Maybe in the course of life, there are only 3 interdependent pieces.

1. What Is

2. Interpretation of What Is

3. What’s Done

It’s been said that you can’t change other people, and you can’t change your circumstances – all you can change is your reaction. If you apply that rule here, it dictates that the meaning of life doesn’t actually change, but that interpretation does.

What Is – meaning the truth, whether visible or unknown – is the most powerful influence on What’s Done. Despite the appearance of a strictly linear relationship, the truth is that all 3 of these elements are made up of the same stuff. They rely on one another through their differences.

The necessity of Interpretation of What Is coexisting with those two, is the very definition of humanity. We need to make sense of our world. The mind is said to create structure, even where there is none available. It builds relationships among our experiences.

And why not? Even if Interpretation of What Is leads us down arbitrary paths, to arbitrary conclusions, we can still see that it answers a need. And every time an Interpretation of What Is happens, it’s recorded in the universe, and therefore alters a little bit of What Is.

What’s Done seems fairly independent. It doesn’t seem invisible enough to be recorded in What Is. After all, What’s Done is perhaps a direct creation of What Is. And I can’t find much to convince me that Interpretation of What Is has a major influence over What’s Done. The most animalistic and inevitable of the three, What’s Done is often attributed to an Interpretation of What Is. All I seem to be able to do is strongly suspect that 100% of What’s Done can be attributed to What Is. I can’t make much argument for it. It’s a gut feeling, and it’s a big one.

Despite the fact that there have been as many Interpretations of What Is as there have been humans in the entire history of the planet, we each start from scratch. And I myself have built my own Interpretations of What Is. In my quest, I have integrated the templates of others and found that they suit some (but not all) of my needs.

Try as I may, I cannot find What Is. I cannot put my finger on it. All I can find are its Interpretations.

And this is where it gets strange. I believe that my best course of action is to focus my eye on What’s Done. I believe that Step 2 can be considered a table leaf; Steps 1 and 3 are fully functional, with or without it. What’s Done, however, appears to me a cornerstone - unchanging and mostly unchangeable. Since Step 1 eludes me, I draw my horizon by the one element that makes itself available to me.

Why has it been so easy before to rationalize that if I can find the most accurate or actionable Interpretation of What Is, then I will have the key to unlocking What’s Done? Possibly because that’s been a popular Interpretation of What Is. And accuracy and actionability aside, Interpretation of What Is should not be discounted.  After all, my family can eat at any size table, but I can’t invite my friends to eat unless the leaf is in. It is the only element of my table that I can implement at will.

Here’s another way of looking at it. If What Is can be represented by Absolute Truth, then What’s Done can be represented as Evidence of Absolute Truth, and Interpretation of What Is then takes the form, Response to the Evidence of Absolute Truth.

Absolute Truth contains and authors the history of mankind. Response to the Evidence of Absolute Truth rewrites the section of our history entitled “Mankind’s Response to Absolute Truth.” These responses vary widely, and implement themselves very powerfully into the history of life.

Now, imagine instead that What’s Done is characterized by a block of ice. It is the solidification of all the H2O molecules available to it. It makes the strongest argument for the existence of H2O because it has the most pronounced characteristics of any H2O embodiment. And if What’s Done indeed comes from What Is, then What Is can best be compared to water. It is the richest and most essential embodiment of H2O.

When water develops pockets of activity, it can create enough energy to form a third embodiment. Steam, which is eerily similar to Interpretation of What Is, is the direct product of an H2O group which has become so dynamic that it was unable to restrain itself as water. When you want to make steam from ice, you won’t be able to do it without the steam passing through a momentary water phase. Similarly, Interpretation of What Is encompasses all the major elements of life when it is drawn from What’s Done, because What’s Done is a direct product of What Is.

Embracing the Interpretation of What Is – putting the leaf in the center - is really an invaluable pursuit. It will create a distance between What Is and What’s Done, and simultaneously fill it. Instead of interrupting their reliance on one another, you effectively use them to create potential.

It’s not hard to find natural indications of the supernatural. These metaphors have illustrated 3 different items each composed of the same organic makeup. Identical H2O molecules, a single plank of wood, the consistency that defines absolute truth – each one like its own compact holy trinity. 

