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4 a.m. Self-talk

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Is everything connected? Is my personality the dictator of other things in my life?
I am waiting for the natural progression to adulthood to continue. I don’t want to believe that I missed the boat, that the ship has sailed. What would it take to complete that step? Is it possible in an instant? Or many instants strung together? Is this journaling a first step? It always seems to help to journal like this. It helps sort out my jumble of ideas, to give me some direction to go in. Instead of wallowing.

I am still stuck mimicking others. I have not been able to determine my own destiny, make my own decisions. That’s why I say I’m not a man, but a mouse, a child, a girl. I live a vicarious life. But it’s almost funny that I think things can or will change without me changing first. It’s funny that I think things are so compartmentalized that way. It’s silly. Everything’s interconnected.

originally published on 7/17/08

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Looseleaf

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Could I tell you everything? If not you, then who? Can I try harder to talk to people? Real people, not an imaginary reader person? When I feel I want to open up and share, where ought I turn? A shrink? A friend? Which friend exactly? Why am I afraid I will be taken the wrong way? Is it such a disastrous turn of events if that happens?
I see people engaging in conversation, in social interaction, in levity, laughter, story-telling, joke-spinning. Are they acquiring the feeling I am yearning for? The feeling of release? The feeling of disclosure, of open-endedness, of candor? (took me awhile to think of that word) (I hope it was worth my time, my interminable time)

I can DO a lot of things. But it’s simple living which wonderfully eludes me. I admire/envy all those who have that gift/knack. They open their mouths and delightful CONVERSATION comes out. Regardless. Under umpteen circumstances. And from that comes activities and group bonding and a continuous sense of a life being lived. For me it has to be a rather controlled environment to get the old gabber going. Or I have to be in just such a mood. Or something.

I read a book about improving social skills that said you must lower your expectations of who you’ll talk to and what you’re willing to talk about. I tried that for a while, but in the end it didn’t seem natural or relevant. Perhaps what would be better is to be better at creating and asking for the people and situations which I really do want to have as social environs. To somehow not be fearful of their adverse reactions to such requests. Until that time I shall utilize you, dear reader, as a friend in kind. I do love you, as if you were right here hearing my most heartfelt confessions. I don’t have to make any special arrangements to have this time delving with you. I just had to have this wondrous blog created for our mutual use. I’ll meet up with all of you someday, in person. It won’t suck, like those other social situations.

originally published on 7/31/08

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Intone

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The other question is whether I have a greater or lesser need for socializing than other people. I used to claim, even to myself, that I liked being something of a loner. But now I wonder if I was simply trying to make some sense of the way I related to the world. I didn’t necessarily enjoy being alone, but it was preferable to making the herculean effort to have pleasant banter with acquaintances.
But I felt a little more at ease today after venting and formulating hypotheses here last night. I could observe others more clearly, more objectively. Maybe that’s the first step towards the ability to approach others in the miraculous way they approach eachother.

I also felt myself breathing differently. I noticed that when the breath stays inside my lungs, it permeates out through the limbs and fingers. I don’t necessarily have to take breaths, deep or otherwise, to benefit from the presence of air in my body. I just have to use it, be sensitive to its presence.

originally published on 7/31/08

reflections within

Byron

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I am beginning to suspect I am a liar. You know, knowledge of one’s capacity for lying may not be as easily come upon as you might think. Self-awareness of liars must have varying depths, all the way from the rationally scheming to the pathologically embedded. And it may vary day to day, week to week. I wonder if lying to yourself is a prerequisite for a perpetual liar. That may again be determined by the type of liar you are.
It occurred to me that I may be an overall unwitting liar when I began to realize that most people throw around the terms honesty and true self in ways that I haven’t been able to realistically attempt since my young childhood. Somehow, to me there are generally too many layers to things not to have a sense of backtracking after every supposed honest statement I make. But the question becomes, do those layers represent an intricate reality, or a superimposed complexity resulting from my deceptive, duplicitous tendencies?

