the best Laura? That you hate yourself?
L:I don't know Paul, I don't know. You're surprised? It's something people realize about me after an hour.
P:I didn't realize it after an hour. I didn't know it after a year. It's not easy for me to hear you say that.
L:Maybe you should try to find out why it's so hard for you. Maybe you should see someone.
P:Yea, been thinking about that. Seriously um I think the reason it's hard for me to hear it is because I know that you have so many reasons to love yourself. So many things to be really proud of yet you choose to ignore them why?
L:Haven't you ever hated yourself?
P:Yea. I guess I did. Once. When I was a kid, my mother she was in pretty bad shape and I took care of her. But uh I couldn't, I couldn't save her from herself you know. I guess I hated myself for that.
L:Was she sick?
P:She was in a difficult emotional state. I thought that I could pull her out of it. I used to cook her all these elaborate meals. She wouldn't eat them. I couldn't understand it. Like every kid I thought it was my fault. I thought it was something I had done, something I hadn't done. Maybe I could do something else.
L:But you know that's not true.
P:I know that now, yes.
L:Have you forgiven yourself.
P:I think so. It took a long time.
L:How does that feel? I mean, really I'm curious.
P:It feels like a relief to tell you the truth.To know that that burden is gone. The burden of blame. And to know deep down, that it never belonged there in the first place.
L:Hmm. Maybe that's why you became a psychologist. To help others with their burdens.
P:Yea. Maybe.
L:So you're a product of your past too. (long pause). So uh (smiling) will that be cash or check?
Thursday, May 30, 2013
The Social Contract
I am a thinker. I am so apologetically and with much embarrassment, but even with the weight of that understanding I remain a thinker. I often counsel people searching for their life's purpose to pay attention to that which they do when they have nothing to do. If you find yourself singing your life needs to contain much singing, if you find yourself dancing or reading or taking care of people or telling jokes then you fill your life with that. I think...constantly, neurotically and obsessively; I think about thinking and how I feel about my thinking. I try to feel about thinking but inevitably find myself thinking about my attempt to feel about thinking and then correspondingly feel guilty having spoiled my attempt at feeling with thought. I have this whole stand up routine I deliver to friends when I am attempting to convey the intensity of my neurotic thoughts. I really should create a flowchart that begins with "Any topic of conversation", passes through several incidental intermediary stages like "Impending collision of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way" and ends with "You (me speaking to me) are worthless and a failure and generally a drain on the human species".
It's funnier in person.
Just now though a thought appeared which I trust because it was accompanied by a feeling of rightness. Perhaps, the thought goes, the pervasive anxiety and epidemic of neurotic thinking I am experiencing is symptomatic of not applying my proclivity towards thought in a productive manner. You see I have made my life in the world of music which is a world deeply distrustful of analysis. I often feel like an impostor trying to evade detection by the "real" musicians. Analytic thought is truly my greatest talent. The creative lifestyle has come much more difficulty for me. I've had to learn it piece by piece. I love it though. I love it wildly and passionately and with a profound sense of purpose and meaning. Analysis mostly makes me feel dirty and whorish, like I'm selling myself. This I think is largely due to an internal dichotomy as to prospective career choices. My feeling self very much wants to continue on with music and to grow my creative powers to their full potential. My thinking self, which is nothing less than a little bastard, advocates towards a profession in the law. The choice then presents itself to me as being between happiness and material comfort.
But what if I've created a straw man here. What if the problem is not analytic thought in totality but this singular material manifestation of it in my contemplation of a career in law. After all there are plenty of miserable, unexpressive, wonderfully talented musicians out there drudging away day after day for money. That's just as terrible an existence isn't it? What if I need to be applying my reluctant talent towards more wholesome pursuits. What if by doing so my brain turned its attention away from the neurotic, obsessive and anxious and towards the love of knowledge, which is what philosophy is supposed to be.
So then we begin where I began my love affair with knowledge, in the arena of political philosophy. I first entered the minds of the great thinkers of western society at the invitation of my 11th grade AP US History teacher. An amazing man and amazing teacher. He would indulge my rebellious but intellectual tirades and challenge my thinking, which was refreshing in that it was not dismissive. He began nudging me towards this book or that and I ate them up voraciously. I was a huge consumer of enlightenment works which influenced the American founders: Locke, Montesquieu, of course Jefferson and eventually I found my way to Rousseau.
