3 posts tagged “me”
This is more of a "dear diary" or "note to self" post; go read something else if that's not what you're looking for. It follows on from an earlier post, but isn't nearly as introspective, so don't look for any deep insights here. I probably wouldn't have posted this at all, but the words were flowing, and lately I've been trying to take advantage of that whenever I can. So, don't say I didn't warn you...
I was the one who would not abandon you;
even in death I was the one who would not leave you.
I used my freedom to protect you,
and all the while direct you;
do you remember me this time?
Even in death I gave you life,
I gave you life.-- Dream Theater, The Ministry of Lost Souls
For the past few weeks (actually, past couple of months), I've been rather busy on the work front. I don't want to go into too much detail, because the detail is mostly irrelevant, but suffice to say that it's been enough to consume a substantial amount of time and attention. I tend to work best under pressure, and so I've been operating at much closer to my maximum potential than I've experienced for a while; coupled with my relatively newly unlocked emotional intensity, this has made for a rather extreme ride, although it has also been immensely fulfilling.
There's one aspect I'm having to adjust to right now, though. I've been drawing much more deeply on my emotional strength to keep me going; this was necessary to avoid burnout, but since I'm still not really used to these levels of intensity, I've been experiencing again something I had completely forgotten about until now. Somewhere back when I first took control of my emotions after flaring out of control for so long, I recognised that while certain situations might threaten to overwhelm me with negative emotions, turning away from these situations would be just as fatal in the long run as suppressing the emotional responses would have been. Turning away means isolating myself from parts of the world, while suppressing the response leads to a mental callousness or numbness that would prevent me from empathising with others. I knew I could cope with the emotion no matter how intense, so it was just a matter of exerting the willpower to endure the experience.
Over time, I became used to the process; the experience never became any less intense, but the willpower required to avoid turning away became second-nature. Now that things have escalated to a much higher level, I'm suddenly having to deal with this temptation again. When confronted with pain, suffering, sorrow, anger, and other negatives, I'm finding that a much higher level of willpower is required. Intellectually, I know this isn't something there's a mental limit to; no matter the intensity of the emotion, the mental capacity will be there to cope with it; if not, the mind automatically filters the intensity down to manageable levels. However, knowing this, and actually practicing it, are two completely different things; so, I'm having to learn all over again to consciously suppress the urge to turn away from the situation at hand, or suppress the emotional response.
Anyhow, that's all for now; I've got some other stuff floating around, but it'll have to wait for another post, since nothing is concrete enough yet to put into words.
I have tasted of the fruit,
and it's opened up my eyes;
it's given me a thirst,
that's so hard to satisfy;
drink from juicy lips,
delicious in a kiss,
allow yourself.— Infected Mushroom, Illuminaughty
Fear of change is a common human affliction. Some fear change in the world around them, because they do not know whether they will be able to survive in a world that is different to the one they now live in. Some fear change in all things, because they fear that the change may be for the worse, rather than the better. Others fear intellectual change; that is, a change in their thinking, in their mind. This fear stems from a fear of losing one's identity; and of course, the accompanying fear that should such a change occur, they would no longer be able to understand why the change is good or bad, or perhaps even realise that any change has occurred.
Such fear is certainly not baseless; it can be truly terrifying to observe the downward spiral of someone afflicted with a psychological or neurological disease that slowly tears apart what was once a person, while the individual thus afflicted is almost oblivious to the process. Then there are forms of "brainwashing", or forced intellectual change; people hear of things like the so-called "Stockholm syndrome" (which, incidentally, is not a real medical term), and brainwashing through the use of psychotropic drugs and mental torture. Thus, it is perhaps not such a great leap from fearing these extreme scenarios, to fearing any kind of intellectual change at all.
However, down this path lies many dangers. First and foremost are the consequences of being unable to correct incorrect views that one holds; you need no longer worry about changing from correct beliefs to incorrect beliefs, but at the same time, any incorrect beliefs you hold will continue to mislead you, as you resist any attempts to change them. Then, too, there are the consequences of isolating yourself from others; even if you are, in fact, right, and they are wrong, you cannot hope to interact with them on anything more than a superficial level if you cannot at least understand their perspective, however incorrect it may be.