Birth, Life, and Death, in that order. Birth causes Death, and so Death is the most reliable evidence of Birth. Life does not create Birth. Life is evidence of the meaning of Birth and of Death, between whom it simultaneously creates a gap, and fills it.

Let’s assume we all choose our religion.

I know that social pressures often dictate our religious “home base” – and even if we could choose objectively, we’d use our first experience with religion as a personal system of weight and measure. We’d consider it our constant; the test we did where things went wrong, and we’d sample other religions and study their flaws.

But in a convenient twist for me, we implicity choose our religion by virtue of the fact that with every passing second, it remains in our hearts.

If we are choosing a religious set of values – one that seems to advocate morally consistent behaviors, philosophical meaning, a set of freedoms or a set of goals – we have signed up to value the unseen.

The truth is that everyone values the unseen. But maybe it’s not a very natural thing to do, to check in with it, to use it as a home base, to continually weigh the tangible parts of life against it.

Religion then allows people to choose a governing system of morality to which they hold themselves accountable. 

It’s intuitive to look at religion as a force all its own. We know that it influenced us as children, before we could make real, rational decisions. “Organized religion” may as well be a curse word, and when we look at religion, we are tempted to see only the whole, and none of the parts.

But entering it from the perspective of one who treasures the moral and ethical approach to living, religion really seems like a friend.

And in that sense, religion cannot be a whole. It can only be its parts. No one wants a large organization to dictate their beliefs. We want a humble partner, who recognizes what it is that we already think we ought to value, and encourages us. There is no religion; there is only faith.

The work of religion is then only the work of the people who create its amalgamated values. This is said with no disrespect toward those who believe God has created faith, God has created religion, and at the end of the day, God runs the whole show. I’d be inclined to agree with them. But I doubt we’d come to an agreement on the specifics.

Again - religion is nonexistent; faith is all there is. Faith creates. Faith mobilizes. Faith initiates choice.

Faith does not create a belief system. And that is where the flower begins to rise from the dirt. It is faith that causes a man to see himself in a supernatural light. It is an external belief system that tells him he can be beautiful, and begins to draw him away from his roots. The Christian interpretation of the believer as a flower involves the systematic process of growth. My own perspective would focus on the fact that the seed never leaves the dirt.

The point is that religion is not an entity at all; it is a term to describe the way that people externalize faith. And that should not frighten us. That should encourage us.

It’s not appealing that I start this blog entry with a John Mayer mention. But I’ve enjoyed the line “Gravity, stay the hell away from me.” And today it prompted a question or two.

The man makes a good point – if indeed he actually makes it, and I haven’t projected as I am wont to do. Wont wont wont wont. OK it’s out of my system.

What is that point? Oh, you’ve forgotten I was talking about a point? It is that life is gravity, and at all times it is working to pull you downward. My thoughts seems to wander towards the ground and rarely (if memory serves, never) do they make their way back up again without some conscious intervention.

There are times in which we can trust nature. If your stomach tells you it’s full, you can trust it! Stop eating! But if you fall in the water and nature tells you to flail about and splash, you must make the decision to fight nature. You’re fighting for your life, and when you are opposing nature you’ll have to force every single move.

Philosophers, religious figures, children, laborers, parents…. We’re all asking when to obey nature. And the whole thing baffles me too. There’s no hard and fast rule to answer this; I really believe that.

Doesn’t it seem wise to fight nature 99% of the time? Don’t we constantly talk ourselves out of obeying our bodies and emotions and physical impulses? And don’t we hear from our parents, preachers, and close friends that we ought to reconsider our every natural inclination? Isn’t it our natural inclinations that led us to seek their leadership to begin with? Is it perhaps then part of our nature to be self-muting… self-censoring? Does this mean that we can relax – our natures are complex creations and perhaps they take good and balanced care of our lives.

I wouldn’t begin to categorize entire individuals within this topic. But moving from situation to situation, different viewpoints are apparent. I believe we all use all of the processes, beliefs, and mechanisms I’m going to list, and that we find ourselves most comfortable – most natural – in our specific combinations of believing and then coping. The mere balance of these very understandings and processes of action ought to relax anyone who can see that there is real diversity in our reactions to nature itself.

