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Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Julie Heffernan, Self-Portrait as Broken Home
Throughout the course of a day, many battles are fought. The mere fact of having a physical body creates stress--whether in the form of exhaustion, bouts of emotion, anxiety. But the alternative, floating around in some amoeba-like wavy film, doesn't sound any more appealing.
And so we have this body. I've been a bit unhappy with my body--now into my thirties, I lack the motivation to lose the weight I've gained in the last year. This requires discipline and for a long time, I've avoided the necessary restraint to curb my appetites.
I wonder if as we get older we lose certain motivations. I'm obsessive about writing, reading, and my work--those things seem to motivate me to a fault--but the care of the body, once a concern, no longer matters.
I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I don't care for my body as I once did. Because the real reason for this is I don't have anyone to impress. There are no women I'm trying to woo, or otherwise get their attention, have dinner with, etc.
Since my late twenties, I've socialized less and less, and my circle of intimates has narrowed.
By choosing to marry, you can prevent the circumstances I've just described. You may be lonely in another sense, but you'll never feel isolated. If anything (and I'm speculating here because I'm not married), you'll feel crowded or as my mother used to put it, "I feel like I'm drowning."
My mother was a fierce individualist, an artist, and not really suited to raising a family or having children. But she did and I acquired many of her traits for contemplation, creativity, solitude and private work.
She used to keep journals in her art studio, many of them handmade. She bound her own sketchbooks and journals. I remember seeing the half-cut fabrics in the laundry room beside reams of thread. But she stored her journals downstairs, in a chest of drawers. My mother's art studio had immaculate white walls and was filled with repurposed furniture and random objects cluttering the floor.
She created scenes with the furniture, rugs, or whatever she found around the house. Her models sat under giant flood lights, and for hours my mother would stand at a canvas and translate this imaginary situation into a painting. The window of her studio regularly appeared in her paintings, with a view of our suburban enclave, a privileged world protected by a gate.
It was a beautifully landscaped, dead conglomerate of houses. The houses were so big and set apart that it was an inconvenience to visit people. You would have to drive to their house just to say hello.
As a teenager, the vastness of the subdivision inspired many adventures on my bike. I charted the territory available to me. Originally a golf course, which had been transformed into a gated community, there were several large ponds, always with a great deal of Canadian geese squawking and shitting in the grass. I remember the exact color of the grass on most days. It was dark green. Around the ponds were massive weeping willow trees and I used to stand on the tops of the roots jutting out of the ground. Sometimes there were nooks in the bottom branches, where you could sit and watch the cars go by.
The grounds of the Midwest Club, where I lived, were expansive. Cul de sacs snaking up hills, and new houses always being built, large, preposterous modern ones. I used to to explore the construction sites with a friend, and we collected those bottle-cap things. The little metal caps were scattered in the sawdust, and we filled our pockets with them.
The basements, I recall. Most basements of the houses we couldn't go down into; there wasn't a staircase built yet. But we peered into the gaping hole that extended into shadows and frameworks for rooms. We marveled at this part of the house, I imagine, because it was so inaccessible.
In time, every basement we peered into would become a finished one, with lush carpets and modern cooling devices to keep the temperature just right. Some of the basements would be equipped with small movie theaters or bowling alleys. The general rule of the place where I lived was that every year a newer, more elaborate house would be built. The new house in the subdivision with a waterfall, indoor gardens, and running streams, would inevitably provoke gossip and cause the other residents to look with envy as they drove back to their humble, dated mansions.
This probably explains why I wanted to spend so much of my later adolescence outside of the house, and the neighborhood, for that matter. Our environments undoubtedly shape our personalities, and when I was younger, I remember being by myself a lot. Whether it was amid the vastness of the gated community or sequestered inside my own large house, it was a common experience that repeated itself.
It seems I had more friends when I was younger, but at every stage of my life I've felt a disconnect between myself and others. I felt this even when I had made friends in high school or college; my friendships were always private and never in large groups. They were also tenuous. When a friend was accepted into a larger group, I was usually left on my own. I'm not wallowing here--that's just how things turned out for me. And I kind of liked being by myself.
Of course, a part of us desires what we don't have, and so, I did long for acceptance and to be part of a larger group. But my personality never allowed for it. Another way to put this is I didn't fit in.
And now that I'm thirty years old, soon to be thirty-one, I'm slowly recognizing why things are the way they are for me.
We tend to forget the past, and how we developed into individuals. I feel stuck when I forget my past, like a coma has obscured some vital reference points. And these instances of my separation from others, where I lived, how I grew up, describe my tendency toward contemplation and creativity, as opposed to other forms of immersion, like social immersion, which has always made me slightly uncomfortable.
