Well… it’s here.
Yesterday – 1/1/09 – I moved into a new (to me – it was built in 2003) apartment. That’s about as definitive a signal of a new life as I can think of. I’ve read a lot of blog posts lately about goal setting, and New Year’s resolutions, and all of that. I’m not really a “resolution” person – because if doing things was really easy as writing a goal down on a piece of paper, those things wouldn’t be worth doing anyway.
I think, however, that it’s good to look back at 2008, and see what worked well and what did not, and then to project forward a bit into 2009 and brainstorm a few things that I think I’d like to get accomplished, and set those down. Not as “resolutions” or even as “goals,” per se… but a sort of “here’s where I could go from here” brain dump.
So without further ado…
2008
Lord, what a year. If you told me on 1/1/2008 that anything that actually happened to me was going to occur, I’d have seriously thought of telephoning the men in little white coats to take you away. I never thought, as the year began, that I’d have lived in 2 foreign countries, visited a third, and travelled through a 4th and 5th by the end of the year. I never thought I’d put the brakes on Columbia, or get an English-language teaching certificate, or sell absolutely everything I owned, or… any of that.
This time last year – on 1/2/2008 – I was sitting in my bedroom in Brooklyn. Probably talking to Nathan. I had *just* deFOOed 4 days before then, and was feeling fairly good about it, actually. 8 days later, I started this blog. That person seems… almost unrecognizable, and yet very familiar to me.
The Good
- I finally went abroad by myself for the first time ever – and got over my fear of travelling to countries where I don’t speak the language.
- I read a great number of books (including, finally, War and Peace), got a CELTA, improved my French, and learned a number of obscure facts.
- I began therapy and made progress on my social anxiety.
- I made more progress than I think I can admit to, philosophically. I became much more active with my MEcosystem, became much more empathetic than I was towards myself and others, finally admitted the existence of the inner child, had a lot of good conversations with Stef and others, and I hesitatingly moved towards being able to accept my own progress without slamming myself for “not having done more.”
- I came back to America, found an excellent job, and made a commitment to therapy going forward.
The Bad
- I spent every last penny of my savings from my last part-time job.
- I didn’t get to enjoy Moscow at all while I was there, and didn’t get to go inside the Kremlin or visit the State History Museum – or any other cities in Russia.
The Ugly
- I made a lot of people extremely nervous, including myself – by doing things such as not listening to my MEs, acting impulsively and without reflection (all the while thinking I had reflected), disregarding the possible future effects of my actions on anyone – including myself – and other acts.
- I quit therapy 3 months after I started.
- The two above caused rifts in a number of my friendships, which is extremely upsetting (saddening, anxiety-provoking, and I feel quite a bit of shame) but – good lord, of course! – understandable, given circumstances.
Quite a year. It’ll take quite a lot of processing before I can make peace with 2008. There are a number of outcomes that I’d change if I could… but… I don’t think I’d give up that two and a half months of meeting with Jake every week and getting to know him, or the experience of living in Russia, or… no. No, I won’t say that yet… but I think that’ll be the final seal on the year.
2009
There are a number of things I’d like to work on in 2009. Every year (not necessarily in January, but at some point during the year) I choose a theme for that year. 2008 was “The year of doing everything I wanted to do when I was 12.” And, in a lot of ways, that was correct. I quit school and travelled and took up rock climbing and a number of things I wanted to do when I was 12. With all empathy directed towards my child self, however… I acted like I was 12 (meaning I didn’t have a big-picture view most of the time or consider the effects of my actions) a lot of the time. This wasn’t by design.
2009 looks like it’ll be “The year of security.” Or of becoming secure. Emotionally, financially, physically, mentally, health-wise, educationally, career-wise, and in all other ways.
To that end, here are some things I’m considering doing in 2009.