Initially, wwo camps arise. They each define “nature.” One calls it impulse. The moment you feel an impulse, this is your nature, and action or inaction ought to follow based on the one instance. Who is feeling these impulses? Why? When? Toward what end? Those are the questions for Camp A. Camp B, in my opinion, waits patiently until nature explains itself through impulses, Camp B is building a larger picture of those impulses and its questions include How Long, Toward what end, How consistent is this impulse, and What does it ask of you or me?

Beyond that is chaos, as I am refraining from assigning any further specifics; nature has been defined for you, I hope you see your camp up there somewhere.

Now there are 4 major approaches.

Some believe in winning the fight against our natures. These people often place high importance on self-discipline, self-reliance, and moral behavior.

Others believe that the fight is all there is, but that they must continue to engage themselves in a war against their desires. The people I see who feel this conviction are often depressed but the endless nature of their situation and exhausted by the weight of their past endeavors toward – turns out – no victory at all. They either jump into the above camp, grasping tighter to their hope in victory (which I applaud for them because people who love coping, love to see people coping.) These people often try different lief-systems in general, perhaps calculating that nature’s effects may be worth the trip. They may sign on for the ole, live it and love it ticket. I myself may really be in this camp somewhere with a little loyalty even. My impulse after all these years is to fight my impulses silently. I usually win these battles, and I don’t have to think about them. But listen close, as I tend to feel that life itself is comprised of only two processes: growing up, and coping. Those who will fight until they die ought to be well-acquainted with the latter process. Growing up, for me, was learning to fight my nature and or impulses and or consistent impulses. Coping ought to involve, right off the bat, learning to destroy SOME of those convictions in favor of another (usually less severe) conviction and in doing so the “new man” I’ve been promised (through my faith I am being promised a new nature that takes over the old nature bit by bit) ought to make good use of himself. I can already see him doing his thing – helping me make decisions about what to do with my nature, in the unimaginable list of possible scenarios and their solutions.

Moving even further forward, many believe that nature is the same as impulse.  The question that arises for them looks something like – How long before we can satisfy this impulse? How much is it going to cost us? How long can we tolerate its constant nag until we are able to at least provide some answer to its question, or would it be right to just stomp it out before it gets too loud? I’d like to note that this approach, although simplistic, is efficient and I think it could be a pretty effective reaction.

An even more respected approach suggests to us that nature is really simply the impulse you can’t keep fighting. All of a sudden there are philosopers, preachers, and friends who don’t have the right answer; people in the thick of their nature’s desires are likely to make the decision without asking for help. They don’t need it. What they head is to find out what their nature is asking of them or those around them, and find a personally satisfactory cope. This will be a study in impulses and until one is convinced that the truest qualities of mother nature are reflected.

All right, I’ve done more than answer the first question. I have provided so many answers that I forgot that I never actually clarified anything about this entry so I’m going to try to do it before I pass out right here on my keyboard. We all deal differently with the forces inside us, even the way we acknowledge “forces” and how we define “inside” ourselves. We do it all so differently, and mother nature seems to have set it up so that “nature” is never the always-friend or always-terror, and so there’s set rule “Say yes/no to nature”  I can only assume she likes it this way, as it creates a balance in her friendships with us. So perhaps – if only in that sense – she likes mankind. But She — nature…. She likes the system. She likes the process. Her very breath is carried on in the process. And I respect the process. As such, I respect every approach, every belief, and every attempt at moving forward in life, as I hold to my oft-criticised mantra, “We are all trying.”

It is a natural talent I have that I can write parables from nature. I see situations very often reflected in “what-is” – a collection of already completed processes, more like cyclic moves.  I do believe that if one can locate himself or herself at any point on a cycle, mother nature’s wisdom will use the history of her work to show you the way. Whether that way be to run. fight, give in, wait it out. She’ll know. And I haven’t found her to be one who withholds the solutions from any seekers.

Perhaps God is trying to say something through this. Perhaps He is saying, these are all the answers you need on earth.  Love me, but I am in your life serving another purpose altogether. Maybe God is saying I built this for you, so that you would have an understanding – so that you would have nature as a friend, muse, and mother.