I understand why I'm on my own, and it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. I've always wanted this, even though I may have pretended otherwise.
Every choice in life implies the loss of another. Since I was very young, I chose to cultivate my interior world. And that's where my poems come from, and these essays.
Strangely enough, when I write these essays, I'm consciously reaching out to the world. The fact that my interiority changes to its opposite makes me think that while we're always "on our own," we also have this place to meet others, through language and art. It's a wonderful hidden doorway, and I'm passing through it a lot these days.
Monday, March 22, 2010
"Let me come home," I said. But she was too worried about what I might do in Chicago.
"Go back to rehab," she said in her brittle voice. My father had recently divorced her and she was living with a caretaker, who I could hear in the background.
I knew I couldn't stay in Vegas anymore. I was making too many enemies and I didn't have any money. They allowed me to stay at the Backpacker's Inn each night because I cleaned the rooms during the day.
My mother paid for my plane ticket and I flew out to Tucson, Arizona, where I had already been to rehab but was kicked out the 28th day when I refused to do an after-care program. I was going back there because I had nowhere else to go.
The thing about Cottonwood de Tucson is that it's filled with lots of rich people and celebrities. It's in the middle of the desert and has a gigantic swimming pool, palm trees, and ten or fifteen resort-style bungalows. The food is gourmet and healthy, and the chef greets you as you enter the dining hall.
My roommate was the drummer of a famous musician, who was there for a pot addiction. He was fifteen years old. To me, however, it appeared like he had an addiction to drawing penises. He would draw them everywhere with a black sharpie, benches, sheets of paper, his arm.
There were others too. This one lanky man, about six feet tall, wore a cowboy hat and yodeled at night. He strummed on his guitar and made up songs on the smoking bench. He said he was a television writer in LA and wrote the first season for NYPD Blue. He left the center a couple times in a cab, but was brought back by his wife.
But when I returned to Cottonwood after Vegas, it wasn't the same. I didn't recognize anyone, other than some of the staff members. The first day I guess you could say I got off to a bad start. We were only allowed to smoke at the smoking bench, and I was lighting up wherever I wanted. They yelled at me, told me to put out my cigarette.
I was already getting sick of the daily mantras and routines. I pretended to be involved but my mind kept wandering back to the places I'd been on my own, without any adults telling me what to do.
On the second night, the leaders called us to the rotunda for a medallion ceremony. You always have new people coming in and out of these places. We were expected to say goodbye to the ones who completed the program, and there was a circle where you passed around the medallion and made a wish for them.
On my way to the rotunda, the thought crossed my mind, "What if I just ran away?" It was an impulsive thought, but when an impulse takes hold of me, it's like I've been abducted by an alien race. The voice of reason never comes through in these moments. It's only the urge that speaks to me. A whole new reality can be made in that moment, and I feel alive.
Everyone was far ahead of me, most of them had already entered the rotunda for the medallion ceremony. I turned around and walked back to my room. I gathered my things and threw what I could fit into my backpack. Then I started to creep along the outskirts of the compound toward the highway.
There were no security guards, no high walls to scale. The rehab center proudly called itself an "open" treatment facility, where you were "free to leave at any time."
And so I left.
I'm not going to lie here. It really thrilled me to do outrageous things when I was younger. I'm not the type to go speeding in cars or jumping off cliffs, but a singular rebellious act filled me with extreme self-gratification. And it still does sometimes, although I've learned to choose my rebellious acts carefully.
But that doesn't mean that I wasn't nervous when this happened. I didn't want to get caught, and my heart was beating violently in my chest. I really wanted to make it out of there without anyone seeing me.
I followed a long driveway which begins at the admission office and extends about a quarter of a mile to the highway. The driveway was pitch black and strewn with rocks. To the side, there was a thick barrier of trees and some houses with their lights on.
The highway curved around the head of the Cottonwood entrance, and a car passed me at breakneck speed. I realized I had to clear from this area as soon as possible or risk being dragged back into the Garden of Eden. So I ran along the shoulder under a canopy of trees for a hundred paces and then sprinted across the highway.
The highway was an elevated pavement running between two large ditches on either side. The shoulder was thin and I had to balance myself on the edge of it while watching for oncoming cars. I figured I was better off in the ditch than making this tight-rope walk in the dark. So I slid my body down into the trench, where some debris and empty beer bottles were scattered at the base.
Unfortunately, I couldn't just walk straight through the ditch. In some places, the ditch stopped completely at a wall of dirt and sand. I waited in the ditch for a couple minutes and then tried to see what the desert looked like on the other side. If I could pull myself up somehow, I would be at the foot of the desert.