Rousseau was fascinating to me for several reasons, firstly he was a musician. I was not particularly moved by his music but knowing he lived in that world spoke to my own struggle at the time between my analytical and musical selves. Secondly he just wrote differently than most other philosophers. If you've ever had the displeasure of reading Aristotle than you understand how tedious and monotonous these people can be. Now don't get me wrong I appreciate the mental dexterity and the enlightened minds but on a fundamental level, reading philosophy is often boring as shit. Rousseau isn't though. He is brash and emotive and has a keen flair for the dramatic. Let me show you some of what I mean by taking you through just the very beginning of his Social Contract.
Watch how he begins with this odd statement of humility (rare among philosophical types):
"This little treatise is part of a larger work which I undertook many years ago without thinking of the limitations of my powers, and have long since abandoned."
...So two words in he is self deprecating, this little treatise, which he then follows with a recognition of his mortality. Continuing on...
"...Of the various fragments that might have been taken from what I wrote, this is the most considerable, and the one I think the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists."
That's his introduction to his work. "Uh hey um, I wrote this stupid thing and it was part of a bigger thing but I was too stupid to finish it so this is the least shitty part of what I was trying to do before. I burned the rest". Refreshingly human I think. One of the most irritating parts of reading philosophy for me was the prevailing sense of having intellectually conquered nature or the universe or the subject of their little treatise. It always felt like a newer more pathetic manifestation of the same obsolete male impulses towards screaming and thumping one's chest at having killed something. Humility is generally lacking in philosophy but Rousseau intrigued me with this little opening. Continuing on...
"My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be."
That is a pretty god damned succinct thesis statement. My 9th grade English teacher would be proud. The efficiency of it is artistic. He is writing about political right, whether or not government is a justifiable human phenomenon on moral or utilitarian grounds and he manages to describe that subject in an incredibly efficient, plain and complete manner in just 30 words which average maybe four letters each. (It could almost be a fucking tweet!) It is beautiful and again refreshing. So much different than most philosophers. Continuing on a little ways later, the famous line...
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
Talk about a flair for the dramatic. What a gripping thing to say. It pulls you right forward doesn't it? This again is succinct and plain spoken and direct in a powerful way. It becomes the central point of the work; that man is in a sense de-volving, getting worse over time as a result of society. He'll argue everything from moral impurity to freaking prevalence of disease have increased over time as a result of man inventing societies.
I can't only praise him though. I just thought I'd begin by explaining why he is fascinating to me. He is still at his heart a westerner with an unhealthy love of the rational mode, like a stalker in a tree with binoculars. Yea it's good he is passionate about something but there's a fine line between endearing persistence and restraining order, you know what I mean? Consider the following...
"The oldest of all societies, and the only natural one, is that of the family; yet children remain tied to their father by nature only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ends, the natural bond is dissolved. Once the children are freed from the obedience they owe their father, and the father is freed from his responsibilities towards them, both parties equally regain their independence."
Now before dissecting this with the rational scalpel, doesn't it just feel wrong? I mean doesn't it get down in your stomach and swirl around, kicking up nauseousness and leaving you feeling uneasy? I know as a male I feel the impulse to sometimes act brutish and coldly in vulgar indulgence of the desire to procreate as often as possible before death but that feeling even in its most intense form is accompanied by a sense of wrongness or numbness, which one comes to understand as the willful ignorance of wrongness. It is natural to want to protect your children, to see them grow strong and wise and happy. It is natural to preserve the family unit and to be kind and loving. At least I feel that way.
Anyways you can see the cold blooded approach of the rational surgeon (philosophers) whereby emotion is relegated to a vastly subservient position in the hierarchy of truth seeking and silly conclusions such as the one above are suddenly and easily arrived at. It is interesting though to note that even the most rational of formulations must begin with an emotional premise and it is not irrelevant I think to consider the fact that Rousseau himself abandoned his children after being abandoned himself by his father. Perhaps this shaded his conclusion above in convincing himself to simultaneously forgive his father and absolve himself of his own sins.
Such is the game we play when we try successively to place the ideas of philosophers in the box of psychology and then vice versa. At least it seems more fun to me than the all too familiar neurotic arm wrestling in my brain. We'll see how this goes. Maybe we'll continue one with Mr. Jean-Jacques and his inquiry into the principles of political right. Maybe someone out there will engage in a substantive discussion of his flamboyant and irregular treatise. That would just hit the spot.
