Filed under: FDR, self-work | Tags: FDR, friends, philosophizing, self-work
I’ve spent a great deal of time in my life apologizing for things. Sometimes I was in the wrong. Sometimes not. Usually, however – whether I was in the wrong or not – the apology stemmed, not from genuine remorse, but from anxiety. My mother, for example, (if I did not apologize to her for “provoking her” to do me wrong) would stop speaking with me. Sometimes for weeks. This was extremely anxiety-provoking.
I learned to apologize early and apologize often, whether I felt remorse or not, in order to avoid anxiety.
The reverse of the medal was also true. Many people have apologized to me for various things – whether they were in the wrong or not. Precious few of these apologies contained any genuine remorse. Precious few of these apologies came after the person had sat down and thought about what they’d done, and then taken steps to correct what precipitated the wrong in the first place. Apologies without due consideration first feel hollow. Feel false. To both the apologizer and the person who receives the apology.
Having been on both sides of an apology recently, I’ll give 2 cases in point.
Case one – in which I was the person giving the apology.
In this case, a dear friend (whose good opinion I value above almost all others) confronted me with some of the destructive behavior I had perpetrated. He mentioned that it made him feel extremely nervous to see what was going on in my life, because I seemed to be putting myself in extreme danger without realizing it, and without connecting at all to my emotions.
It hurt me extremely badly to hear this. Because what he said was true. It wounded me so much to know that I’d hurt him – and repaid his extreme generosity, his care for me, and his virtue with punishing him.
I can’t undo the hurt there. But we set down some ground rules – we’re not speaking for an indefinite amount of time, except to say “Hi” sometimes if we both happen to be in the chat room. We talked this out, and that conversation was the only time I’ve spoken with him since the beginning of the month – except for a short exchange which he initiated. This was extremely anxiety-provoking for me until I realized that he’s not doing it to punish me. He’s doing it to help me.
I haven’t apologized to my friend yet. I have taken steps to rectify the problem (come back to America, found a job, and will be finding a stable place to live and a therapist within the next 2 weeks), but the problem is not rectified yet. So I cannot apologize yet, and mean it. Even after I apologize, it will take some time to earn his trust back. By summer I hope to be speaking with him again. I have tears in my eyes writing this, since I’m so terribly sorry for hurting him… but it doesn’t mean anything until I actually fix the problem.
Case two – in which I was (initially) the person receiving the apology.
(I will admit my own hypocrisy out front in speaking about this publicly without consulting her, when one of the biggest problems I have with this person is her speaking about this publicly without consulting me. I don’t think I need repeat the parable about the goose and the gander.)
This began in the chat room the other night, before the call-in show. A number of people were in the chat room laughing and joking. One person in the chat was very obviously feeling insecure, and been constantly “joking” (in that way that is not joking but betrays huge unprocessed anxiety and neediness – I say this having done it often myself) about having people come long-distance to see her over Christmas. Someone made a joke about how doing so would cost about as much as everything he owned.
This person whispered to me (without telling the jokester) that she got very angry about that joke. I replied that she should leave the chat room for a while to think about that and process her anger, because I wasn’t sure that what she actually felt rage about was that joke. She replied saying something like “I just wanted to share my experience.” I replied that I was uncomfortable speaking about it when it was obviously unprocessed.
After the show, this person (having remained in the chat room for 2 more hours constantly laughing and joking and without talking about her anger at all) apologized to me for acting out. The apology felt hollow. I felt very tense and uncomfortable at seeing the apology, and left the chat room.
I woke to find a post on the FDR board from this person implying that “people” (no mention of herself) were being covert about their feelings and not processing their anxiety, and that she had stopped speaking to one person over it. I (not knowing that I was the person quasi-named) responded with an abbreviated version of the above, and asking her to talk about her feelings and what had happened. No reply – except for a snipe 2 posts down about how I had attacked and belittled her. (I ran my post by a couple of people, who saw no attacks whatever in it.) It was only then that I found out for certain she was not speaking to me.
I really want to help this person. However, I was quite angry at her actions – and the disconnect between her words and actions. I spent a good part of yesterday and today thinking about this situation, journalling, and processing it. Now, my feelings about the issue mainly center on sadness. This is what I did to Stef in May, frankly – projecting my problems onto him, and acting out at him, then apologizing only in order to get him to talk to me, then making snarky little recordings in my journal… and it’s sad. I don’t want to see anyone going through that.
It’s been fairly anxiety-provoking to have her not speaking to me – but it’s actually a good thing, in a way. I certainly can’t aid her from where I am now, and it’s a good thing, I think, to take a break. It’s also shown me that my uncomfortable-ness about my taking up this issue with her was quite justified.
It’s a sad situation, but if I had accepted the “apology” given, it would have been an even sadder one, and done more of a disservice to both of us.
Conclusion
Apologies are not anxiety-avoidance mechanisms. At least for me, they served that function in my chilhood. But as I’ve sort of progressed psychologically (to the degree that I have) I’ve realized that apologies can either serve to strengthen one’s relationship with others (in the case of apologies given after doing work to rectify the situation) or to undermine one’s relationships (in the case of the hollow apologies given to avoid anxiety). The former, because then one’s relationships are built on taking responsibility, on full knowledge and acceptance of one’s actions, and on mutual respect and trust. The latter, because then one’s relationships are built on fogging, obfuscation, pain- and anxiety-management, and (to be quite frank about it) lies and denial.