I was born in Illinois and I'd never trekked across a desert before. What you don't think about the desert at night is how different the landscape is, really severe, stark territory. When I climbed onto the other side of the ditch, I felt watched by the vegetation. There were vast open tracts of land and then clumps of knee-high prickly bushes. You couldn't walk in a straight line. You had to zigzag around the plants and cacti. I kept shielding my legs from the snags of bushes. Thorns everywhere. My shins were bleeding.
In the distance, I heard a car coming and so I dropped down on my stomach next to a prickly brush. Through the brush, I could see a white van, the same white van they had at Cottonwood to haul the patients from one place to another, and I knew it was Cowboy Bill driving that night because he was the only one on transportation duty. In fact, before the medallion ceremony, he had just taken us to an AA meeting in Tucson. He told jokes on the way and everyone laughed.
I waited in the desert for a long time, keeping myself hidden. The moon shed a little light over the area where I was sitting, and I took out my journal to scrawl a couple sentences. Throughout my drug addiction, I carried a journal everywhere I went, and I felt compelled to report on my state of mind during these climactic moments.
As some of you may know, I began writing these stories as a novel. One of the reasons for this is it felt like a novel as I was going through it. The divorce between my parents, my mother's illness, and the numerous psych wards, rehabilitation centers, and halfway houses I encountered, made up a chain of surreal events. But the strangest thing of all was my delusion, my magical thinking, that I could alter the course of events by actions such as this one. I imagined myself as a heroic figure, rebelling against the dictates of my father, and all authority by extension, in order to reclaim a sense of my own free will, however twisted, and not give in to a ready-made script handed to me by someone else.
After about forty-five minutes, I was becoming more aware of the sounds and movements around me. A pack of coyotes howled somewhere in the distance. An owl appeared in the crook of a cactus and turned its head 180 degrees. I imagined snakes slithering across the desert floor when I heard the bushes shaking. So I threw my backpack over my shoulder and in a hurry to get out of there, I climbed over several dozen thorn bushes, which ripped the skin under my thighs.
Once I got to the edge of the desert, I gladly jumped into the ditch, which to me was a far better place than the eerie desert. It was probably two or three in the morning when I stepped onto the shoulder of the highway, with not a soul in sight.
A car passed along the highway every twenty minutes or so. I stuck out my thumb each time, but nobody stopped. It was hard to believe that I was actually hitchhiking like this. At first I exulted in the sheer fact that I was out there, on my own, giving myself up to perfect chance. But as each car passed, I started to feel less and less hopeful that someone would pick me up. The stretch of highway ran on to infinity, it seemed, with only the ridge of the desert and some occasional towering cacti to provide me a sense of direction.
Every time a car passed me, I thought it would be the last. Then I saw a pickup truck slow down ahead. The red, rust-bitten pickup went in reverse until it was right where I was standing. A man in his late thirties leaned over and pushed open the door. He had on a nice pair of jeans, which I noticed for some reason. I think I was looking for clues as to whether I should get in his truck. I got in the vehicle anyways.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
"She's brilliant I think."
"She's a lunatic."
I'm sitting in Borders, overhearing a conversation between a mother and a daughter. Country-pop music is playing over the speakers. I've heard the song a thousand times.
"Have you read this one?"
"I didn't read the other one, I couldn't get through it . . ."
"Oh, I loved it."
"I read it. I read it. When you went off to college."
Recording these conversations is giving me a slight buzz. The women who disappear around the bookshelves, leave their voices trailing behind them, and I write down their broken fragments without knowing why.
What I love about a person's voice is its distinction. The distinction in personality comes through the volume of the voice, the boldness or timidity of it, and the colors in a voice seem to combine all the person's experiences and attitudes about the world. You don't even really need to take into account what they're saying. You can just hear how they're saying it, and (almost) all is revealed about that person.
But I shouldn't be sitting here, eavesdropping.
I am perpetually standing outside of Borders bookstore. This is my little isle of concrete where I light up my cigarette and watch the cars coming into the parking lot. The people approach the stores with their husbands, boyfriends, children, friends. I never recognize anyone. The various strangers may look at me only briefly, and each person gives me about as much notice as a black crow on a telephone wire.
I remember when I was in college I used to smoke outside the English building before class. The head of the department would always see me by the giant Corinthian columns, puffing away. He usually had a deprecating smile, like rubber bands pulling at the corners of his mouth. He would say my name in a formal way, and then, "Whenever I see you, you're smoking."