Good Times
It's funnier in person.
Just now though a thought appeared which I trust because it was accompanied by a feeling of rightness. Perhaps, the thought goes, the pervasive anxiety and epidemic of neurotic thinking I am experiencing is symptomatic of not applying my proclivity towards thought in a productive manner. You see I have made my life in the world of music which is a world deeply distrustful of analysis. I often feel like an impostor trying to evade detection by the "real" musicians. Analytic thought is truly my greatest talent. The creative lifestyle has come much more difficulty for me. I've had to learn it piece by piece. I love it though. I love it wildly and passionately and with a profound sense of purpose and meaning. Analysis mostly makes me feel dirty and whorish, like I'm selling myself. This I think is largely due to an internal dichotomy as to prospective career choices. My feeling self very much wants to continue on with music and to grow my creative powers to their full potential. My thinking self, which is nothing less than a little bastard, advocates towards a profession in the law. The choice then presents itself to me as being between happiness and material comfort.
But what if I've created a straw man here. What if the problem is not analytic thought in totality but this singular material manifestation of it in my contemplation of a career in law. After all there are plenty of miserable, unexpressive, wonderfully talented musicians out there drudging away day after day for money. That's just as terrible an existence isn't it? What if I need to be applying my reluctant talent towards more wholesome pursuits. What if by doing so my brain turned its attention away from the neurotic, obsessive and anxious and towards the love of knowledge, which is what philosophy is supposed to be.
So then we begin where I began my love affair with knowledge, in the arena of political philosophy. I first entered the minds of the great thinkers of western society at the invitation of my 11th grade AP US History teacher. An amazing man and amazing teacher. He would indulge my rebellious but intellectual tirades and challenge my thinking, which was refreshing in that it was not dismissive. He began nudging me towards this book or that and I ate them up voraciously. I was a huge consumer of enlightenment works which influenced the American founders: Locke, Montesquieu, of course Jefferson and eventually I found my way to Rousseau.
Rousseau was fascinating to me for several reasons, firstly he was a musician. I was not particularly moved by his music but knowing he lived in that world spoke to my own struggle at the time between my analytical and musical selves. Secondly he just wrote differently than most other philosophers. If you've ever had the displeasure of reading Aristotle than you understand how tedious and monotonous these people can be. Now don't get me wrong I appreciate the mental dexterity and the enlightened minds but on a fundamental level, reading philosophy is often boring as shit. Rousseau isn't though. He is brash and emotive and has a keen flair for the dramatic. Let me show you some of what I mean by taking you through just the very beginning of his Social Contract.
Watch how he begins with this odd statement of humility (rare among philosophical types):
"This little treatise is part of a larger work which I undertook many years ago without thinking of the limitations of my powers, and have long since abandoned."
...So two words in he is self deprecating, this little treatise, which he then follows with a recognition of his mortality. Continuing on...
"...Of the various fragments that might have been taken from what I wrote, this is the most considerable, and the one I think the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists."
That's his introduction to his work. "Uh hey um, I wrote this stupid thing and it was part of a bigger thing but I was too stupid to finish it so this is the least shitty part of what I was trying to do before. I burned the rest". Refreshingly human I think. One of the most irritating parts of reading philosophy for me was the prevailing sense of having intellectually conquered nature or the universe or the subject of their little treatise. It always felt like a newer more pathetic manifestation of the same obsolete male impulses towards screaming and thumping one's chest at having killed something. Humility is generally lacking in philosophy but Rousseau intrigued me with this little opening. Continuing on...
"My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be."
That is a pretty god damned succinct thesis statement. My 9th grade English teacher would be proud. The efficiency of it is artistic. He is writing about political right, whether or not government is a justifiable human phenomenon on moral or utilitarian grounds and he manages to describe that subject in an incredibly efficient, plain and complete manner in just 30 words which average maybe four letters each. (It could almost be a fucking tweet!) It is beautiful and again refreshing. So much different than most philosophers. Continuing on a little ways later, the famous line...
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
Talk about a flair for the dramatic. What a gripping thing to say. It pulls you right forward doesn't it? This again is succinct and plain spoken and direct in a powerful way. It becomes the central point of the work; that man is in a sense de-volving, getting worse over time as a result of society. He'll argue everything from moral impurity to freaking prevalence of disease have increased over time as a result of man inventing societies.