As a child, all of my relationships were the latter sort. That is precisely what I do NOT want in my adult life. I want relationships based on responsibility and trust. Building them is, to be even more frank about it, fucking difficult. Which is why those relationships are so damned valuable.
Filed under: FDR, self-work, therapy | Tags: FDR, philosophizing, self-work, therapy
I’ve been listening to this with not as much mental energy as I should. I think there’s a reason why I’m circling it. Let me tell you why.
Stef talks near the end about pain-avoidance and determinism. If you spend your whole life in stimulus-response reacting to your past and doing whatever you can to avoid pain… then determinism may as well be true. Because something – your past – really IS determining your actions. You really haven’t got any free will until you go down that road of going out to meet your pain, working through it, and processing things. Otherwise… what the hell are you? A machine. Wheels and gears to the purpose of avoiding pain.
Well, what have I been doing since June?
I don’t mean this in the way of beating myself up. Stating truth – or proving these thoughts to be true using reason and evidence – is not self-punishment. The truth cannot punish. In fact… it’s the prerequisite for healing. For dropping balm in the wounds of the past. The necessary but not sufficient first step on the road to healing is to state the truth.
So let me prove it to myself now using reason and evidence.
Starting in May, for a number of reasons which I’ve hashed out with Stef in a couple of podcasts, I completely went off the rails. There is no one cause, but a number of things contributed. Stef and I had words – or, to be frank, I lashed out at Stef from fear. He knew this. It took me months to see it. During this time I blamed Stef and thought him the problem. A couple of good things came from it, though. One of those being my entrance into therapy.
I was in therapy for almost 2 months, doing 2 sessions a week. It was painful… but at first I couldn’t feel anything. Not anything at all. My emotions were suppressed – I suppressed my emotions – so much that… it took me about 3 weeks before my therapist started hearing sadness in my voice whenever I spoke of sad topics, and another week before I was able to shed tears. But my progress was good.
The thing is… I didn’t work as hard as I could have. Good lord, that’s the understatement of the century. I went to the sessions, which I recorded. In the beginning, I listened to each session over again. This re-listening ceased after the first couple of weeks. I was pushing back – resenting, almost, going to therapy. Resenting the work, and – I think – sabotaging myself so that my resentment would be justified.
This had nothing to do with my excellent therapist. But, as I’m typing this… I see a similarity between this situation and the way I reacted to things in the past. For example, mother would try to make me clean my room, and I would put it off to the last possible second, when she would actually physically threaten me, and then do it with hatred in my heart. I would resent her and the cleaning and everything… even though I wanted to live in a clean room! I did not resent my room being clean. I resented (or so I told myself) doing it on her orders. I resented her fucking arbitrary power over me.
But my therapist had no power. He did not make me come. Nor, in fact, did Stef. He’s some bloke in Canada whom I’ve never met. He has nothing over me. He didn’t make me go to therapy. Yet it was the same situation as with cleaning my room. I wanted to go to therapy, but I resented someone “making me” – except no one actually made me.
Reaction formation. Having nothing to do with the actual therapy.
Then, at the end of July, I left New York. This just when I had settled into a trusting relationship with my therapist and was headed towards discussing the really big stuff. The stuff which partially precipitated my blow-up at Stef. The stuff…. that even though I’ve got a much healthier perspective on now than I did even in June… that I still don’t want to talk about. That is just so goddamn painful that I’ve walled it off even from myself. The stuff that is almost my entire reason for going to therapy – in order to break down that wall.
I ran off, half-heedless, through Europe. Though I’d had plans to go abroad long-term since age 17… why did I choose to do it right then? Machinalement – mechanically, as the French would say – I ran away from pain. Not consciously, but unconsciously. And look what a success that turned out to be. It caused a (totally deserved… god, how totally deserved) break with one of my friends – with the person whose good opinion, second only to Stef’s, I desire most. And much else of harm besides.
That’s not all. That’s not the half of it, but here’s a beginning.
All my life, really, I’ve been running from pain. This was understandable when I was a child (and oh, my dear MEs, thank you for helping me to flee like fucking blazes from that pain) because I simply could not have handled it and lived. It is impossible to come to the conclusion that your family is toxic, corrupt, evil, and other adjectives as well while you’re a child. But NOW, what served as a safety valve and protection in the past – i.e. running the hell away from pain – is actually serving to bring more pain into my life.
Fundamentally, though I want your good opinions, my friends… the only person whose good opinion I need is myself. And, to be honest, I can’t respect myself or sanction myself while I say one thing (“O, I am for truth and reason and evidence and processing things and therapy and being virtuous”) while doing another (staying the high holy hell out of the therapist’s office).
Again, not self-attack, but the truth. No bitterness and no recriminations.
My goal is to be well. My goal is to be virtuous. My goal is to be the kind of woman with whom all virtuous people want to have a relationship – of whatever sort. My goal is to attract a virtuous mate. My goal is to not pass on the horrors I’ve endured to my children, if any. My goal is to be a self-actualized human being, instead of a set of wheels and gears for the avoidance of pain.
My goal is to be well. And if that is really my goal – if I really mean that – then my actions have to be measured against that goal. And talking doesn’t help me to reach that goal. Posting on this blog or on the boards can inch me closer… but the only thing that’s going to really get me going is therapy.