I go back into Borders, stopping to get my cup of water. The cafe girls, or baristas, know that after I drink my coffee and smoke my cigarette, I'm going to ask for a cup of water. They are usually pretty upbeat and friendly, and seem to enjoy doing me this little favor.
As I sit down into my faux leather chair, I note that a certain liveliness has overtaken the store. I'm happy as long as I can read my newspaper, but just in case I've brought earplugs. Later tonight, Borders will be hosting an event for educator's week and a dozen rows of chairs are set up on the opposite side of the store. Five authors and poets will be reading from their books. I plan to leave before the speakers arrive.
On a Saturday, around five or six o' clock, you can expect the store to be a little busier. I'm not misanthropic, I like people, I come here because of the energy. Otherwise I would be home all day, in my office cell, staring at the computer screen.
"I'll be talking about the Borders Experience tonight," I say to Jeff, who has walked past my chair and turned around. "Yeah, I'm doing a promo tonight before the speakers begin."
Jeff is a thin noodle of a man with concave shoulders and glasses. He looks at me quizzically. "No, you're not--"
"Yes, they asked me to talk about what it was like to come here every single day for two years. I'm a good representative, you know."
"I don't believe you." His glasses are perched on the end of his nose. He turns away from me with disbelief and uncertainty.
What I like about bookstores, and this one in particular, is how a person will stop in front of a display or bookshelf and fix their attention on something. They pause there for a moment, and it's kind of interesting to watch them. You wonder what's going through their heads at this moment. Why this book? Maybe it relates to their life somehow, their interests. They're captivated by that object they hold in their hands. It's intriguing.
And then, they move on, walking in a sort of deathless trance toward the next object of attraction. They take a few steps in one direction, maybe turn around, go another direction, it's as if they're sensing the forcefield, waiting to see what will pull them in.
Books have always been a part of my life. They offer the promise of some information about myself. I see books as containing personal symbols we're either drawn to or repelled by. We're repelled by what we can't identify with and drawn to the thoughts that seem to echo our own.
So it's no wonder that people walk slowly through bookstores with an air of mystery and quest. These objects are powerful, they speak to our deepest selves if we find the right one. It seems we're looking to extend the conversation we're already having with ourselves. Like our own monologues written by others. That's what I'm seeking in a book.
I tell a couple other Borders staff members that I'm speaking tonight. "I'll be right there behind that podium. Seven o'clock." And they say in unison "really? no," and then I walk back to my faux leather chair to finish whatever it is I'm writing.
Friday, March 19, 2010
In three words I can sum up everything I know about life: it goes on. --Robert Frost
I planned a vacation for myself, but that vacation was cut short.
I was only going to Chicago, where my father lives. I had two meetings in Chicago on Thursday, and so it wasn't a real vacation, only a chance for me to get away for a couple days.
On the first night (Wednesday), my younger sister met me at my father's apartment a couple hours before he arrived home from work. We sat on my father's couch . . . at first she was distracted, playing with her i-Phone, she'd look up at me while we were talking and then look back down at her phone to text message or check her email.
When my father arrived, he came into his study where Mandy and I were sitting in front of the computer. He quietly left the room.
They made dinner for me as I sat on the couch reading the newspaper. Secretly, I marveled at how well they got along together, cooperating on making the dinner with the fun of a happily married couple.
There was a time when I could have been a part of the Chicago picture; I could have lived there, and maybe developed a closer relationship to the family.
People often tell me that my problem is I don't live closer to people I care about. I don't have a robust social network in real life (online I do), mainly because I choose to live in Central Illinois. But I've tried to tether myself to people before, and it doesn't work for me. I prefer the simple rituals I have which don't rely on an abundance of friends.
That night my father and sister watched home movies while I sat on the couch, continuing to read the newspaper. My father's latest project has been to transfer all of the home movies he made between 1979 and 1998 onto DVD. It's an enormous archive, and when I come to visit now, I'm tacitly expected to watch a video from the archive. But Thursday night, I had no interest. He filmed nearly every major event, and a great number of non-events, everything from Christmases to birthdays, recitals, vacations, parties, sporting events.
Last time I was at his apartment I watched an hour or so of the videos, and the repetitive version of my family history bored me, even though I got to see my mother, who passed away. The family, through my father's eyes, and perhaps my sister's, reflects something of the "good old days," but I see a different picture in the slew of tapes . . .
It seems my father has changed dramatically in his attitude toward me. My impression is that all of my issues over the years has led him to think of me as a burden. He saw me through many bad times, and he used to be committed to me, despite what happened.