Physical Health
Securing my health by:
Losing 52 pounds
-Drinking 1L water/day
-Eating 3 small, balanced meals + 2 snacks per day
-Exercising for 1h at least 3x/week
(mini-suggestions 2-4 will take care of mini-suggestion #1)
Finances
Securing my finances by:
Saving $25,000 ($15,000 cash + $5,000 401k contributions + $5,000 employer 401K match)
-Tracking my income and expenditures on a daily basis
-Waiting 30 days before making any purchase over $50 (when practicable)
Eliminating high-interest credit card debt
Mental/Emotional Health
Securing my mental and emotional health by:
Going to therapy again 2x/week
-Taking time to re-listen to therapy convos, doing psychological h/w, and processing emotions which come up
-De-construct negative self-talk/negative core beliefs with help of therapist
Journal at least 1x per day
Take a greater interest/role in FDR
Repair (where the other party shows an interest) friendships which have been damaged by my past actions
Trust/listen to instincts, MEcosystem, and all manifestations of subconscious
Get involved in a community – make quality local friends
Think about beginning search for a mate
Attend FDR BBQ (if invited) and have a grand ol’ time
Education
Resolve status at Columbia (de-enroll, xfer credits)
More thoroughly research online degree programs beginning fall ‘09 – and enroll in one
Read 52 books
Complete Latin grammar, Russian grammar and “math for liberal arts majors” workbooks
Participate in Company B employee training/certificate programs
Keep French polished by listening to French audiobooks and doing mini-translations
Continue working on language-learning de-construction experiment
Career
Learn everything possible and meet everybody possible.
Misc. Maybes
Learn to sail
Horseback riding lessons
Kilimanjaro?
Back to Russia (for a 3-day visit only!) before my visa expires
A 2-week trip somewhere else in Europe
That’s quite a list!
The mental/emotional health list is the longest. It should be, I think. There’s another thing I didn’t write on that “possible to-do” list, because it’s not a negotiable. What I really want to do this year is re-affirm that my mental and emotional health – my connection with myself (conscious and unconscious), my friends, and philosophy – is my #1 priority. Above saving $25k or learning a new language and even above losing weight. #1. And when I say re-affirm, I mean re-affirm by my actions, not by my words. Re-affirm by actually going to therapy. By actually journalling. By actually doing things that are going to lead to reconciliation with my much-missed friends. By actually processing my history.
That’s the “security” I’m talking about – because the will do to anything and everything else comes from there.
So… The Year Of Security is but 2 days old. What will my life be like on 1/2/2010? I can’t wait to find out.
I listened to Stef’s video “The Meaning of Life, pt 3″ twice tonight. I’ll listen again in a bit. Just after my second listen, I began to have a dialogue with a dark-haired girl of about 8 or 9 in my head. She was upset, because her dad had done something that she thought was not virtuous, and she… well, she wasn’t exactly afraid or apprehensive about telling him… but I think she was more upset that her illusion of her dad as a 100% moral being who never slipped was a little bit thrown. I began to talk to her.
“You know, sweetheart… we all slip sometimes. We’re none of us perfect. I wasn’t always a virtuous person. There was one time – this was years ago – I had a go at your dad. I cursed him, even. It was wrong of me… but I apologized, and I made it right. And that’s what virtuous people do. Even your dad… he used to believe that war was ok in defense of the state. But one night, someone convinced your dad that his argument was wrong.
“That man did your dad a service sweetheart. If people come along and give you an argument – and are not criticizing out of insecurity or for criticism’s sake – and you can accept that argument as logical and reasonable, and change your position, then the person who corrects you is doing you a service. And moral people – virtuous people – take those arguments that other people give them, and they hold them up to reason, and if they’re reasonable, they thank the person who gave them the argument – for pointing out their errors, and also for thinking highly enough of them to wish to do so, and think that they would get a good reception. Because not everyone will take a pause to consider what people say to them against reason and evidence, and act accordingly.
“So we all slip, love. But the mark of virtue is to realize it and correct it, and to listen to criticism and others’ feelings, and then do something to correct the breach – not because you’re scared or anxious, but because you’re moral. And that’s all that morality, that virtue require – that you do your best, and correct your mistakes when you make them. And the kind of person that your dad is, is the kind of person who can and will do that. He’ll thank you, love, for pointing it out.”