I’m feeling sad, now. Low. I’ve lost a lot of time. I’ve done a lot to lower your opinion of me. These things can be made up or repaired in time… but every second I delay and every second I windbag on the subject instead of picking up the fucking sword and marching into battle, the more time it’s going to take me to get back to where I left off 6 months ago.
But if it’s not now… when?
[I]t may be objected, if man does not act from free will, what will happen if the incentives to action are equally balanced, as in the case of Buridan’s ass? [In reply,] I am quite ready to admit, that a man placed in the equilibrium described (namely, as perceiving nothing but hunger and thirst, a certain food and a certain drink, each equally distant from him) would die of hunger and thirst. If I am asked, whether such an one should not rather be considered an ass than a man; I answer, that I do not know, neither do I know how a man should be considered, who hangs himself, or how we should consider children, fools, madmen, &c
–Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Book 2, Scholium
And so Spinoza argues that a man who sees each of two options as equally compelling cannot be a rational man, or act on free will. I quite agree with Spinoza. The problem is… how does one choose between the food and the drink? Just how does one decide which is the more compelling?
I was thinking of this on the way to the school today. I bought a very thick and weighty biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton before I left London. Shackleton has always been something of a hero to me. Unlike Scott and Amundsen, Shackleton brought all his men home safely from the Antarctic, and gave up his dream – in part – so that those who remained with him should be safe. And yet he never gave his dream up fully. He launched expedition after expedition, spending all his time and energy when in England to raise money to support the next attempt at the Antarctic. That was all he did. That was all he could do.
My mind immediately lapsed into a plaint for the golden age of terrestrial exploration. “Where is there for me to go?” I thought. Then an image of Sir Ranulph Fiennes came to mind. He is the true heir of someone like Shackleton – a modern explorer who has given his life in pursuit of adventure and renown in out-of-the-way places, and lost most of his fingers – and other limbs – in the process. Exploration is all he does. It seems to be all he can do. Like Shackleton, as soon as he is becalmed, he again longs for the storm.
I don’t have that problem. I have what seems to be the opposite problem… but might really be the same one.
There is not one thing that I can do – or want to do – for the rest of my life. Yes, I want to achieve the Seven Summits, but when those are done, so am I. Yes, I want to travel, but I don’t want to spend my life doing so. To be always on the move for the next 60 years is not my aspiration. To explore inwardly, rather than outwardly, is something I wish to do, and am doing. Yet there is a time that that, too, must taper off – if not altogether cease. There will be a time (which is not in the forseeable future) when what can be mapped of the inner regions is mapped. Eventually I must turn outward.
I want to do a lot of things. Sometimes it feels like I want to do everything. I want to be a Renaissance man – jack of all trades – or do I? Buridan’s Ass with 50,000 piles of hay stacked around him, each as tasty-looking as the next. But… it’s all hay! Where’s the smoked salmon with caviar and champagne? (Though I must say a donkey would probably not find that very tempting.)
The fact that I do not know what I want to do with the rest of my life does not scare me as much as it once did. It does not drive me mad with impatience, as it once did. I am not yet chafing to receive the next commandment – to either complete or bitterly fight against. The fact that I’m not even sure if there’s an answer – I’m not sure if I will ever find The One True Calling – is a little more worrying, but… perhaps it is a mark of the inner mapping that (slowly, tentatively, sporadically, falteringly) I’ve begun doing over the past year.
The regions which I’m currently mapping include the ones that lead me to chafe at inactivity. To spur and goad myself into doing something – anything – no matter the cost, emotionally, physically, or psychologically. That part of myself that turns everything into a race against other people, and tells me that if I “lose” I will be reviled, hated, and forever unhappy. That part of me that ensures that I never win – that I never can win! that it’s not possible to win! – and then brings to mind images of men like Shackleton, who moved the earth to accomplish their goals.
I understand – partially – why that part is there, and I cannot fault it. It has, after all, gotten me through the times when – had I not been my own first and greatest critic – I may well have broken under the criticisms of others who did not wish me happy, as they were unhappy. The fact that it is active, still, is a function – and also a cause – of a lack of inner peace. How the process of working with – instead of in opposition to – this part will go, I do not know. And yet, I am not – as before – totally inquiet about it.
Let me not fool you: that impatience and inquietude and restlessness is still there. That feeling of being Buridan’s Ass or Aristotle’s starving and thirsting man is still there. Maybe the solution is this: I don’t choose. Maybe it’s not supposed to be an ego-driven thing. Maybe there’s not one “person” out in the van, leading the charge towards a goal only he has chosen or defined, dragging the others along unwillingly.
Perhaps, once I get some people around a table – for something other than a council of war – it’ll work out. I look forward to that day.
“You’re supposed to be better than this!” I thought.
I wanted to shout it at them, those boys in green, with their frock coats, grey and red hats, and the brown leather dispatch bags of the officers hanging over their shoulders. And the batons – the long, long black batons hanging from their belts. Four soldiers – not one of them over 20 years old – marching down a metro platform.
They, however, are not the ones that are supposed to be better – not those boys.