Today he shows little commitment toward me as a son. He's swung to the opposite extreme, presenting a cool exterior, which I interpret as unloving. If my actions in adolescence, and some continuing into adulthood, caused my father to detach himself from me, then I can only respond with a detachment of my own.
On Friday morning, we broke into an argument. Certain things I say irritate him. He doesn't like me talking about my job, or my financial situation. I understand why he wouldn't want me to complain, but it's hard to hide my resentment.
I returned home that day. I stayed in his apartment for only one night. This is the usual duration before either one of us becomes so angry we can't be around each other.
I never thought that my relationship to my father would go through so many reversals.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Life isn't about saying the right thing; life is about failing. It's about letting the tape play. --Jonathan Goldstein
Fiction is a burden. When I think about it, I feel a heaviness. Like I have to keep something going, a facade of characters, and a story where something must happen.
Too many things happened to me. If I just recall certain events and told you about them as I was writing, that would be easier.
What surprises me is how often I change my mind in a week or even a day. And then, I try to imagine what my life will look like five years from now . . . and how many times I will have changed my mind by then.
The mind changes itself ad infinitum and the individual gets caught somewhere between what was said and what was done, each time. Identity is fluid, which makes it OK for me to say one thing and then contradict myself the very next day.
This is all done in good faith. I wouldn't be lying to you, because I really did believe what I was saying at the time.
I detest lying; although I'm a compulsive exaggerator. For example, with numbers, I like to increase them.
How closely have I come to understanding my passions? Maybe I've fooled myself into believing that fiction is something I ought to do in my life or I won't be a valued individual.
I've written compulsively for the last ten years, but a large amount of it hasn't been fiction. This is how I write fiction. I write a page, and then I painstakingly try to improve it. The time I spend trying to improve my fiction vastly exceeds the time I spend writing new fiction. Which leads to a sort of editorial paralysis, you cannot write until you make what you wrote perfect, but that never happens, and your perception changes nearly every time you look at what you've written, so you get sucked in to trying to improve it again.
Life isn't about saying the right thing.
There are two kinds of attention: voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary attention is when you're sitting in class and your teacher says, "Pay attention." You have to work for this kind of attention.
Involuntary attention is open-focused. Involuntary attention occurs when children are playing.
Children easily become engrossed in playing with their toys. They are absorbed in their imaginary worlds. Their attention is at its peak. But if you ask a child to sit down at the kitchen table and figure out a math problem, this requires voluntary attention, fixing the mind on an object that is not inherently interesting to them.
However, some children may be able to lose themselves in math problems. For others, reading is a gateway to involuntary attention.
It would be wonderful to always be in tune with the natural promptings of one's involuntary attention. Rather than pushing against the grain, allowing oneself to magically slip into a state of interested awareness. I think what it comes down to is forgetting, another great difficulty I have, to just forget myself and do whatever it is I happen to be doing.
Beyond that, I would like to structure my life so that it reflects more closely my instincts, my natural pathways to intelligence. What if the only person who obstructs me from a life that I really want is me? I'm usually the last person I think of when it comes to my dilemmas. There has to be somebody or something that is holding me back. It can't be me, after all, I'm doing everything I can.
I'm going to dismantle some fictions I have about myself.
One: That I'm a novelist. I'm not a novelist. I'm not even a fiction writer. I don't write enough, I don't practice enough to call myself a fiction writer.
Two: That I'm an artist. I can't really say that either. While I write some poetry from time to time and doodle in my art books, it would be self-aggrandizement to call myself an artist.
Three: That I desperately need your praise. I don't really need anyone to praise me. I think I do, because it is gratifying. But praise is not necessary.
Four: That I will achieve greatness in my lifetime. This is the fiction of my own greatness, re: potential greatness, not yet realized. But it feels real!
Five: I can do whatever I want. In three years, I could be broke. That would be the first time I'd have to face the consequences of having no income.
Blogging is the perfect channel for my writing and experimentation. I'm not looking to gain success by writing some epic of my life. I'm just letting the tape play and seeing what happens.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Brig Upon the Water, 1856 by Gustave Le Grey
I come across an anthology of Russian short stories from the 2oth century. I come across a book of translated poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti, whom I've never heard of before. I pick up Alan Hollinghurst's novel, The Line of Beauty, and I am curious to read it.
Perhaps I will check these books out.
While my mind plots out the future with relentless determination, my body craves moments like these, moments of abandon, moments of self-forgetfulness . . .
I feel like a naughty or undisciplined child when I'm not following my mental agenda--I "look the other way" and allow myself to just explore and be surprised by ephemera.
Whatever catches my fancy in this moment is my agenda; but I am self-divided. On the one hand, I long to embrace the moment. My love of reading is a testament to this desire and this longing.