So these are some thoughts for tonight. Glad no one’s reading them because I’m one-hour into a pill that was supposed to induce sleep pretty quick.

We all have that little voice that waits for any opening and whispers depressing things. There’s no real poitn to me saying this except to say I would feel like a fraud if I said “I’ve struggled with depression all my life.”

Ever since I began approaching adulthood, I’ve dealt with that voice. And I don’t believe there are real adults who haven’t conversed with that damn thing pretty regularly. At any given moment it’s whispering “This is too hard; you’d be better off dead.” And at any given moment I’m translating it to myself with different emphases: “I’d love to sleep for 10 years,” “My entire future stability depends on whether I can marry someone for their money,” “God please make me invisible,” “It’s my turn isn’t it? Is it my turn?” etc. These words are a reflection of my callousness – believe it or not, they are neutralizing the message that depression sends.

And there you have it. Human desperation and one more coping mechanism: translation.

I am part of a broad legacy in which those who have gone before me have dismissed all mental disease, addiction, and actually any illness they can’t see with their eyes (i.e. dental cavities) as non-issues.

My aunt Patrice was the most extreme example in the family. Frequently taken in by people who preyed on naive and sincere faith, her ever-changing views were thrust upon the rest of us with relative pushiness.  No one can say she wasn’t true to her beliefs. I don’t remember all the causes of her failing health toward the end. She had breast cancer that spread all over her body; she spent her last years with her arm in a sling with an open wound that had to be cleaned regularly. Her teeth were rotting, and she always took Breath Asure geltabs which weren’t fixing the problem. My mother tried to take her to the hospital toward the end, and she threated to jump out of the car onto the freeway. We still think she would have done it; Mom turned the car around. In the last few months her faith allowed her to accept medical help. But she was just too far gone.

My father is unwittingly upholding the same belief system as Patrice, albeit to a much lesser degree. I can tell he tries not to let his irrational fear of doctors and medication run his life, but they do. Look, there’s not a lot a could say about my family with this. My father’s own health is my primary concern. Secondary is how his behaviors have affected the rest of us for so many years. Third is my general dismay with his turning up his nose at the medications that I admit I need. And I’m confused, because my own mother takes more medicine than anyone I know, and always has.

So. I wonder. I wonder about bipolar disorder and whether it’s really just a hallmark of weak character. Is ADD a sign of low self-discipline? Is insomnia a result of an unbalanced work/home life? Is drug addiction just self-enslavement to drugs? Is obsessive compulsive disorder a choice, motivated by a sense of insecurity?

Just as Christians do not like to bear the stigma of those who have abused its message, people with psychiatric ailments can tell you that some of the “sick” are not sick at all, and that those cases should not be the measuring stick for real sufferers.

No matter what side you lean toward, there is a very concrete separation between impulse and choice. If my impulse is to turn this door handle 3 times before I open it, I do have a choice whether to let OCD govern that movement. But I ask – if everyone could just say no to those impulses, there would never have been a disease so well established in popular culture as well as medical documentation. There has to be something else that compels the sufferer to act.

It is psychiatric pre-school, a knee-jerk response of the outsider, to attribute that disconnect to a weak character. Perhaps the person doesn’t have the self-confidence to fight their impulses. Maybe they think they *ought* to be controlled by irrational behavior, in much the same was as superstition has given an odd comforting feeling to the same.  Maybe there is too much fear of what would happen if there was not complete obedience to the impulse, maybe they want attention, maybe they are not trying.

It is with those theories in mind that I wonder about Scientology and other belief systems which might advocate the betterment of self over “a pill.” I wonder if either one is making any real headway.

Here’s where I stand right now. I had a professor once who criticized my brother’s ADD medicating, saying, “I’ve got ADD but I don’t need to take medicine. I have learned the self-discipline of fighting ADD.” <em>What is it that makes people feel superior about doing things the hard way, fighting their body’s chemistry, and acting as though the mind cannot have diseases?</em> What makes a brain so different from any other organ, that it is immune to real disease? Part of me wants to scream, “Then you don’t have ADD! If you did have it, you wouldn’t be able to talk yourself out of it!” And of course, there’s what my family suffers from: Pill Fear. I had a roommate once who would let a headache go for 48 hours before she decided she ought to take a Tylenol. She was afraid to take medication at the onset… or any time soon after, it appears. Some part of her was convinced that experiencing the pain was a more beneficial situation for her. Sometimes that’s true in life, but I think most people agree that it’s not a universal rule.