It’s obviously not Stef’s 13-day-old daughter I’m talking to. It’s quite another child whose wounds I was attempting to drop balm into – or who was attempting to drop balm into mine. And I’m feeling sad… but it is really a rich and deep sadness.
I feel closer to the child than I have in many months.
Last night, for some unaccountable reason, I began watching Youtube vids of The F Word, one of Gordon Ramsay’s shows. I remember there was a time when I wanted to be a chef. Mother went back to school when I was 7 as an excuse to stop my modelling career, which was taking off and bringing in quite a bit of money. She went into a culinary arts program. She still can’t cook to save her fucking life, but I was able to watch a lot of her classes and was exposed to a professional kitchen. Neither mother nor my grandmother could cook – and both of them hated the task – so I began taking over the cooking when I was about 8. I was by then a pretty good cook, having watched Julia Child and The Galloping Gourmet, etc, religiously.
A little while ago, I started feeling… not the usual restlessness, and not even frustrated or anything, but just… sad. The phrase that occurred to me in my head was “I want your good opinions… but the truth is… that I don’t want them enough to change what I’m doing. I don’t want them enough to deny myself and take the ’safe’ path. I know I won’t keep any of you by taking the dangerous path… but I can’t care.”
The thing is, this isn’t true. And I know it isn’t.
Let’s be logical about this.
What would throwing everything up again and taking the “dangerous” or “exciting” path be for?
To make us happy.
But we know what adulation we get when we take that path, and from what kinds of people.
Yes.
We’ve met people who are on that path.
Yes.
We’ve even FUCKING COUNSELLED THEM, FOR GOD’S SAKE, TO GIVE IT THE FUCK UP!
Yes.
So… what’s it going to do for us now?
I hate this! I want to go travelling! I hate this! I hate being here! It’s like waiting to die! It’s the fucking picket fense mausoleum with golden retrievers and madras plaid shirts.
Do you believe that?
No.
Then why say these things?
AAAAAAAAAAA!
Howling void, why say these things.
Because I’m scared.
Of what?
Of trying to please these goddamned people. You’re not running after virtue, you fucker! You’re running after their good opinions only, and where the fuck has that ever gotten us?
If “these goddamned people” are virtuous, it cannot hurt to take their advice.
First off, how do we know they’re fucking virtuous? We’ve had a great track record of picking them lately.
That was YOU.
NO IT FUCKING WASN’T! That was ALL of us, motherfucker!
Fine. Fine. You said something else.
That it is WRONG to go into this less than wholeheartedly. I think we have to go lower.
Sink lower.
Yes.
Why?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
So your whole point is to destroy us a little more.
YES! You fucking dolt, you idiot!
And you think that by the time that happens we can’t come back. Once we’ve alienated these people too we’re not going to have much cause to go on, are we.
No.
So that’s your fucking point.
*smiles*
You know what, FUCK YOU. That pisses me the fuck off. You’re in here, and your whole point is to fucking ruin this for all of us.
Well, it snapped you out of your reverie.
Go on?
Well this is the first time you’ve felt anything lately. What the fuck have you been doing? Not much. Watching goddamned telly. Opiate of the goddamned masses. And you’re chasing… virtue? You can’t even turn the fucking tube off.
Well, you have a point.
Concentration broken.
Yeah.
By one of those fuckers who’s on that path.
Yes.
By the same fucker you conselled to GET SOME COUNSELLING and work out her shit.
Yes.
By the same fucker you counselled that she does this because she had a very tenuous and uncertain relationship with her mother and she wants to blow things up and hurt other people before they hurt her.
Yes.
And she agreed.
Yes.
And she said that your going to Russia reminded her of something she did, aged 21.
Yes.
WELL YOU SEE THE RESULTS, MOTHERFUCKER! HOW IS YOUR FUCKING SITUATION DIFFERENT?
I don’t think you want to destroy us at all. I think you’re trying to help me, asshole.
Yeah, that’s much worse, isn’t it.
DON’T help me.