This notion oddly comes as a relief. Although it is somewhat tragic to think I am something of a lying bastard, it does help to settle some of the incomprehensible quandaries I have dealt with most of my adult life. Maybe I can begin to unravel the spools of knotted up philosophies and emotions.

originally published on 3/2/09

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Laugher

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I still wonder if I am the way I am because of different incidents in my life, or if I always exuded these traits. It’s a funny mind-bent to take yourself back to those possible key moments when something external may have altered your very fabric in some way. I wonder if it is really any more odd than thinking about internal, inevitable human-development turning points, even though one may appear so much more organic and natural than the other. External changes have certain obvious events you can reference – birth, first day of school, first crush, first fight, first summer camp away from home, first concert, first love, marriage, children, mortgage, etc. – whereas internal ones have a morphing quality that’s at least as deep but much more elusive.
I have also been an observer of the different levels of gentleness possible with any psycho-spiritual changes. It seems to depend how the new information is presented. Reading books is usually much gentler than being thrust into a baffling new social situation. However, these many intensities are important in crossing the various rites of passage, I believe. And even if they are not, they seem to be inescapable. I find the best way to truly figure out where the point of balance is on any philosophical pursuit, is to experience at least some of the edges that comprise it.

originally published on 3/8/09

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Hearthen

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What happens in that hole I fall into? It feels like a hole because I can’t really see out of it. I am too far in.
Am I supposed to question this hole? Even though this is how I perceive my reality? To question my perception of reality is to have a high hope that I can somehow alter my reality. This is a difficult concept when one is feeling weighed upon.

If I am sunken in a hole, does it follow that I had been above ground beforehand? Like floating? Because it has been postulated that if you are on solid ground, you are less easily disturbed than if you are in an excited or ecstatic place. You have the best perspective if you are in a central position, rather than on one end or the other; the futility of existing on the edges of the spectrum is more easily seen.

Because if I try getting myself out of my hole in hopes of bouncing back to a flying euphoria, is it not possible I am again setting myself up for another crash and burn (bury)?

originally published on 3/9/09

cello practice, reflections within

Ain’t No Mountain

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Last night we did the dangerous duo of operas, giving me ample time to test out my electricity theories. They were effectual for a while, but eventually I needed other tricks up my sleeve to retain any sort of left hand comfort. What seems to always be the outcome of nights like that, if I’m lucky, is a funny Zen state where everything just falls together in its own rhythm. All the theories which could sometimes seem contradictory – electrical connection, tiny spasms, only tensing the playing finger, breathing through things, non-interference (allowing things to just happen), and any of my other dissections – they all fall into the background of the magic mental state which I cannot plan for. Of course it’s frustrating to think of why I can’t skip the middle man and go right to the dessert course. Maybe I would get bored. I would have no mountains to scale, then. I would be content.
Often the Zen feeling comes over me after I have tried a few of my tricks, and I sort of give up. It seems nearly impossible to get that given up feeling before having given something up. I have tried.

originally published on 3/24/09

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Martyr

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So who out there can handle real life? I want what you have. I strive to be near people who appear to handle it. It calms me. Too bad it’s nothing but a temporary balm.
I try to keep things on an even keel. I try to stay free from vices. I try to be wise in my decision-making. I try to learn from my mistakes. I seek out wisdom from those who seem to possess it.

It is my instability and my neediness which are the problems. But why do I feel like they are a natural reaction to the world around me? I have never blamed my sensitiveness for my problems, because I only see it as an asset. I would like to retain that supposition.

That leaves something else as the culprit. Is it society? Yes. Is it my history? Yes. Is it karma from previous existences? Perhaps. Is it my lack of judgment? No, I do not want to blame that. I don’t think blaming a part of myself is helpful or deeply true. Hating myself is a reaction to something else that is going on, not a cause.

I used to like to say that the only place I felt right was onstage during a performance. That realization came later on, in college. Before then I didn’t even comprehend the ridiculousness of my emotional situation. I can handle the unhandlable much better than normalcy. It’s ludicrous. Or is it? Is what people call normal life really so straightforward and simple? And is getting up in front of hundreds or thousands of people to perform and express something unique so daunting? What if that’s the only time you feel like you are yourself? Like you are unencumbered and free. Why is it I feel that time stops when I am performing, but the rest of the time, time is a weight on my head, taunting me not to fuck up this minute, this second, this year, this life, not to make the same mistakes I’ve made innumerable times before, ones that cause me to not sleep most of a night, or regret what I’ve said or didn’t say, or wonder what in the world I’ve been doing for the last three hours.

originally published on 5/20/09

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Anti

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Judging from the last entry, it seems that jumping from quick fix to quick fix has been a failed system of living. But it’s also no surprise that I would be trying it. When you need relief from life as badly as I sometimes do, you will attempt many far-from-center approaches. You will readily refuse to see any truths that may be comfortably sitting on a bench beside you, wondering when you will simply turn your head and see.

originally published on 5/20/09