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.

So.

 

It looks like I am supposed to relax about this job thing.

But that is a loose “supposed to” since I know the

minute I start panicking – and I will – I’ll begin to think

I’m “supposed to” be more aggressive in my job search.

 

There are a lot of decisions at hand. Settle, don’t settle.

Go to school, use the degree you have, none of the above.

 

And the worst part is of course that you are the only one

who ever thinks your problems are problems. Every single

person alive but you has a solid, workable solution. That can be

pretty infuriating.

 

One stranger whose name I still don’t know, told me yesterday

that I ought to work a day job and use that money to pay for

school at night. How lovely that she can find said job. I’m sure

it has nothing to do with the fact that she had 2 incomes for the

last 40 years, her job was raising three children while teaching

school (probably the one they went to) and having the desire to

go back for more education in the first place.

 

Everything is not about what I desire, that’s true. But when something

repulses me, it repulses me for a reason. I’m also sure that I’ve been

doing something wrong, and that it would benefit me a lot to find out what

it is, and make a drastic change.

 

Not going deep into debt is very important to me. Because even though

it may give you some semblance of being on your feet and on your

own, it will tie itself to you for the rest of your life.  I don’t want to

take out a loan and go back to school. I have $100,000 working in my favor.

A fee which I have yet to reclaim an ounce of, unless you consider the proverbial

money I’ve saved while living with my grandmother due to unemployment.

 

Being self-sufficient is also important to me. But this seems to be a dream

that eludes me. And oh how heavily and desperately I’ve blamed myself.

I can’t find the right job, I settle, I don’t settle, I do something I love,

I do something I hate. I follow pipe dreams, I abandon dreams, I pursue

stability, I accept life without stability. I pray! I commit my plans to God.

I skip prayer, I start doing things without His response. And to be frank, it’s

felt for a long time that I’d be waiting ’til I was starving in the gutter for God to

give me any guidance. It’s NOT fair for the Lord to conduct a relationship with me

that is not only nearly devoid of any viable, real communication… but to surround

me with people who want me to believe that He IS communicating with me.

 

He’s not, because communication involves a sender and a receiver. What kind of

god sends message after message to someone who is not receiving them. Try

a different route, God; I’m the finite one here.

In my adulthood, I’ve converted my belief in understanding to a belief in coping.

 

Congruently my religion has left behind any hope for behavioral evidence, and has instead

relaxed into a roll-call of faith.

I still actually believe?

Here.

 

My truest desires do not look very impressive on paper, and they cannot be

planed, plotted, or mentally organized. I expect to leave behind the desire for

a prestigious label any day now.

 

And my aspirations toward academic explanation have become overtaken

by a desire to influence popular opinion. Meaning as much as I’d love to go to school and gain

an educated perspective, my experience would become a test and analysis of 

someone else’s knowledge. How unlimited that seems, yet how professional

and detached.

 

I’d love to understand why. I suppose in our depths, we all would. It certainly

seems that if we had understanding, a wise decision or answer would show

itself. Unfortunately, all I seem to gain when I do understand is admiration or

empathy for people who make different choices than I do. I often still make the

choice that I believe in, whether it honors truth or slaps it on its iron face. 

 

I’m limited. My primary daily function is to reach until I find a limit. That means

that my life will be composed, mostly, of coping with limits.

 

It seems to me that the best advice comes from someone who has been inside, seen

the devil, and come back alive. Rarely do I care for advice from someone truly and

completely objective. And rarely have I been that person for anyone else, in my

adulthood. But, in my opinion, not rarely enough.

 

I suppose I’m really saying, writing from life is valid. Writing without reading what

anyone else has written about it, is valid. And if you can grasp the self-confidence

to try it – your work might be even better, untainted with the need to defend your way

through a thousand perspectives from a thousand teachers. In the very least, having

to constantly defend one’s own experiences is an unwise coping method.

 

I was a little excited I ended the last post with a new question. It must mean I’m getting somewhere after having asked myself the first, old question. And as luck would have it, the new question is getting attention as well.

For some nutty reason, I was out earlier tonight for coffee with a guy I barely know. He said the oddest thing to me. He said a few things about me and then concluded, “I think you try to let life roll off your back.”

Eureka, he’s right. And I would be calling him for more advice had he not totally judged me for a situation he knew anothing about, directly following that exceptional statement.

How long can I talk about myself at once without getting bored? I have reached the limit. This is the hard part. As soon as I start feeling like I am imposing on someone else, by thinking to myself about me… that is when I give up usually. But this week I am determined. For what it’s worth, I am sorry for doing this ugh… blog blog blog, me me me, ad infinitum.