Many people fear antidepressants because they think that they will mask problems that need to be dealt with. THEY WILL NOT SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS. Antidepressants will not change your situations, your relationships, or your beliefs. If you are worried about those things hiding themselves away from you, you need to know that Prozac isn’t cocaine, it’s not morphine and it’s not a trip to a desert island. Depression is the trip.

Interestingly, if we use the trip metaphor, perhaps the behaviors of the diseased are simply good preparation. Before I go anywhere, I pack my bags. Certainly depression leads one to pack up compartments of their lives. I also check the oven, twice – obsessive compulsion instructs you to behave irrationally on the off-off chance that something might go wrong and it would be your fault. (Perhaps then OCD would be one of the hardest diseases to get people to accept prescriptions for – they don’t want a problem to escalate “behind their backs” while they were medicated.) If I were going to a deserted island, I would tell my family I loved them – I would tell them in excess, because I don’t know when I’m coming back. Bipolar disorder drives loving relationships to extremes, both with love and with hatred. From what I’ve seen, the hatred is usually a reaction to an insecurity and a fear that perhaps the diseased is the more loving of the two. When I go on a trip, I think of ways to pass the time that I wouldn’t otherwise use; things I consider fun and extravagant. Alcoholism and drug use might be the most literal interpretatin of this metaphor.

The question is…. if we all eventually need to escape, who *doesn’t” have some of these diseases lying dormant in them? Aren’t all these ailments triggered somehow? I have epilepsy, and there is a song that triggers my seizures. What if that song had never been written? Would I be less epileptic, or would I just not have symptoms, or would my mind find another trigger? I never had a seizure before I was exposed to a trigger, right? If I had you do an experiment in which you did 5 shots of jager a night for 2 months, would you be somewhat alcoholic afterward? Do you think it would depend on whether you saw alcohol as your ticket out of here? Don’t we all just want a ticket out?

In one sense, I do think it’s human nature to assign meaning to something that in and of itself has none. Cocaine is just a powder. Food is just nourishment. Sex is a physical motion. But if we are all looking for escape routes, we’re going to call drugs, food, and sex addictions; in short, we are saying, I am tired of looking for a ticket out. I have decided this is my ticket, and I am going to continue to pursue it until I am convinced otherwise.

Perhaps sensible people would realize quickly that their escape route was not helping them escape in any real sense. Is that what all you “sensible” people think? That desperation would never lead you to do something irrational? Am I saying all those with mental illness are desperate? I don’t know. I have said before that I cannot imagine an adult who isn’t somehow desperate for relief from life.

The argument is starting to look pretty one-sided. Despite eschewing all self-disciplinary approaches, I seem to be saying that addictions are really just reactive behaviors. Reactive to forces which are imaginary, emotional, situational, physical, or even supernatural. A choice, conscious or unconscious, to pin hope where hope doesn’t belong.

Then where does hope belong? If sexually-initialized endorphins are an addictive chemical, then wouldn’t there be addictions to roller coasters, friendships, music? If people seek escape through performing obsessive behaviors, then wouldn’t they also seek it through performing other behaviors at church, school, work, malls? In a sense – yes.

We often cope by building routines we can enjoy. Often when those routines get to an unhealthy point, we are reluctant to accept that it is the very thing we are pursuing which is causing unhappiness. So we stay with the abusive boyfriend, because it was going so well at first, and this was going to be our ticket out. We sign on for another year at our job because this was going to be “the” job. And we just keep on trucking to every church function because church was the pinnacle of healthy escape routes, and it was going to be a haven and a source of friendship and inspiration.