Not those boys whose mothers raised them to always obey, no matter the order. Not those boys whose fathers taught them to love nothing above Russia. Not those boys whose teachers taught them that a government which represents its citizens is the highest ideal, and that it should be the highest ideal of those citizens to die for their country. Not those boys whose drill instructors would shout at them, beat them, jail them, or kill them if they disobeyed. Not those boys whose government would refuse them exit visas and higher education – and kill them – if they refused to join the army.
Those boys are not the ones who are supposed to be better. Their mothers, their fathers, their teachers, their drill instructors, and their government are the ones who were supposed to be better. The latter two should be so good as to not exist in the first place.
Their mothers, fathers, and teachers are evil and corrupt failures, not the boys. Those boys in their frock coats and grey and red hats.
It made me sad to write the above. I wanted to help those boys on the metro platform. But they are far gone. Beyond my aid. They’re not boys… they’re the men they were beaten and cursed and propagandized into being. Done before reaching their 20s – gone, never to return.
I want to help all of the people I see. I want to help the women in their 5” spike-heeled patent leather boots and short skirts who look depressed and scared. The ones whose clothes scream “fuck me!” but whose eyes almost weep “love me… truly… please, someone… help me. I don’t want to be here.” I want to help the young mothers who impatiently cram their children between two strangers on the metro. The ones whose voices say “you are a naughty child! Sit down and don’t talk any more!” but whose postures say “I am frustrated because I don’t know how to communicate with my child or be a better mother to him. I was never given love… how can I give it now?” The young men, whose demeanor says “don’t look at me. Don’t mess with me. I’m not here – I don’t care” but whose true self… lord, down deep somewhere in there is saying “please… someone see that I am vulnerable and scared of it. All I want is a wife and children I can love… and I feel like I’m being forced into being someone I’m not. I don’t want to be this way.”
I see – or think I see – beyond the clothes and posture and outward demeanor. And I want to help all of these people. To show the young woman that she’s got something lovable besides shapely legs. To show the young mother that compassion and love are what her child needs, not discipline. To show the young man that vulnerability is the greatest strength he possesses.
But I can’t help them. Each and every single one is dying of the plague, and would rather die than take the medicine that will cure them. Each of them is not only convinced that the cure is much worse than the disease. They are absolutely certain – dead certain – that I’m the leper, and they are healthy. I’m the one who gave up their Holy Trinity – god, government, and family – for truth and reason and virtue. “For what?” they think. “What have you gained in return?”
Each of them has, of course, got a vested interest in not seeing the joy, the solid friendships, the self-knowledge and self-trust, and all of the other boons that philosophy brings. They’ve got a vested interest in seeing only the negatives… because it’s just so goddamned hard to put down their crosses and follow reason. It’s just so goddamned hard to work through processing your history. It’s just so goddamned hard to realize that no, there is no god, no, your parents didn’t love you, and no, no matter who has the golden gun it’s still only a goddamned gun and is only good at doing murder.
I used to feel contempt, or impatience. Now… now, it is almost – not always, but getting stronger – a feeling of compassion. I know it is hard, my brothers. Oh, it is so hard to give up the illusion of joy for the real stuff. It is so hard to love the world – and yourselves, and your children – enough to take the bitter medicine and start out across that long desert path towards the oasis of truth. If it wasn’t hard – if everyone was willing to put down that cross – then… why has it taken millennia to happen? If everyone was suddenly ready, then what was missing before?
The degree to which it is difficult is the degree to which you will rejoice when it is done. But oh, brothers, you have a vested interest in not seeing it – and the people who beat and cursed and propagandized you into becoming who you are have even more of a vested interest in blinding you. That, my dears, is why I’ve begun to feel that compassion. Because inside every spike-heeled, impatient, apathetic one of you is the child who was tortured into defending itself in that way. And my god, I’ve begun to have such empathy for that child. I’ve begun – finally – to see that he is there.
While talking about loneliness with a friend tonight, this came up: my thoughts about the soldiers. My friend mentioned that the degree to which I feel loneliness is the degree to which I wish to help people. Am I lonely because I’m a doctor with a cure standing in a hospital ward of plague victims who believe that what I want to inject them with is deadly poison? Am I lonely because where I wish to render aid, I am barred from doing so?
I think that is true. At least partly. And I’ll give it more thought. For now… this is what I have been thinking since we hung up.
…or that’s what it feels like.
After I hung up the call with Stef about… oh, about 3 minutes ago… I started crying – or nearly so. It’s pretty impossible to express, but I’ll give it a go. I want someone to see this. To know I’m here, I suppose. Even though it’s obvious that you do… well, it feels… right now, at least, as though I’m sitting in the wilds of Siberia, with no one for miles and miles. It feels like living at the end of the world.
Russia is a really hard country to be in. In almost every way, the values that people hold here are antithetical to my own. People put much more emphasis on appearance than substance here – which is true everywhere… but so overt here. Women dress over-the-top sexy and put on 5″ spike patent leather heels and tons of makeup even to go grocery shopping or for exercise (only the men go to gyms – the women usually just go for a walk around the ponds… in high heels). I couldn’t give a good goddamn about dressing like a slut. I go the other way, in fact. I look like a dumpy westerner. There was a businessman here who was murdered in part, they say, because he wore a polo shirt to a meeting at the Kremlin. I believe it. It’s that kind of place.