Oh? YOU’RE the one who wants to rot, aren’t you.
We’re not good enough!
Go on?
We’ve never finished anything we’ve started.
Go on?
We’ve lied and shammed our entire lives to make people think we’re better than we are.
Go on?
This whole life has been one fucking punishment avoiding thing after another, and our going after this illusion of fucking “virtue” is to please those safe bastards now.
Is it?
Well.
See, now the tables are turned. Project much?
It doesn’t make logical sense.
Go on?
They’ve no power over us. Why should we want to please them?
Two things: either this quest for “virtue” is a complete reFOO and we should get therapy, or it’s not a complete reFOO and this quest is real and we should get therapy.
Don’t use their language.
Quelle autre langue est disponible?
Pffft. Fine, fuck off.
Well?
It’s so fucking difficult.
Well… yeah. But what would be more fucking difficult would be feeling like this for the rest of our lives.
We don’t want to be like that.
No, we don’t.
We secretly loathe what they are.
Why not loathe it openly?
We need them.
For what? You tell me – fine, no movie quotes. But for what?
Well, tomorrow.
Ok, and you couldn’t get that from the free market?
True.
What has she actually brought into your life.
It’s “my” life now – not “ours?”
That’s what I said.
I thought you said before it was all of us.
Heh. Hypocri-sea. Goooo ooonn?
Fine, “our” life. Nothing.
BS, come on then mate!
Fine. They’ve brought in an illusion.
What illusion.
They can be saved.
Do you actually believe they can?
Not for a minute.
But you try to assuage it by counselling them.
Yes.
And they want your counsel for the same reason.
Yes.
And… this is healthy?
No.
But you’re still going to give them that sanction.
Tomorrow I am, yes. And for the rest of tonight. I’ll even apologize to her for snapping at her for talking to me when she SAW by her own admission I was fucking intent on doing something, and not to bother me.
Oh, that’s a great position to be in.
I know it’s not, but what can I do.
Don’t give me that line of shit. You know right well.
But that would throw up my plans.
Um… no. It would make you more honest, is what it would make you.
But I won’t do it right now because it’s difficult.
That’s why you’ve failed, and will keep on failing. You don’t have to make this shit look easy any more. No one is going to punish you because it’s difficult. Not even me! Who are you trying to impress? People you don’t give a shit about anyway, and who don’t give a shit about you. How about trying to impress the people who matter, for once. Stef, Colleen, Jake, the Gregs, Rich, Christina, and the others. Even freaking Nathan for crying out loud.
If I tried to “impress” them, they’d scorn me.
For knowing it is fake.
Yes!
Well, now you’re freaking on to something. Anyone you’ve got to impress – or feel you’ve got to impress – isn’t worth impressing. Anyone you feel you’ve got to lie to isn’t someone you want in your life. Anyone you feel scared or apprehensive about meeting is a douchebag not worth your time. FLEE these fucking people. Have a sense of fucking self-preservation, for christ’s sake. Don’t go about abasing us in front of people we shouldn’t even be giving the goddamned time of day to. It’s embarrassing. YOU’RE – we’re – embarrassing when we do this. And everyone sees it. Everyone in here… and whatever remnant of true self amongst these other assholes, yeah? They don’t want to be abased to. If someone had fucking stood up to them at one time, it would have changed their entire goddamn miserable fucking lives. But it won’t make one bit of difference now. So just fuck off. Run the fuck AWAY whenever you see one. There’s no honor – no glory, no impressiveness – in “Saving” or “standing up to” these assholes. Just run away. Go away, and talk to better people
*sad*
No, I’m serious. The peoople whose good opinions you were thinking about earlier are these assholes. You got it wrong. The people you’re not keen on impressing are the people who demand it of you. The path you’re not willing to take is the one that will ruin your life and your – OUR – only one fucking chance of happiness for these cocksuckers who don’t give a shit about you or themselves or all the world. You LOVE us more than you love a single one of those cocksuckers because they don’t deserve it. WE deserve love, and your true friends deserve love, and you sell us all down the fucking river to get in your kicks and give a good show to the yokels. Yes, I’m fucking berating you, because this was what you wanted, wasn’t it. This was what you needed, wasn’t it! I’m fucking livid at THOSE FUCKING COCKSUCKERS, not at you! It’s THEM I hate with a fucking passion, and it’s THEM I would walk through fire to fucking tread on, so that you get to the people who actually matter. US internally, and the virtuous friends you’ve been fucking neglecting and cutting yourself off from.