I can't only praise him though. I just thought I'd begin by explaining why he is fascinating to me. He is still at his heart a westerner with an unhealthy love of the rational mode, like a stalker in a tree with binoculars. Yea it's good he is passionate about something but there's a fine line between endearing persistence and restraining order, you know what I mean? Consider the following...
"The oldest of all societies, and the only natural one, is that of the family; yet children remain tied to their father by nature only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ends, the natural bond is dissolved. Once the children are freed from the obedience they owe their father, and the father is freed from his responsibilities towards them, both parties equally regain their independence."
Now before dissecting this with the rational scalpel, doesn't it just feel wrong? I mean doesn't it get down in your stomach and swirl around, kicking up nauseousness and leaving you feeling uneasy? I know as a male I feel the impulse to sometimes act brutish and coldly in vulgar indulgence of the desire to procreate as often as possible before death but that feeling even in its most intense form is accompanied by a sense of wrongness or numbness, which one comes to understand as the willful ignorance of wrongness. It is natural to want to protect your children, to see them grow strong and wise and happy. It is natural to preserve the family unit and to be kind and loving. At least I feel that way.
Anyways you can see the cold blooded approach of the rational surgeon (philosophers) whereby emotion is relegated to a vastly subservient position in the hierarchy of truth seeking and silly conclusions such as the one above are suddenly and easily arrived at. It is interesting though to note that even the most rational of formulations must begin with an emotional premise and it is not irrelevant I think to consider the fact that Rousseau himself abandoned his children after being abandoned himself by his father. Perhaps this shaded his conclusion above in convincing himself to simultaneously forgive his father and absolve himself of his own sins.
Such is the game we play when we try successively to place the ideas of philosophers in the box of psychology and then vice versa. At least it seems more fun to me than the all too familiar neurotic arm wrestling in my brain. We'll see how this goes. Maybe we'll continue one with Mr. Jean-Jacques and his inquiry into the principles of political right. Maybe someone out there will engage in a substantive discussion of his flamboyant and irregular treatise. That would just hit the spot.
Good Times
Friday, May 10, 2013
You and I
If you'd have me, I'd love to take you to the cliff's edge. When the sky is dark and cloudy and the waves crash softly, in humble restraint of their power. We would study the stars, sand collecting in our hair. I would hold you close and tuck the hair behind your ear. Our lips would meet gently with our eyes closed tight and the music of the ocean leading a long overdue first unrestrained dance.
If you'd have me.
If you'd have me.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Breathe
As I breathe in I sense the anxiety beginning.
As I breathe out I embrace it.
I am writing this way and not that, which makes me feel
regret and disappointment. I embrace the regret and the disappointment and turn
myself to writing this way now.
I sometimes wonder if they understand the unique plight of
poverty. I think in the end it’s irrelevant but it means more hurdles to pass
and less margin for error. I can see that I must focus all my energies on deep
awareness as any other energy is wasted. One of the profound thoughts he left
me with is the simple idea of being present in the moment. Fear and anxiety he
said, are anticipations of possible futures which may or may not happen. The
pain and anger I carry are remnants of the past. My task is to be in the
present. To prepare my body and mind to be fully engaged in the now and then to
simply do it. I told him last night after he offered to share his home with me
and filled me with love and acceptance; after he spoke of family and told me he
was proud of me for what I had accomplished…after he said these things and told
me I had everything one needed to be a powerful conductor, a musical mind,
intelligence and an ability to conduct, after all that I told him that I was
always struck by his ability to say to me and people I’ve seen him speak with,
precisely what we are prepared to understand and to hear at any given moment.
Before this trip I considered that quality to be some mystical talent possessed
by a higher being. I think now that perhaps it is the result of a good deal of
practice at being present in the moment. He is communicating so precisely with
us because he is practicing deep awareness.
The thought that wants to surface now is an immense
expression of gratitude. I am shy actually and I think I make him uncomfortable
when I say it but I know he has saved my life. I find myself wanting to speak
the words “how many times can a person be saved”. I love that man so very much.
I need to listen to myself more. I think that is an
important step to take at this time. The suppression of my inner voice feels to
be the cause of many of my problems. I must embrace these feelings and not run
any longer.