The Russians (women AND men) are not only vain about their bodies, but about their currency. The exchange rate is displayed everywhere here. In metro stations (where there are no exchange kiosks), on the news, on portal websites like mail.ru which have nothing to do with changing currency… everywhere. Are we up or down against the dollar? That’s all they care about. As long as the ruble is doing well against the dollar, who cares? Which is why Medvedev is spending it like water to try to keep the ruble afloat. The entire national pride is based on the economy – which is now shot because oil is down to $65 a barrel. I don’t think they’ll be able to finish the 5 skyscrapers that are currently under construction in Moscow. Including the one with the 3-storey tall beating neon heart hung in it.
All of the other infrastructure is crumbling to hell. The roads and sidewalks here are pothole-filled mud puddles. Water comes brown out of the tap – literally, again – for the first minute or so in Moscow. You can’t even brush your teeth with the water in St. Petersburg because the bacteria that cause dystentery are in the water supply there. The water is only marginally less dangerous in Moscow.
Journalists are murdered, here, for speaking out against the government. Well… only one journalist. That’s only because no one else dared speak out after she was gunned down on Putin’s birthday two years ago. Happy birthday, Mr. Putin! We’ve killed the only journalist who dared speak against you. Businessmen who have challenged economic policy here have been exiled or jailed. Anyone who opposes, who bucks the trend, who tries to make anything better is impoverished, or exiled, or jailed, or shot. Literally. All literally.
Again, this all happens everywhere. Only it is so much more overt in Russia. But… there is this mentality here. Not a “fiddling while Rome burns” one… but a sort of… they’re watching Rome burn and are either completely apathetic or just out to see what they can grab before flames consume it. The prevailing attitude is “even if it’s broken, don’t fix it.” Inertia is the great value here. Even if you suggest an easy, simple change for someone to make to their routine that will save time and money, they will not do it. Why? Because everyone already knows the current system, and even though it doesn’t work, it’s… known! No reason to change anything, ever. There is not only no call for innovation, but all attempts at innovation are blocked.
This apathy can’t be real. I cannot imagine a person who can sit by and let his… or, yes I can. My family have all sat by and let inertia carry them into living death. It is normal. It happens everywhere. And the rot is society-wide in America too. But it is SO, so so so so so so so so overt here. It’s like being brought face to face with your own death. Like seeing the hour you’re going to die, and the manner of it. Except in Russia you’re being brought face to face with the way that all the world is currently dying. This slow, slimy, creeping living death that seems to be swallowing the world. Jesus Christ, it’s enough to make you a nihilist. Where’s my landlady? I’m going to kill her and become the Nietzchean superman.
(I didn’t understand Crime and Punishment before. I disliked the book intensely. NOW I understand. The entirety of Russia is contained in that book, just as it was during the time Dostoevsky wrote it.)
No one will talk about the problems plaguing Russia. No one will say a single word of bad about the country. People look back over their shoulders when you ask about Soviet times, and grow silent. The FSB (come on, people, it’s the fucking KGB just given a new name) is known to tap phones, especially of westerners in Moscow. Sdrastvoitye, you bastards. The Russians have three values: Church, Family, State. Each of these is worshiped with absolutely over-the-top enthusiasm and adoration. Their faith in all three is devout – and becomes more devout as the objects of worship become more obviously corrupt.
The food is… 95% of it is not salable in a western supermarket. I’m talking about things that are obviously rotting or putrefying being sold. There are about 5 varieties of vegetables that you can get fresh, and maybe 2 more that you can only get frozen. Fruit is mainly apples and oranges – over-ripe. There is no fresh milk. It’s all sold in shelf-stable packaging. Most people eat tons of meat – for at least 2 meals a day, in combination with vegetables swimming in oil. By the end of the afternoon on Sunday, grocery store shelves are empty. Literally. With people squabbling to see who gets the last loaf of bread. Again, literally.
Old people get $200 a month in pensions. University professors make about $300 a month. That is not enough to live. Old people sell whatever they can get on blankets laid out along the main streets. They’ll starve if they don’t. Degrees are worth very little because the professors make so little that they can easily be bribed to give poor students good grades. There’s no such thing as a full-time student. Everyone studies at night, and works during the day. The Moscow Times says that banks are delaying payment on student loans. One bank has only ever given out 900 student loans in all the years its done business. 732 of those students are still in school. 125 of those students have not had their (already approved) tuition paid out, because the bank doesn’t have any money to pay. So the students can’t take their tests. Nothing has changed since the fall of Communism. The same people are making money – only the job they supposedly hold has changed. Party members became “businessmen” – like Putin’s best friend Oleg Deripaska, who is Russia’s richest man. A billionaire self-made by nefarious practices. His billions are all government money.
It is not just because of Communism. There is a reason why Communism could take hold in Russia in the first place. Nationalism in the 19th century was especially strong in 2 places: Bismarck’s Germany, and Russia. Germany got Hitler. Russia got Stalin. WHY? Why those two places? Well… Russia is essentially medieval. So many of the attitudes I have read about in historical Russians – of the very prince who founded Moscow in the 1200s – are present today. Russia lives still in the middle ages. Why? Why did the Renaissance and Enlightenment not come here? There has got to be a deeper reason. There has got to be a reason why this country, above all others, is so overtly on the verge of collapse.