I guess over the last few years it’s become increasingly difficult to ask myself questions of any kind. What do you think about politics? What do you want for dinner? How about that guy, is he the one? Who cares?

When I was young I would get frustrated with the values systems to which I was expected to adhere. The behavioral rules were fine …I was well-behaved. But the gifts and abilities that others valued about me, made those people become an offense to me. I worried their love was insincere – their attention was only on what I could do. (I do see how crazy this is, so you know that.) My dad valued my writing skills, and I began to resent them intensely. I didn’t want to “be a writer” just so my dad could value me. My teachers valued my intelligence and I abandoned it with great enthusiasm. Couldn’t they care for me if I wasn’t good at  school? What makes me run from my abilities, despite the (otherwise completely elusive) happiness they offer me.

As many do, I always try to test the boundaries of love. It’s juvenile, but I keep doing it. So I know WHY I reacted so strongly to those who loved me, when they began to value what I could do more than they valued HOW I FELT ABOUT what I could do.

Still, in short, it is the soul that makes me run away.

I always thought my soul made me valuable. I was taught God loved my soul, and other people who loved me would be approaching me the same way. I couldn’t imagine anything else about me being valuable.

Interesting maybe. Value was different. Value would be what made someone keep you around. Love in my life at this time (high school) was, if anything, blatantly and brutally inconsistent. I became frightened to my core that real love was actually deceptively conditional, and I didn’t want any part of a love like that.

Now I am in a very strange place. I have to find a career. I have to make myself valuable to an employer. This is a brand new kind of value which I still haven’t come to grips with. I ask, why can’t I just be-me? That was supposed to be the ticket.

I also need empathy and support – I have to make myself valuable to a man whose values system for finding me is assumed to be essentially foreign to me at this point. This also seems incredibly unfair, considering that my as far as I knew God never cared what I looked like. If He cared about me being happy, wouldn’t someone have taught me that a man is not like God, and won’t love you for the same reasons God will? They could have shown me, your value is *here* but your life will have added value if you invest energy *there*. That seems like wisdom.

I am just now understanding that I should do some things I don’t believe add value to me (I of course don’t believe I can add value to myself) to barter with my life and gain what good I used to believe was fated for me instead. What once was supposed to be handed to me because I was loved, is all of a sudden being withheld because I won’t work to exhaustion for any employer or have a physically-centered relationship for any man. It’s not *me* to do those things and that was supposed to be all right. It was supposed to be good for me!

I suppose I’ve believed that I was going to be taken care of forever, since that’s what my parents believed so strongly for me. And probably partly because they didn’t want me to worry about bridges I’d yet to cross until I was much older. And then in the most easygoing fashion I’d strut across into my beautiful life, maybe.

So I panicked like a spooked animal when I hit that bridge instead, most definitely. I didn’t cross it, oh God I didn’t want to. I sat and stared at it, as you can imagine, shocked it even existed. I have to walk across this thing?? I know that at some point, some mob began pushing me, and all of a sudden I was crossing… crossing and crossing! In my mind, I’m still huddled in an aggressive mob, getting nudged along, terrified and lost. Where does this bridge go? Why do these people seem so prepared to cross? What did their moms tell them that mine didn’t tell me? Where’s God, daddy? Is He watching still? I sound like I am a child but… I am much more confused than I was at any point in childhood. Aside from that, I really am just a child who stuck around for a bit, you know.

I think the worst part for me now is that I’ve long-since given up hope on the idea that I could turn around, or even successfully begin to slip through the ranks to the other side. Or maybe I never built that hope, to be totally frank.

This is the truth about me. I want life to roll off my back and stop bothering me. I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready. I’m not tough, I’m not ambitious. I was taught to love and forgive, I was taught to allow others ahead of me and not to place value on the outer person, and I am absolutely getting crushed. I am so mad I wasn’t ready. I am mad at myself and I don’t have any plans to forgive me either.

Christianity is funny (understatement) because the elected-ordained powers that be want you to use your gifts and do good and they tell you “against love there is no law” while you are in a world they tell you is evil and unaccepting of love or loving individuals.

I still believe in kindness because it’s rooted too deeply in my “soul” for me to turn around on it. But I am certain it didn’t prepare me for my life. So. I am unprepared for my life. My entire belief system creates a mentality of unpreparedness.

How sincere am I about what I believe in all this? I still believe that although I am terrified, God is giving to me, caring for me, and being good to me. It’s easy to say that, but I believe it. And I almost feel like I need to say I’m sorry for it, because that belief doesn’t seem to get me anywhere for real, and yet I am still holding on to it. Why would I rely on the same method over and over when I feel like it is failing me? Am I that idiot they make that joke about?