As I breathe in, I sense the beginning of pain.
As I breathe out, I embrace the pain.
Thank You
Monday, February 11, 2013
snapshots of thought
I feel the gravitational pull of the law. In the past couple weeks I've had the cautiously satisfying experience of sparring with two lawyers on their home turf. I am conflicted because on the one hand I have been given a great talent for rational thought. It comes easily to me and when I indulge myself I feel a sort of lawyers high from the experience of prolonged expulsion of rational thought. I just can't decide if it's more of a runner's high kind of thing or more of a meth addict kind of thing. It often leaves me feeling dirty.
The first person was a woman I've never met, who has never met me but who by reading snippets of postings on the internet has decided I'm harming indigent children (exact language). She filed a 5 page email complaint against me to our district alleging I was "using and exploiting children" through various policies of our department. She insinuated several times that I was benefiting from fundraising and explicitly said several times that I was discriminating against and harming poor children. Luckily I believe I possess the ideal skill set for responding to such claims. I am a fanatic, dionysian musician possessed with a natural gift for the law who also happens to best express his thoughts in writing. Add to that the rhetorical skills I've refined over the years in the practice of writing and I delivered what I think was a rather effective response.
The second person is my former landlord who seems to be an overall terrible person. Lawyer, personal injury lawyer turned bankruptcy lawyer who represents banks turned foreclosure specialist who starts a debt collection agency that files thousands of law suits a year against people who owe a few hundred dollars on credit cards who then gets judgments against these people and when they can't pay he brags about his innovative foreclosure unit which takes people's houses away from them. All around class act. Trying to dick me out of my security deposit. Much less noble response to this one but I did spend a bit of time reading the california civil code and a supreme court ruling.
The movie 3:10 to Yuma also has been in my thoughts. The choice that Christan Bale's character makes at the end has had me thinking about purpose. This is a newly birthed thought and doesn't have the legs it needs yet but it really does strike me that purpose is choice. In the case of that character it was that time, that place, the series of events in his life that led him up to that moment which made his choice powerful and filled him with purpose. It at first strikes me as a silly obsolete male impulse on the surface but upon further inspection it seems to me a moving instance of genuine purpose. Maybe that thought will mature in the days to come.
The pain continues. I read two articles about anxiety today that were more illuminating than anything I've ever read about it before. Both were by people with anxiety who wished only to share their experiences. One of the articles talked about the selfish nature of a panic attack in that you are consumed with thoughts about yourself. This rang quite true for me and opened some new doors of thought that I hope to be helpful. I think I moved a bit today. I felt the loosening of rock surrounding the mind which accompanies mental movement.
I have been starving for human contact these past few weeks. Genuine interaction, conversation, understanding, revelation, spontaneity, touch, comfort, shared pain. I have been so fixated on these things that I only just realized how much I really need to make other people feel good. I liked filling the void and raising self esteem. I liked guiding people through their own journey of self discovery and sacrificing parts of myself to do it. I need it. I feel incomplete without it. These are the toughest things.
Good Times
The first person was a woman I've never met, who has never met me but who by reading snippets of postings on the internet has decided I'm harming indigent children (exact language). She filed a 5 page email complaint against me to our district alleging I was "using and exploiting children" through various policies of our department. She insinuated several times that I was benefiting from fundraising and explicitly said several times that I was discriminating against and harming poor children. Luckily I believe I possess the ideal skill set for responding to such claims. I am a fanatic, dionysian musician possessed with a natural gift for the law who also happens to best express his thoughts in writing. Add to that the rhetorical skills I've refined over the years in the practice of writing and I delivered what I think was a rather effective response.
The second person is my former landlord who seems to be an overall terrible person. Lawyer, personal injury lawyer turned bankruptcy lawyer who represents banks turned foreclosure specialist who starts a debt collection agency that files thousands of law suits a year against people who owe a few hundred dollars on credit cards who then gets judgments against these people and when they can't pay he brags about his innovative foreclosure unit which takes people's houses away from them. All around class act. Trying to dick me out of my security deposit. Much less noble response to this one but I did spend a bit of time reading the california civil code and a supreme court ruling.