Again, my plaint is not that any of this is unique to Russia. Just that – like under the hole in the ozone layer – the sun’s rays fall harshest here. They put everything in the west into sharp contrast. Let those countries paint an inch thick… to this end they must come. Oddly enough… I like Russia. In a way… it is more comfortable that the vanity, that the violence, that the medieval mindset, that… everything is so much more overt here. Perversely, it’s almost easier to deal with. Because it’s just as dangerous here as in the west… but in the west you can’t see the danger so much. People’s defenses here… talking with a Russian is like talking with a walled city. First you’ll get the bland denial. Then the over-the-shoulder glance for FSB agents. Then you’ll get the half-smile and the words “…but I will not say anything bad about Russia.” Then the accusations of it being worse in the west. Then the high-flying rhetoric. Then the appeal to the strangeness of god. And after that, the Russian will light a cigarette and no longer talk to you.
But… everyone is like a walled city in the west too. Only their defenses are not as overt. The blandness, then the uncomfortableness, then the accusations, then the “heh… well, you don’t know” then… nothing. Shut down. Blank out. People really are the same everywhere.
My problem is not a problem with Russia. This post is not even specifically about Russia. It’s about everywhere. It’s a problem with this entire civilization on the verge of collapse. And I’m glad it’s on the verge of collapse! Not because I’m some sort of nihilist who wants to watch the world burn. Quite the opposite. I love this good earth, and what we can do here, and the possibilities – such possibility! – in humanity. But I am glad that this set of contradictory, self-mutilating, confused, superstitious “principles” the world holds will not let society stand. I am glad to know that (as our theory holds) these false principles and false morality lead always to misery and destruction – or at the very least confusion and frustration and intertia. Because if they didn’t, and if things kept chugging along happily… what the hell have we taken the hard road for? What the hell have I deFOOed for? If we could live happy with bad principles… why would we not?
I seem to be going round and round, though. What has this got to do with me? That’s what… that’s what I wanted to express on the phone, but… couldn’t. Didn’t feel I could. That everything is more overt, and that… that it is very hard. I’ve been brought face to face with… the finality of seeing other people’s principles in action. That world that Rand described in the last third of Atlas, when absolutely everything is falling to hell? That’s NOW! That’s Russia! I’m frightened and feeling quite lonely and alone. And I don’t want to do this on my own. I want people around me – need them. Not bland bloodless people like my flatmate – although she is nice enough to talk to. I want people who see and want to make things better. People who hold the same values and are working towards the same things as I. People who have ambition and care for innovation and want to drag the whole goddamned world, kicking and screaming, out of pre-history. People who are like me.
You.
So I wanted to talk about something that I discussed with my therapist today. I hope that this might be of some use to other people.
As you all know I’ve been accepted on a language teacher training program in London. The program starts on August 4, and so I have approximately two weeks to move overseas. While I’m incredibly excited about the transition, my new life, the prospect of travel… I find that I haven’t been preparing for the trip. Or, no. I have been making preparations, but the only preparations that I’ve been making are ones that don’t require my getting out of my chair. So I brought this to my therapist, hoping to find an answer as to why I haven’t been preparing and why I’ve been procrastinating as much as I have.
One of the things that came out almost immediately was a story that I have already posted on the on the board about an experience that I had when I was 12. Or, I should say, I talked about this with Stef on the Sunday show about two weeks ago. To make a long story short, I was all set to go on a mountaineering trip when I was 12. I was extremely excited about the trip, and did all the research I could, but I was unwilling to make the physical preparations. Mother later used this as an excuse to cancel my trip.
I can see the obvious parallels between the situations, as mother canceled my mountaineering trip two weeks before I was due to leave. I am now two weeks before I’m due to leave for London. This, however, is not necessarily the parallel. What the therapist said to me, and I quite agree with him, was that I seemed (and seem) to be waiting for someone to give me outside motivation, whether positive or negative. I did this with Stef on the Sunday call and show, in a much less egregious way.
I keep waiting for someone to burst into my bedroom and tell me that I’m not going to go to London. I keep waiting for someone to e-mail me and tell me that my acceptance on the course was a mistake and that I won’t be going after all. I keep waiting for someone to come into my bedroom and clean it and set up all of my stuff to pack and to finance the expedition. Or… that’s what I’ve been acting like. I’ve been acting as though someone is going to come along and take all of this out of my hands, and make the preparations for me.
That is, I keep waiting for someone to take care of me. I keep waiting for someone to come to me, as one would do with a child, and to aid me. I keep waiting for someone to take me by the hand and walk me through the scary bits of moving overseas. I want this. I want someone to help me. I want to help that I didn’t get when I actually was a child. I want someone to have walked me through the scary bits then.
I’m reading, on and off, a book by Nathaniel Branden. It’s called “The Art of Living Consciously.” In it he repeats a much-used anecdote of his. This anecdote, which I’m sure you’ve heard already, consists of his telling a patient in session that there is no one coming. That there is no one on a white horse who is going to come into her life and sweep away all of the ills and make things magically better. There is no one coming. But yet, I have been waiting for someone to come.
Though of course I appreciate the numerous friends that I’ve made here, and though I appreciate the lucidity of Stef’s arguments, and though I’m in greater debt than I can fathom for all of the advice and care that he’s given me, if the truth be known, I’ve had to do the heavy lifting in my own life. Nor is this something that is peculiar to me. This is true for everyone in the FDR community. It is true of anyone who is ever changed their life or rethought their principles based on something that they’ve heard or read – or changed based on reason and evidence. It is they who take the arguments and apply them in their own lives. No one can apply reason for them.