But my personality continually pulls me out of these moments. There is always something on my mind, an endless monologue going on, and I rarely allow myself to become engrossed, absorbed, in experience.
Reading The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, for example, I often thought about what I would read next . . .
Our minds seem fixated on what's next . . .
I also have a cold right now, and I'm thinking about how much better things will be after my cold is gone. This state of mind, in which I'm always anticipating the future, contributes to my restlessness, to my ongoing ambitions in work, and more and more the task of living becomes a passage from one set of circumstances to another.
I'm preoccupied with moving from point A to point B. Once I get to point B, I become preoccupied with point C, whatever that may be.
Consumer culture seems to feed on this mania. The acquisition of any material object leads to the desire for another object. But in life, the object becomes our set of circumstances, and we strive to alter them, to improve our lives until we are satisfied.
I am always in transit to where I would like to be, and never just where I am.
I shouldn't say "never". When I write these essays, I am fully present. I am at home with my emotions and thoughts. My mind and body are strangely united. Writing is closer to an act of prayer than anything I've ever done before. I commune with my deepest thoughts and feelings, and try to give them speech. I try to let my body articulate its trials.
There is something deeply troubling me right now--it seems I can't be happy. I don't think one can be happy "in transit".
I refer to my age a lot. When I say "I'm thirty years old," it gives me a certain vantage point to speak from. Perhaps you've been thirty before, or maybe you have ten years to go, whatever the case, thirty is a defining age for me. It makes me think harder than when I was twenty-nine. I'm beginning to ask myself questions like, "How do I really want to live my life?"
I feel like a wanderer. Every project I take on leads me into a sort of Siberian landscape--a blinding whiteness in which I can't see ahead or behind me--I go deeper into this white territory, unsure if I'm committing too much to a certain route, if perhaps I should abandon this route and find another, I don't know, but I keep walking into the white emptiness, the giant plane--
You would think that my projects would take me home, but they don't. They lead me out. They multiply me because I am caught in a desire to do more always.
So projects, while fulfilling on some level, ultimately just feed me more work to occupy my hours, and then there is this thing, beauty, which I am obsessed with.
Beauty is but a general term for my fantasies--I chase after something like a perfect world. It is beautiful to me, aesthetically, idealistically, but it also promises a sort of completion, like a spiritual completion, if only I could attain it.
My pursuit of the line of beauty has left me in a conflicted state. Beauty leads me into another Siberia, a Siberia of fantasy, and I am no closer to home, I am farther.
And then there is the sense that I'm engaging in a grand self-deception. I will never achieve my fantasy, the beauty I imagine is unattainable, so why do I contemplate this ideal world during so many of my waking hours?
Having tried the different ways to self-completion, or self-fulfillment, I fail. Imagined beauty fails me and so does my incessant activity. If it were possible that a relationship with a woman could save me, then I would pursue it--God knows I have tried--I am trying--I am in a relationship right now--her heart is more delicate and trusting and charitable than any woman I've ever been with---but I am still--unsatisfied--it is not her--I do not blame her.
In truth, there is no one to blame in life. I tried blaming my father. He seemed like the perfect culprit for my problems. But alas, there is no one except ourselves. . .
We have ourselves. But to blame yourself for being unhappy is wrong too. To say that I am unhappy is also wrong--
Unhappiness is a broad generalization for an often-changing state of mind. I'm not confused either, as some readers have suggested--
I'm innocent. It's a state of conflict, of contradiction, it's being human. Being unable to be here (with God or Nothingness), always seeking after that enigma on the edge of your mind. For me, it is beauty, an ideal . . .
The ideal world is especially seductive. I have a powerful imagination, and I can concoct convincing pictures in my mind, fantasies, alternative realities. The trouble is bringing the present moment up to speed with the picture in my head, an impossible feat, because fantasy and reality never cross streams.
And so I dwell in the uncomfortable middle--pulled forward by visions--and thrown backward by reality. Remember: I choose to have it this way. Which is the greatest conundrum of all.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
On my essay, "The Divided Self," a reader left this comment:
Your story is eerily similar to mine. I was leading a completely stressful life - a LOT of drinking, smoking, zero exercise, eating crap. And then, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I instantly changed, did a complete 180 didn't touch a single beer or a cigarette or a slice of pizza. All I ate were cupfuls of cheerios, protein etc. No more than one slice of bread per day. I exercised 2 hours daily. In 3 months I dropped 55 lbs, and my doctor said my blood sugar was back to normal and I wouldnt need medication to control it anymore. He even wanted to do a case study on how I did that.