The bottom line isn’t that my belief system didn’t prepare me for life, but that I know I seem excessively naive and trusting, and there’s really not anything I can do about it. That was another surprise ending.

I couldn’t sleep tonight. And a question echoed in my head in Sarah Jessica Parker’s punny semi-profound yet still disembodied voice.

How long should you stay in an unhealthy relationship, to prove you gave it a fair shot?

Sometimes relationships quit on you. If the whole relationship structure becomes unfaithful right before your eyes, shouldn’t you have the right to turn and leave?

Other times it’s not as obvious, and the decision is much, much harder. Your relationship sits in a funk all the time and you can’t seem to crack its shell. Maybe it was never happy? Maybe you can’t make it happy now?

What if you settled for this relationship? Or worse, what if it settled for you.

What is it trying to make you become? Or would it play like it was happy, if you’d just follow all the rules it gave you.

Perhaps in the absence of a natural and healthy structure, we create an unnatural one. I suppose the real question is — how diseased is your relationship? An unnatural structure can come in very handy – even good situations need a break, and a false structure can help with coping there. But if you’re falling into an unnatural pattern of behaviors in order to suit the relationship and its demands… shouldn’t you be worried and complaining? Why should you have to change for a situation that obviously doesn’t like you anyhow.

I guess the idea is, if you love someone, you ought to love them like they are. And if you are unable to love someone as they are, you ought to let them go. You ought to give them a better chance at being loved.

Carrie Bradshaw would need to make some kind of comparison here, about New York City and its freaks, and then the freak in her own head. So maybe this isn’t the same as that.

Ir’s been six months in New Jersey. I still don’t feel trusted and I still struggle to want to be here. I love the kids but that can’t be why I stay, and I am grateful for my situation but that can’t keep me here either. God has provided everything I need and I shouldn’t think that since I’d leave, God wouldn’t provide for those girls just the same as he does for me.

Should I stay the whole year? Who wants that? I wish I could keep my commitment, so badly. And I know I could but they will always want more than a year from someone…. shouldn’t I let them go find that someone? And shouldn’t I set a goal that would tell me when to give up?

I suppose there is no guideline for when to give up, in general. I settle all the time. For unhealthy relationships, for no dreams and no success. I settle for being the bad guy in a lot of situations. …Truthfully…I settle for whatever I’m offered, really. At least I’m not alone in the fear that there’s something more.

I must have thought that making a commitment and seeing it through would make me content. That once I signed up, I’d be resigned to it and focus on other things. The truth is the opposite. I’m even more restless, on a grander scale. I consider myself stuck-for-my-own-good. But I know very well I could make the choice to leave. I could do it if I had to.

Once my mother was in the hospital and she had tubes in her nose and throat. Tubes she specifically asked not be used, because she knew she couldn’t breathe with them in. She woke up suffocating and after a few moments of struggle – in her words — the will to live took over, and she grabbed the tubes with her hands and ripped them straight out of her body, making a bloody mess – but getting the breath she needed, I have to say that a second time, because I panic for her if I don’t remind myself. She got her breath…

When I wanted to move out of my parents house, I would sit and complain to my aunt. And she was so dismissive of me, I was almost offended. When she did respond she would just harp on this nonsense phrase,”The minute you absolutely HAVE to be out of that house, you’ll move out.”

With a power to fight that comes from everything real in my heart, I battle the idea that the moment of desperation is the moment when we act bravely, shattering our own rules and doing what’s best so that we can breathe – begging your pardon for the play on words, I’m aiming for Bradshaw. Back to the point. It’s not reasonable to approach a situation with that attitude, and it couldn’t be wise. There’s nothing to temper the decision, and nothing left to hold it back.

But what’s satisfying is that Desperation, in those times, is a question with an answer, you know. A race with a finish line.

The situations and relationships I find myself in are most definitely akin to buildings, houses, sound or unsound structures. If there is nothing left to temper a decision in a moment of desperation, that is not because you have lost your marbles. It is because these things catch up with us, these unhealthy foundations.

Perhaps a relationship – a great one – would be self-sustaining. And the strength you need to care for the relationship, is drawn directly from within it. There would be an abundant core of resources with which you could build and build, and tend and tend, until you and whomever else were living in a veritable garden of strength.

…You know, I don’t believe in that though. But it sounds lovely. It sounds idealistic and stupid. It does not sound like what I perceive life to be. I did say that maybe you settle for a relationship… or it settles for you…. but I suppose I mean life.

Am I settling for being alive in a broken world?