The movie 3:10 to Yuma also has been in my thoughts. The choice that Christan Bale's character makes at the end has had me thinking about purpose. This is a newly birthed thought and doesn't have the legs it needs yet but it really does strike me that purpose is choice. In the case of that character it was that time, that place, the series of events in his life that led him up to that moment which made his choice powerful and filled him with purpose. It at first strikes me as a silly obsolete male impulse on the surface but upon further inspection it seems to me a moving instance of genuine purpose. Maybe that thought will mature in the days to come.
The pain continues. I read two articles about anxiety today that were more illuminating than anything I've ever read about it before. Both were by people with anxiety who wished only to share their experiences. One of the articles talked about the selfish nature of a panic attack in that you are consumed with thoughts about yourself. This rang quite true for me and opened some new doors of thought that I hope to be helpful. I think I moved a bit today. I felt the loosening of rock surrounding the mind which accompanies mental movement.
I have been starving for human contact these past few weeks. Genuine interaction, conversation, understanding, revelation, spontaneity, touch, comfort, shared pain. I have been so fixated on these things that I only just realized how much I really need to make other people feel good. I liked filling the void and raising self esteem. I liked guiding people through their own journey of self discovery and sacrificing parts of myself to do it. I need it. I feel incomplete without it. These are the toughest things.
Good Times
Monday, January 28, 2013
3 quick things
In my eclectic brain three thoughts have found nourishment the last couple days.
1. The overly intellectual part of my brain is busy weighing the viability of the hypothesis that the stubbornly high unemployment rate in this country can be most adequately accounted for by Marxism.
2. The cornily sentimental part of my brain is weighing the viability of finding true love.
3. The calmer and seemingly wiser part of my brain is chewing on the idea that the pursuit of validation is among man's universal behaviors.
In the way of meta-analysis I am of course considering the odd grouping of these ideas in a single being, namely myself. How is it possible that such ideas could cohabitate the same intellectual dwelling? To be honest a fourth topic is lingering as well but in an attempt to save the world from my darker nature I omit it here. Apparently my proclivity towards dark humor makes most others feel "uncomfortable". I can't understand why....
Anyways I don't want to spend to much time here expanding on these thoughts but I'll flush them out a bit. As to #1 if you consider the true trajectory of Marxist thought, meaning not viewing it from the perspective of the ultra-nationalist propagandist or the tree hugging idealist, but if you view it instead as the inexorable progression of events Marx described then it is hugely important to look to high unemployment. Marx did not say a communist state would come into being because people would somehow wake up one morning convinced of its moral superiority, it was something that would happen gradually over time as a result of economic conditions worsening. Specifically he identified the mechanization of labor that would take place and consequently lead to higher and higher unemployment. Eventually he thought unemployment would reach a tipping point and people would rise up and start a revolution. We've only moved from a normal rate of unemployment being around 5% to 7 or 8% but still it's worth observing. Did you see the 60 minutes story last week about robots doing more and more jobs? It's worth thinking about...
#2 is embarrassing to admit such a though even exists in my brain. Talk about the path more traveled I put myself in league with every terrible screenplay, cheezy romance novel and the entire female population of the planet in such speculation. Nonetheless it's there and lingering. Falling in love is wonderful, I hope to do it again someday. Moving right along...
#3 is the thought worth the most investment I think. I think it's the most worth pursuing of the thoughts I currently harbor but I am again embarrassed to reveal myself in terms of the originating event of this particular idea. I sort of left the channel on the Oprah network and she made a comment about how every guest on her show was searching for validation. I think she is describing a true phenomenon with a limiting word. I think validation is a massively common pursuit but I think it's more about being understood. I think we all fundamentally want to feel understood. To connect with another human being in such a way that makes us feel as if that person really gets us. Even if it's just one person I think it can be that simple knowledge of someone else out there able to understand us that keeps us going.
I did a quick explanation there. I'm going to try (almost certainly unsuccessfully) to get some sleep.
Good Times
1. The overly intellectual part of my brain is busy weighing the viability of the hypothesis that the stubbornly high unemployment rate in this country can be most adequately accounted for by Marxism.
2. The cornily sentimental part of my brain is weighing the viability of finding true love.
3. The calmer and seemingly wiser part of my brain is chewing on the idea that the pursuit of validation is among man's universal behaviors.