And then - I graduated, got my PhD. A month later, it started with one beer. and now a year later, I am pretty much an alcoholic and a heavy smoker. No more exercise and lots of crappy food. I gained back all the weight. I cough, freak out for a while, throw my cigarettes out. and then go search for them in the garbage. I use my asthma inhaler and then go and smoke. I don't even know why I do this. The entire duality of my personality has me beat.
When I was taking care of myself - i was a LOT calmer, reading philosophy, whatnot. BUT I was nowhere as creative as i am now. Iam a musician (stereotypes woohoo), and I find myself writing more often when I am drunk and disoriented and so on.
Now which life do I choose? I guess it all comes down to balance - but HOW? balance seems forced. balance seems complacent. or is it? It seems so to me - the other desperate life is much more interesting - but it just might kill me.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts - a friend suggested your blog to me. If you find balance, tell us how.
I was moved by the comment and wanted to answer the commenter's questions to the best of my ability. Here is my response:
Please do not take this response to mean I have all the answers, I certainly do not. But I'm living as you are, and trying to cope with many of the same things, i.e. quitting unhealthy behaviors and adopting healthy ones.
You say, "I guess it all comes down to balance."
Here I'm tempted to say, "No, it all comes down to timing."
In an ideal world, I think all of us would want to lead more balanced lives--eating moderately, exercising moderately, working less, and so on.
But in the day-to-day business of living, I feel balance is not so much of a choice we have. We just deal. As you said in your comment, any attempt to create balance, feels forced.
I re-read "The Divided Self" after I read you comment. It is very similar to an essay I just posted, called "The Undiscovered Self".
I'm looking at my life now from the perspective of these two essays, which essentially try to grasp the same problem.
It's strange. I don't even think about smoking anymore. I quit. It's been three or four weeks now. I just don't think about it. Which is very strange in light of the essay, "The Divided Self". Because in that essay, I'm describing what appears to be my utter inability to quit smoking.
The thought to have a cigarette will cross my mind, but for some reason, now, I don't act on it. And before I was helpless. So what explains this phenomenon?
I'm reading John Dewey's seminal work, Art as Experience, and he talks a lot about the ebb and flow of human experience, nature, and life. As humans, we really do have to go through these revolutions, these cycles. Granted some people with have more accentuated rhythms than others, higher peaks, lower valleys--all of us are familiar with these cycles.
Listen to how Dewey describes it. He's wonderfully accurate:
Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of surrounding things and then recovers unison with it—either through effort or by some happy chance. And, in a growing life, the recovery is never mere return to a prior state, for it is enriched by the state of disparity and resistance through which it has successfully passed.And here:
Nevertheless, if life continues and if in continuing it expands, there is an overcoming of factors of opposition and conflict; there is a transformation of them into differentiated aspects of a higher powered and more significant life. The marvel of organic, of vital, adaptation through expansion (instead of by contraction and passive accommodation) actually takes place. Here in germ are balance and harmony attained through rhythm. Equilibrium comes about not mechanically and inertly but out of, and because of, tension.And so, from these passages, you can infer that there is meaning behind our "bad periods"--that is, the periods where we pick up smoking again, have lots of casual sex, drink too much, etc. This does not mean unhealthy, compulsive, addictive behavior is acceptable. It just means that the human being can be understood as moving through phases of order and disorder, but that each stage of disorder has the potential to lead to a higher stage of order, a higher level of consciousness.
I think there is great sense in this philosophy.
You mention that since you returned to drinking, you're more creative. In this post, I examine the effect of pot on my creativity.
Everyone is different, of course, in regards to creativity and intoxicants.
I too had the sense when I was taking drugs that I could at times tap into a well-spring of creativity. But for me it was an illusion.
Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, etc., generally occurs during a person's phase of "disorder". And yet, I had a tendency to see order in my disorder. This was part of my distortion.
I began my response to your comments by saying I thought it all came down to timing instead of balance. Reading the passages by Dewey, however, it does seem to come down to balance.
From the point of view of nature, yes, balance is what makes the human being whole. It is the complete cycle, from order to disorder and back to order.
But from the point of view of the human being, I still believe it's a matter of timing. Where you are at in any given moment of your life will determine your "success" at living. But fear not, because according to the philosophy of Dewey, we are all on a self-balancing path, even in our darkest moments.
Monday, January 12, 2009
It was Montaigne's conviction that in spite of the range of human diversity, there is a basic unity to human experience. "Each man bears the entire form of man's estate." And if such is the case, then writing about oneself is not a private, narcissistic act but will strike a chord of grateful recognition in readers everywhere. Montaigne's unique talent for communicating himself proved the point: we now have thousands of verbal self-portraits in print, and few have inspired readers to identify themselves with the writer nearly as much as Montaigne's.