Thus, while I respect in some way those who seek to avoid intellectual change, I choose to embrace it fully. This does not mean that I buy into any hair-brained theory or belief that gets thrown my way. Any new ideas and concepts are carefully examined, tested, torn apart and put back together; but at the end of this process, if the new idea meets muster, then I will embrace it. Far from seeing this as "losing" myself, I feel that the new me is simply something greater than the old me; I don't discard the old beliefs or perspective as the new ones are embraced, I simply cut them out of the decision-making loop. Thus, I retain all of the previous awareness I had, but now it is augmented by new and different things.
I should, perhaps, stress the latter point; while some people seek to forget about painful memories or times of their life, to "put it behind them", I don't wish to do that. I don't wish to dwell on the past, but neither do I wish to discard the past, and lose the value of experiences. All of the pain, misery, suffering, and darkness is as much a part of me as the joy, love, peace, happiness, and light; to discard that is to discard part of who I am, and to become something less than I was before.
I urge those of you who fear change to, instead, embrace it, and release yourselves from that fear.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.— Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Feed my will to feel this moment,
urging me to cross the line;
reaching out to embrace the random,
reaching out to embrace whatever may come.— Tool, Lateralus
Breathe... the air while you still can;
leave... all tomorrow's plans.
Here... the calm before the storm;
heed... the message of the Dawn.— Rhea's Obsession, Death by Moonlight
I know, I know, the timing is horribly ironic; I'm writing this post on New Year's Eve, yet I find the concept of the "New Year's Resolution" to be laughably crude, simplistic, and naïve. Nevertheless, here we are; the self-realisation I alluded to in a previous post has given rise to things I never could have imagined. For the first time in years, I'm truly operating outside of the reactionary prison I built for myself, without ever realising it. In many ways, this changes nothing; but at the same time, it somehow changes everything. One particularly important aspect of this epiphany (at the risk of sounding pompous): stepping outside the cage unlocked a reservoir of inner emotional intensity that I did not believe existed; it seems this may have been the cause of the "muting" of my own emotions. For some, being suddenly deluged by emotional energy like this may have been devastating, but for me, it's really the exact opposite; being driven to the edge emotionally is something I can draw deeply on for strength, regardless of the nature of the emotion. Intense fear, intense joy, intense sorrow, intense anger, it's all the same to that part of me, although the negative emotions do take their toll on me in other ways.
This brings me to the next aspect: I'm now also aware that the depression I thought I had long since left behind me was never truly gone; but with the aid of this new-found source of emotional energy, I've finally been able to perceive my depression on a mental level for the first time. In the past, the only way I've been able to gauge the effects of the depression is through the indirect physical effects that it's had; while others close to me could sense the darkness, it always overwhelmed me to the point where I was not even consciously aware of it while being affected by it. This doesn't mean that I've suddenly been able to finally throw it off for good, but now that I'm aware exactly how and where it has been affecting me, I've been able to start doing something about the problem.
One particular quandary I find myself in now, is deciding exactly how much of this new-found emotion to show others in my interactions with them. To a large extent, my normal social responses, body language cues, and so on are completely simulated; my natural responses don't even vaguely match what most other people actually expect to see, and so I have to fake it in order to avoid miscommunication. I've mostly been doing nothing to reveal the changes in my interactions, but concealing my emotional reactions to this extent seems somehow dishonest, although I couldn't really explain why. I guess it's something I'll have to figure out as I go along.
On a practical level, this hasn't yet had any effect on a day-to-day "getting things done" level; I'm right in the middle of the holiday season, so things have been relatively quiet, and I'd been planning on taking as much time as I could to just sit back and relax anyway; but it looks like I'm going to be approaching life quite differently in some ways next year, as I start focusing on driving my real priorities forward, rather than just reacting.
The thing that truly terrifies me right now is that I'm not sure I'll be able to hang onto the state I'm in now. I can easily imagine slipping back to where I was before in a few weeks, at which point all this will seem like so much drivel and handwaving. Then again, there's not much I can do about it, and I won't truly be able to grasp what I've lost if I do lose it again, so I suppose there's no sense worrying about it. Somehow, that line of reasoning isn't particularly comforting...