In the way of meta-analysis I am of course considering the odd grouping of these ideas in a single being, namely myself. How is it possible that such ideas could cohabitate the same intellectual dwelling? To be honest a fourth topic is lingering as well but in an attempt to save the world from my darker nature I omit it here. Apparently my proclivity towards dark humor makes most others feel "uncomfortable". I can't understand why....
Anyways I don't want to spend to much time here expanding on these thoughts but I'll flush them out a bit. As to #1 if you consider the true trajectory of Marxist thought, meaning not viewing it from the perspective of the ultra-nationalist propagandist or the tree hugging idealist, but if you view it instead as the inexorable progression of events Marx described then it is hugely important to look to high unemployment. Marx did not say a communist state would come into being because people would somehow wake up one morning convinced of its moral superiority, it was something that would happen gradually over time as a result of economic conditions worsening. Specifically he identified the mechanization of labor that would take place and consequently lead to higher and higher unemployment. Eventually he thought unemployment would reach a tipping point and people would rise up and start a revolution. We've only moved from a normal rate of unemployment being around 5% to 7 or 8% but still it's worth observing. Did you see the 60 minutes story last week about robots doing more and more jobs? It's worth thinking about...
#2 is embarrassing to admit such a though even exists in my brain. Talk about the path more traveled I put myself in league with every terrible screenplay, cheezy romance novel and the entire female population of the planet in such speculation. Nonetheless it's there and lingering. Falling in love is wonderful, I hope to do it again someday. Moving right along...
#3 is the thought worth the most investment I think. I think it's the most worth pursuing of the thoughts I currently harbor but I am again embarrassed to reveal myself in terms of the originating event of this particular idea. I sort of left the channel on the Oprah network and she made a comment about how every guest on her show was searching for validation. I think she is describing a true phenomenon with a limiting word. I think validation is a massively common pursuit but I think it's more about being understood. I think we all fundamentally want to feel understood. To connect with another human being in such a way that makes us feel as if that person really gets us. Even if it's just one person I think it can be that simple knowledge of someone else out there able to understand us that keeps us going.
I did a quick explanation there. I'm going to try (almost certainly unsuccessfully) to get some sleep.
Good Times
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Tar
I am worthy
of your hate.
only.
take some of mine.
Ah self destruction welcome back. It's nice to have you back on the program. We were just speaking last week with your friend. This last work of yours was elegant and moving in its efficiency. A single calculated act wreaking such destruction. It's good because she almost started to like you. Better to blow it up before it began. Save yourself the pain of dragging it on and ruining it later. Make them hate you, that's the best way. Drive them away so you can be miserable. Alone.
At least then it can end with me.
of your hate.
only.
take some of mine.
Ah self destruction welcome back. It's nice to have you back on the program. We were just speaking last week with your friend. This last work of yours was elegant and moving in its efficiency. A single calculated act wreaking such destruction. It's good because she almost started to like you. Better to blow it up before it began. Save yourself the pain of dragging it on and ruining it later. Make them hate you, that's the best way. Drive them away so you can be miserable. Alone.
At least then it can end with me.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
A Hard Day
It's been a hard day. The memories have begun dying and as they struggle for those last few gasps of air the convulsing sends bursts of pain through my chest. It doesn't seem like a vacation anymore, it feels wrong. It feels to me as if each of the nueropathways in my brain is connected to my nervous system and each time one of the little strands of brain tissue rips its roots from the soil of my brain I feel a flash of pain. Sometimes whole clumps are uprooted and the intensity if magnified. Randomly images force themselves into my mind, almost into my eyes they seem so vivid. Nothing odd or particularly powerful just plain views of the door to my old house or the living room but the implied power is enormous. And the gun shot like manner in which they appear, penetrating my consciousness and then exiting quickly. Before it was a big pain, which while overwhelming and humbling in its ability to physically take me to the floor and override my usually overbearing rational control, was at least finite and even cathartic. Now it is a small leak of pain. It burns hour after hour slowly and patiently. It is a soft hum that you forget is there when busy and then in your solitude it haunts you. It is calm and steady and threatening in its sense of inevitable conquering. I feel it taunting me and my patience like Grant surrounding Vicksburg. I hate it because it denies me the clarity of big pain. There is something healing about big pain, something cleansing. It burns and stings like hell but when it is gone it is like after a strong rain. This dripping brings no clarity. It does not cleanse. It is a smarter pain I guess.
Breathe I suppose. Try to cleanse it with the breath.
Good Times
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