But you are not perfect or even ideal; you are flawed. Idealism has never been a solution for humans; humans have never, ever, ever been ideal. Here is a short list of things that will not cause perfection: time, therapy, medicine, church, friendship, sex, alcohol, ADD, ADD medicine, rehab, good relationships, art, music, expression, school, happiness, beauty, prayer, faith, patience, character, hope, proper diagnosis, family, seclusion, popularity, direction, self-esteem, healthy eating, exercise, yoga, meditation, knowledge, seeking.

I don’t know what’s a real disease and what’s not. There are a lot of people out there who just refuse to stop drinking even though they know they could. There are a lot of people who are unable to stop. These categories make people different, but they do not designate either as a superior condition. Some people need help controlling the impulses which drive them to certain behaviors. Some people need help controlling their choices in reaction to their impulses. Again, neither situation makes for a better or more valuable problem than the other. Sometimes our weakness causes us to see a mirage. Sometimes we’re actually hallucinating. I don’t know exactly how we lose ourselves.

There has to be a big picture. That’s the first conclusion I can draw from the way time and individuality seem to work together.

It may not actually be a fascinating topic, but I find it endlessly educational.

For years I’ve watched makeovers on television without remembering an experience I had in junior high school. But one show I saw today triggered the memory of another show (which has also never called up this memory before), and all of a sudden I’m in the 7th grade, getting passed over for a makeover for local commercial. (FYI, my cheerleading squad was doing a spot for a hair salon, and I was going to be the hair makeover. Another one of the cheerleaders showed up that afternoon and they replaced me.) It made me a little bit sad. Not the right-now kind of sad, but the childhood pain kind. And I HAVE TO ASK. Why are experiences culumative?

It doesn’t make sense, right?

It’s all set up like a lifelong college program. You work and work, and never quite know what for. You’re just hoping it’s going to get you somewhere beneficial – somewhere that creates more independence for you, or more comfort for other people.

To be specific, years are like classes, and the information in every one builds on the stuff you learned in the last class. But it’s most likely the experience itself of having been in college for four years that gives you the capacity to understand your senior capstone course.

Why then would each person be an incomplete record of life? And if we are incomplete records, what is the purpose of giving us intense, temporary tastes of experience? And then, why build the entire structure of our lives and good fortune around the fall-where-it-may of each of our experiences, only to make them inaccessible once we can see clearly their far-reaching effects?

Why give me a memory of all the random misfortune I’ve had, and infer that it is due to my choices? I get to make choices, but I don’t get to plan my life. Proof of this lies in every failed plan I’ve ever made. If I am an incomplete record of the nature of a life, I cannot possibly be expected to make a right choice, ever. Because it is generally conceded that we can only truly know that which we have experienced. Why bother learning anything? All it can do is give you regret. It isn’t going to change your future; it’s only going to help you make a better plan. But as I said, I don’t get to plan my life. Other people aren’t going to benefit from my experiences – I cannot plan their lives, and I cannot transfer to them the kind of knowing that comes from experience. All I can do is give them a soft outline of what might have been a favorable outcome.

Given that my major frustration here seems to be the inability to know the future, it’s nice to think that my experiences might offer a psychic glimpse into the future of anyone seeking my advice.

But knowledge and good planning don’t control …anything, really. They make for a greater sense of security, which I KNOW is an illusion. I can’t prove to you that I know that, but it comes from my experiences.

Another positive effect of the setup of life as an individual is that some experiences ARE repeated across different lives. So if you and I have experienced the very same thing, we’ve got wonderful odds of knowing some of the same things, and this gives us greater opportunity for communication, exploration, and learning. Perhaps we could develop a close enough trust that we could somehow *know* one another’s experiences. Seems a little mystical, maybe? But I am not above mystical. I rather revel in it from time to time.

My identity is the unhappy beneficiary of my entire personal history. When I look back, all I can see is the negative. I don’t think that makes me a pessimist; I don’t think it’s even on the same page as that kind of label. The negative experiences have shaken me. They’ve caused me to become aware of my fragility, insecurity, and limits. In short, they’ve humbled me. And so every time I think of myself, I am humbled. I am fragile. I am insecure.

Why do my successes feel so temporary? I don’t think that’s an error in the *way I think* or any such self-empowering point of view. If I am to believe my peers, the feeling is too universally pervasive to be a sign of a personal fault. We just believe that we are to blame – because we are humbled by our memories of self.