Part of the reason for its success was Montaigne's ability to see himself as an average human being. Of course, he was scarcely average in intelligence and literary gifts. But he regarded the ups and downs and pleasures of his daily life as typical; he chose to write not in Latin, the learned language of his time, but in conversational, vernacular French; and he minimized his singular career (a valued diplomat used by kings, and twice mayor of Bordeaux), opting instead for a tone of ironic self-deprecation. This grew partly out of his view of the human condition.
Montaigne regarded humanity as constantly in flux, vain, ashamed of itself, and contradictory. Rather than condemning people, however, he recommended a generous self-forgiveness. He preferred not to aim so high (there is little of the mystical, transcendent, or tragic in this author) but to steer a middle course. His thought evolved from an early expression of Stoicism (including the concern about dying well) to skepticism and eventually a brand of epicureanism (giving counsel on the art of living well).
One of the most radical of Montaigne's practices was to follow his thoughts no matter where they led him. The result conveyed the spontaneity of mental discovery, on the one hand, and a heedless lack of structure, on the other. In "Of Books" and elsewhere, he made a case for the common reader, the non scholar, who will simply say what he or she thinks about a book. His literary preferences were for Senecan conclusions rather than windy lead-ups, for language that is to the point, not bothering with elegance but "rough and contemptuous". His own sentences were sinewy, dry, yet succulent; they explode like pomegranate seeds on the tongue.
Phillip Lopate, from The Art of the Personal Essay
Friday, June 27, 2008
I enjoy the reflective essay. But there are many voices and mine is only one of them.
When I began blogging I wanted to create a site where I could publish lengthy quotations from the books I read. Without being in graduate school, I live the life of the interdisciplinary scholar, always sifting through a different book and taking notes. Although these books have little to do with each other, I draw connections.
I draw connections because I see connections. Many think I am mad. The art of linking is a mad art. Linkages can be found anywhere.
Linkages between life and art, linkages between science and religion, linkages between architecture and writing.
Because I do a lot of reading I’m constantly discovering tidbits of wisdom; and that’s what I had originally called this website, “The Philosopher’s Tidbits.”
Since then, things have changed.
The first changes began to show themselves when I added to the pages my own ideas. It began with a short essay, and then a longer one.
I continued to publish lengthy quotations in between my essays. The purpose was twofold. By typing the quotes into my computer, I learned the material of these great thinkers. And two, I suspected that I could increase my page views if I published a famous quote on the Net every couple days.
I also have a long history of copying and recopying.
My earliest memory of obsessive copying is during my sophomore year in high school. I was taking an AP European History class and it was impossible for me to remember anything without copying it down in small print. I was very meticulous and neat. My handwriting drew the attention of my classmates. Before the AP test, I had two stacks of ink-covered pages.
And then in college I remember one of my professors gave us an assignment to keep a “literary theory journal". While she only meant for us to jot down a couple definitions, I set about the Sisyphean task of collecting two volumes of notes and quotations on literary theory. These journals epitomized my habit of overachievement; labors so absolutely unnecessary that they became marvels in their own right.
Therefore: I have a tendency to write things down, especially the thoughts of others.
The line between graphomania and reverence is a thin one. At times I copied down the thoughts of others because they inspired me. At other times I copied them down because I needed words to explain things about life. And there were also times when the physical act of copying satisfied a deep urge inside of me.
Could I have been using the words of others to form a wall around myself?
I am a writer.
I am also afraid to write.
Reaching for ready-made sentences relieves the terror of having to say something original.
And the words great thinkers used seemed different from my own. Their words were more permanent. Their aphorisms like pieces of jade.
I am an idealist. I will always look for the best, and try to achieve my best potential.
The pitfall of this thinking is that I am often mesmerized by what is esteemed “great”. And by fixing a perpetual gaze on others, I undermine my own abilities.
Sometimes I’m just lazy and would rather quote somebody else instead of writing an original sentence.
Whatever the value and greatness of another’s words, nothing compares to the freshness and originality of my own tongue.
I have taken refuge in the words of others for too long; now I am ready to speak.
I no longer want to be afraid.
At a certain age, a person’s identity and purpose gains momentum—
Until the direction cannot be easily averted.
We are—one day we realize—exactly who we have longed to be.
Whatever posturing we did in our youth blends indistinguishably into an essential personality and person—
This is then a symbolic and literal transition from the words of others into our own.
Our own language.
A prelude to the knowledge of our own being.
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