So there’s no one coming from the outside. But what if someone comes from the inside? What if instead of sitting waiting for someone to come and take charge of my preparations, or indeed of my life… Well, what if I come? What if I am there for myself in the way that no one was there for me as a child? What if I take my life in hand, and what if I am kind and gentle with myself, but still firm and still fierce about protecting the things that bring me joy or that will bring me joy, in the ways that no one was when I needed it the most?
So Stef and my therapist have come specifically to tell me that no one is coming. This is not a bad thing. Because they’ve also come to tell me that I should come for myself.
So tonight what I started doing is cleaning my room. I booked a plane ticket to London. I listed some of my stuff on Ebay. I’ve been making piles of things to sell, things to give away, and things to take. I’ve written this post. And it feels good. The only times that I felt tension tonight are times when I haven’t been on task. When I haven’t been working towards my own happiness. When I haven’t been working towards my own goals.
So I’m posting this both to see if my dear friends have any advice or questions for me, or if you have any more insights, or to see if this helps if any of you who are struggling with procrastination. I’m not saying that this is the magic bullet, because certainly I haven’t spent all of tonight doing nothing but working towards my goals, but I have gotten more done tonight than I have in the past week. I definitely needed a kick in the pants… and I have a feeling like another thing or 3 is going to come down the pipe and knock me for a loop, but… cross that bridge as it appears, eh?
Thank you all, so incredibly much, for being there for me.
Filed under: self-work, voice blog, work | Tags: books, life story, philosophizing, self-work, voice blog, work
This post is partially a reaction to my post-1098 ruminations and partly a reaction to reading just the first four pages of a book called The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine.
It contains musings on career choice, the need for passion, my ideal life progression vis a vis jobs, a reminiscence on how my historical interests progressed and radically altered… oh, and a bunch of other stuff. Am hoping this will be useful to the people contemplating this stuff, especially GG, C, and N.
This is the positive review I talk about from The Simple Dollar. It also gives a broad overview of the contents of the book, so you can see whether it will be of interest to you or not. I trust Trent’s taste in books from a long experience of reading things he’s reviewed and generally agreeing with that he says.
Without further ado, here is the post:
The Renaissance Soul: Musings on Career and FDR 1098
A partial list of things I’ve been interested in:
animal husbandry, medieval history, homesteading, brewing, embroidery, construction work, 1960s automobiles, guns, Latin, computers, UFOs, siege technology, swords, camping, Welsh, horses, Irish dance, Hughes Aircraft airplanes, 1940s films, greyhounds, stoic philosophy, Baroque opera, Risk, bomb-making (hey! I’m an anarchist), 1950s fashion, French, poetry, Mark Rothko, farming, card games, cooking, wicca (no, was never a practitioner), James Bond, dressage, ballet, Star Wars, holistic medicine, Occitan, physics, animal rescue, mountaineering, early Byzantine clothing, 9th century Spain, the FBI, foxhunting, archery…
Average length of all-consuming interest in said things? 3 months, or thereabouts. How am I ever going to figure out a career path? Lord.
ETA: After a convo in the chat room tonight… I know exactly how I’m going to figure out a career path. I know exactly what’s been trying to hit me over the head since October, and for a long time before that. What Stef said in 1098 and I promptly forgot. That is: it’s not about me. So, not about my self-aggrandizing by becoming a whirlwind Renaissance woman. Not about me serially switching careers in a desperate bid to seek happiness and validation externally. No. No… because there’s one thing that I have a deep and abiding love for. One fixed star. One goddess in my pantheon. The only thing I have ever loved – however far I may stray from her, however obscured she may become, however much my false self fights – in the deep and abiding way that keeps passion alive even in the face of fear and pain and loneliness and derision… is the truth. Not history. Not… any of those things listed above. The bright star in the firmament is truth. Wisdom. Philosophy. And for those things I will never lose passion.
I do hope that you’ll listen to this, my dears. In fact, if you listen to no other voice post of mine, I hope you will listen to this one. It covers… not only why I study history, but some interesting thoughts on cognition in general. Yes, my friends, a meta-cognitive post.
Stef asked me in 1098, and I’ve been asking myself for a long time… why I study history. Is it the lessons history teaches? Is it because history is challenging to study? Is it because it’s intrinsically interesting? Is it because I’ve been able to lord it over other people? Yes – on various levels – to all of those. And I’ll explore all of those in other parts of this series. But the primary reason I study history is the question of cognition. Of empathy. And of realization.
Without much further ado, here is the post.
Filed under: FDR, deFOO, self-work, vie quotidienne | Tags: deFOO, FDR, FOO, life story, philosophizing, put money in thy purse, self-work, vie quotidienne
Auntie K sent me a card today. Ugh, and I was feeling so good after my talk with Stef this morning.
I opened the card. It was – as I’d expected – a birthday card. Only 5 weeks late. But she’d been busy, she said. Also, if you want to come to your cousin’s wedding, we’ll buy you a plane ticket.
There’s NO way in hell I’m going to my cousin’s wedding. I won’t talk to my mother or aunts via phone, email, or postal mail, so why in HELL would I take time out of my life to go and see them in person.
No, no. The problem is the money. Just as it was with Rebecca, the problem is the money. For, you see, Karen sent me a check for an astronomical sum. Ok, only $500. But still, good god… this money would sooooo help me out this month. (I’ll have $25 in the bank after paying rent.)