I think the positive experiences might be lacking in power. I know for sure, they lack *staying* power. Feelings rarely last as long as we think they do. I think most feelings are surprisingly fleeting. It’s the memory and the effect of those feelings that gives them power, and I can think of very few positive feelings that have really made their mark.

That’s not to say there are none; they’ve been bold and abundant in my experience – they just haven’t been numerous. And their effect has been to calm me, to offer me a sense of security, and through their light, manage to outshine my constant regret. But I know they won’t last long enough to take care of me 24/7. And as cliche as it might sound – in that way, they also humble me.

So I suppose I am but a humble and incomplete record of the experience of living.

I think you ought to remember that next time you ask anything of yourself. We can plan to do just that. But will you follow through? Not likely. Will I? No.

So humility won’t change your life. Which seems to be the nature of a positive emotion.

It’s not with any hopelessness that I rifle through these thoughts. It all comes from the sense that although we all suffer setbacks and loss of control, it seems unfair to make them cumulative.

In my imagination, I spent a moment with amnesia. I indulged in the fantasy that the entirety of my personality was lost, and I had to regain it by reading everything I’d ever written. Then I had to explain myself… And I couldn’t. I heard myself say, “I know I seem sort of empty. I’m just a collection of words now. Which is probably what happens when someone loses their entire lifetime of experience.”

Kind of a cool tiny moment of realization.

I hope you don’t think this is the part where I get all sunflowers and what not.

True. With the oddly ordered history that has become my identity, I suffer. And it seems like 90% of it is unnecessary; if life wanted me to suffer, it could have just left me without a memory. Then it would get the pleasure of my surprise every time a new and awful thing happened to me, which let’s admit, is pretty frequently. I strongly suspect it’s that way for all of us.

Still, memory seems to compound suffering or regret more than it amplifies any other kind of experience. Still, it doesn’t seem like the most effective method of causing suffering. What I am saying is, I suspect that life’s purpose is not one of causing varied and individualized cases of suffering. It’s a suspicion that I could easily kill if I thought enough about it. But this suspicion offers hope. And I KNOW from my experiences that any time hope is a viable option, I ought to take it and not look back. See how this is all coming together? That’s because I’m in like my 16th experiential capstone course.

My daydream helped me think of things from another angle. Life experience – like it or not – creates interesting individuals. It gives me the privelege of all the things that last, like friendship and love. Love would not be fully functional, I believe, in a world without suffering. Which is not the same truth you hear in church, although it is worded almost the same, right? Your pastor says it in the rote way, and in the way that faith indicates is the most beneficial for its own survival and the survival of its ascribers. My assertion comes entirely from everything you’ve read here, in this one simple essay. Off topic, I’m a little paranoid about being associated with Christian arguments, because since I am a Christian it is often assumed that I have signed up for the whole shebang and done it with my eyes closed, which is increasingly untrue about me – increasingly.

The memory of suffering creates an interesting human being. The seeming randomization of these experiences fosters dialog. Our cumulative and possibly unique reactions to them give us the potential to build intimate relationships. Pan out to see this process repeated ad infinitum. There really has to be a big picture, right? It’s a viable theory. Especially since I have just so excellently argued that the details cause the picture to be interesting.

I’m glad it plays into my belief that everything knowable is already parallelled in created things. What I’ve just stated is an essential rule of good art. Is it possible, then, that as the Bible says, we are God’s poema, his truthful work of art?

Does this answer the question of human suffering? Like, not even, at all. I didn’t attempt to approach it; it might seem like I did, but remember this is about a cumulative human history that can be experienced by the parts but not the whole, and thus can never be fully experienced by anything. Why? And time… the way time seems to govern the whole thing but never bend itself low to interact with it. Why?

I will say this. I always suspect there is a better way to teach than to cause suffering. Which flies in the face of Christian doctrine, or what you may have been led to believe is the way God works. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else. But as a secondary method, it’s been effective for me in more than a few non-regrettable ways. It’s also given me insight into the truth about suffering. You could argue that in a world without suffering, that’s a truth we wouldn’t have much use for. I hear that. But I think I’m saying that being an active participant in life is probably my #1 driving force, which means I’d like to fully participate in whatever sick or beautiful game life is playing with us.

So, you’re the one. The one who doesn’t care what people think about them.

I want you to know something. I believe you.

Did you just decide life is too short to be anyone but yourself? Did you start to

realize that no one’s opinion is any more important than any one else’s?

Still, how do you explain to yourself the fact that you do value the opinion of your

friends and family? And how is it that you regret sharing too much of yourself

with people sometimes? I’d like you to look a few situations with me.

It’s well documented that with the advent of modern media, almost nothing is private

anymore. Your gas station has video of you from 5 years ago, your grandmother spends two hours

a week observing Nick and Jessica’s marriage, and your high school boyfriend leaves

comments on your blog. Oh the moment your children want to know about anything -

they know about it.  For your sake, I want to remind you that everything private is

public.
There are a lot of good writers out there. But most of them experience an apprehension

when they put pen to paper. It’s performance anxiety, and it’s completely justified.

They imagine an audience, whether it’s one person or one million people. And perhaps

they, much like you, don’t care what the other people think.

I love my cousin. We have a great time together – we can laugh for hours upon hours,

and do that for days upon days. She is wonderful. And when we are out together, we

have a blast just as openly as we do in the privacy of home. If other people get

involved, that’s very cool, and if they don’t, we don’t even notice. But I have to admit

that the very presence of 3 or 4 bystanders gives me a feeling that we are being seen

and heard. Still, we rarely if ever adjust our behavior for their sakes.

Unfortunately for me, I do care what others think. I always have and I make no apology

for it. I believe whole-heartedly in Coolley’s looking-glass self and I value the perspective of

anyone who has walked in shoes other than mine. Sometimes when I am thinking about

my behaviors, I feel intruded upon, as though my thoughts are never really private. I

worry about what a therapist or a relative would say about the conclusions I’ve come to

about myself.

That’s been pretty destructive. I’ve decided I’m not interested in having children, and that

that’s healthy. I have the experience and reasoning abilities to know what doesn’t appeal to me,

and the self-awareness to know why. But no one else seems to be quite as aware of me.

Still, I call friends and family and ask them what they think. Or I tell them proudly, and

gauge their reactions. When I was younger, their opinions would easily change my mind.

Now, it just makes me feel misunderstood. They are uninformed, they don’t know me,

even if they know everything about me.

That is the most revelatory example I have of the total loss of intimacy I and society-at-large have

embraced.

Should I call you when I have something important going on? The answer is, probably not. Not

unless I’m prepared to lose that exact amount of intimacy with my own thoughts. There will be a

divide, however undetectable, when I make a revelation to you. Not because I care or don’t care what

you think. But because I’ve compromised and exposed my relationship with myself.

My cousin Laura and I share such love and enjoyment when we are together. When other people

see – even if we won’t include them – we are sharing something of ours. I believe the entertaining

nature of it is such that we have plenty of it to give. But if we got a negative reaction, we would

notice. We’ve been lucky so far.

But I think the saddest victim of publicity is the artist.

They’ve lost the relationship. The one-on-one real trust between artist and art. The art is always

thankful to the artist, always perfect. It needed to be said or drawn or molded.  Its identity is

precious and one of a kind, and the artist acknowledges and credits the art in a way no one else does.

It is loved just as it is, and for that it loves its creator back. They are in an intimate, loving relationship.

The whole situation is so lovely, it seems a shame not to share it with everyone.

But you can’t take a place that love is, and let people know all about it. Because as I’ve said, no

matter how perfectly they know about it, they do not know it, and they will never, ever know it.

It is not misunderstanding or inappropriate reaction that makes the media revolution dangerous.

It’s the curious poke of a pin trying to force its way in to the party, that makes the balloon and

the air no longer able to rely on one another as they once did in such security.

I hope you are willing to go back and seek out that thing with which you were once an equal partner.

I hope you find yourself able to reclaim the ease with which you once didn’t care what others thought.

I hope you can rebuild a relationship for the sake of the intimate relationship, and for nothing else.

And I hope that you can find asylum there, and new respect for what it is you lost.