The immediate thought that came to my mind was “They’ve bought you again.”
For if I take the money, I’ll be telling them all that my price is $500. I tore up Rebecca’s card and her check for $200. But $500, I’ll be saying, is my price. I’ll pretend I’m still in the family for $500 a pop.
Ugh, what a wrench. I could give the money to Stef. Pay for my ticket to Toronto, and have money left over. Almost pay for my ticket to London. Pay 3/4 of next month’s rent. I could use it for a nice interview suit. Or for books. Pay it towards my student loans.
But NO. I told myself in the store the other day that WE DO NOT STEAL. I’ve been trying to tell myself every time I write a note to a professor that WE DO NOT LIE. But yet this would be both stealing and lying. They’re trying to buy me, yes. They expect via this $500 to confirm my position as still being enmeshed in the family. They expect me to lie for this money. Lie and say that I have the smallest shred of regard for them.
So she forgets my birthday, and then a month and a week later sends me a check with… what isn’t even an apology! So it’s saying “I do not have even enough regard for you to send the money out within a reasonable time after your birthday. I’ve never cared for you. I had the ability when you were 12 to get you away from your mother. I was going to adopt you until you quarreled with my husband over the chemical properties of NutraSweet. But sell your soul to me for the paltry sum of $500!”
The word “sorry” appears nowhere on the card.
Ugh. I shouldn’t be ambivalent. There’s nothing to be ambivalent about. This is purely and entirely a note of hatred, and if I cash the check I am saying I deserve their slight regard. They have no regard for me for they think I am as corrupt as they. They are sure of my acquiescence to their evil!
I just tore the check into small pieces without looking at it. Just threw away $500. Just put the card and note and the small pieces of the check into the trash bin.
Stef said that this is not about other people changing. It’s my wanting to change other people and yet denying my own ability to change. I can’t change, I say. I’m helpless, I say. Not aloud, but in my actions. I am NOT helpless!
We do not steal. We do not lie. We do not associate with corrupt people. We can – if we wish to make money – go out and work for it!
What did Stef say yesterday in the call-in show? If an angel came up to you before you were born and offered you the option of either taking $10,000 for years of abuse, or taking no abuse and no money… where’s the choice there? Number one is not an option! You can work for money without having to endure the abuse.
For it wouldn’t just confirm that I was back in the family if I took that money. It would tell you guys – and most importantly, it would tell ME – how little I regard myself. I will let people abuse me as long as they give me $500 for my trouble? NO!
Ugh, I will not do it.
I’m feeling tense. Less tense than I was when I started writing, but tense. I need to figure out why the pull was so strong. Why I almost rushed straight off to the bank and cried aloud my good fortune. Why I thought of sending her a thank-you note. A fawning one. There are a good many things I need to figure out.
Filed under: self-work | Tags: body image, life story, philosophizing, self-work
Several odd dreams last night. The first involved the World Trade Center somehow, and the second involved women doing very interesting things as they rode bicycles around a park.
I’ve not done anything at all, really. Today there’s the call, obviously, and I need to get some laundry done. But what I really need, now that I’ve processed a lot of things, is to go back over all the conversations I’ve had from Friday morning until this morning and write it all out. Put the final verdict, as it were, on paper.
I’m supposed to write a paper on Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun sometime within the next week. I also have a programming project due tomorrow, which I’ve decided not to do. Decided more by default than anything else, as I’ve not done it, and I won’t cheat.
Speaking of cheating, my MEs kicked in yesterday as I was about to do something rather dishonest. Funny how that works. I’m immensely glad they did. That’s another artifact, I think, of processing all of this.
Instead of doing laundry this instant, I think I’m going to take a walk. Despite the forecast, it’s turned out to be a lovely day.
Oh, and I got some new clothes yesterday. Most of my clothes are winter clothes, or now too big for me. Good problem to have. I find myself gravitating towards lighter colors… and girly stuff. Not as a reaction to anyone, I don’t think… but when I was much younger (12-17) I wore men’s clothes all the time and kept my hair very short because I had less than no self esteem, was afraid of my body, and thought myself ugly. I wanted to cover up – to be intentionally ugly… so that if anyone called me ugly I could tell myself that it was just the fault of the clothes and my man-ish hair. (This is one of the reasons, incidentally, why that insult cut so deep.) In a perverted sort of way… that was actually very vain of me to do.
Now that I’ve begun to feel much better about myself – this has been coming on for the past year or so – I’m also feeling more free to wear more feminine clothes. Losing some weight doesn’t hurt, as the only clothes they make for large girls look either like something my grandmother would wear, or like something the corner prostitute would wear. Not much in between.
I’m not talking about wearing frills and lace, mind you – it doesn’t sort well with my personality. But something besides the normal, quasi-lesbo uniform of boy-cut jeans and t-shirt. Like… a skirt! Just one. No frills. And… a sweater. Cashmere (no, it was on sale very cheaply – I have not come into money). Light green. A spring color! What am I thinking?!?! And… a pink shirt. Yes, my god, the world is coming to an end. Pink!!
I’m still pants deficient. Am still deciding whether I can wear white pants. (Talk about something that’s hard to carry off!) Am… still wondering that I’m no longer afraid of my body, or ashamed of it.