*feeling lifted*
You know the fucking people you should ACTUALLY go and fucking apologize to for snapping at them? How about Jessen, yeah? How about Rich and Colleen, who were fucking scared to actually tell you that they felt like shit after you went to see them. How about Jake? How about freaking JC, and Nate, and Stef, and James and Greg who are scared to even talk to you? How about you take the actual sadness that you’re finally fucking feeling and DO something – not to manage it, but to finally fucking acknowledge it, and lay it to rest. Because this is the sadness you’re feeling from fucking THEM up, and fucking US up, and generally… fucking up. And I’m STILL not mad at you and I’m STILL fucking there for you… and I wouldn’t tell you any of this goddamned shit if I didn’t believe you could actually win through, and make your apologies REAL to us and to them, and work on going forward from here. I KNOW you can do this shit.
We.
WE, yes. Together.
Who’s first.
You’re first. THANK YOU for this. Thank you for the tension. Thank you for the sadness. Thank you for the restlessness. Thank you for the contempt, and the moroseness, and the anger, and the lowness, and for the anxiety, and for that sick pit in my stomach whenever I spoke to any of those assholes about the apartment. THANK YOU for the signs which I have ignored – “until now,” I want to say, but I can’t promise 100% in the future.
Of course you can’t. If it was as easy as saying “From now on,” then I WOULD be fucking pissed off at you.
Thank you for acknowledging that. And for pointing out my douchebaggery. And for still thinking enough of me, after 22 years of separation and of my not knowing you and acknowledging what you are, to effect this change. Or to give me – us – the chance to effect it. For still thinking enough of me to say you know I can do this. Even after the promises I’ve made and not kept, and my being afraid but not acknowledging it, and swanning off or pulling away… and all that.
Is in the past… at this moment.
Yes.
Because it’s only this moment. Acknowledging what’s past, and what brought us to this moment… but the only thing we can change is this second on.
Yes.
And no promises of perfection.
No.
As an aside, you’d not be thanking me if I demanded it.
No. But I forgot something.
What.
Thank you for protecting me. For protecting all of us. And if I’d let you come through and acknowledged your messages, I would have known when I – we – were in danger, or when we were endangering others.
You would have.
Well… I’m still feeling tension.
It’s the undone that is that weight on your neck. We can talk all day, but until you DO something – and not in the spirit of anxiety-avoidance, but in the spirit of actually acknowledging your own feelings and working to make things right – you’re going to feel it. And you’re going to feel it more till this is done. This is only the beginning.
I’m keen to start.
No you’re not because you’re making plans that start the day after tomorrow. A mutilated sacrifice.
We won’t talk in terms of sacrifices.
Won’t we? Do your best. It’s all I want.
Yes.
I think that how people live says a lot about them. Scratch that. I know that how people live says a lot about them.
Mother lived in a place that was decaying around her. My grandmother chose the living room colors, and painted over the 1970s dark wood panelling first with nauseating bubblegum pink, and then with an annoying fluorescent shade of blue. Mother complained about both colors – and the fact that the gaps in the wood panelling had never been filled in, so that the paint sunk into the recesses – but never did anything about it. The furniture was breaking down under her enormous weight. Her favorite place to sit was an enormous oversized easy-chair… which she just fit into. The upholstery was hideous, but it didn’t matter – she would always sit on a towel (ostensibly to protect the chair, as she went around without underwear) – because within a year the springs on the chair were so worn down that it was like sitting on a hard bench of compressed cotton.
In the dining room, partially blocking out the sight of the mis-hung (originally vertically striped, but now hanging at an angle of some 30 degrees) wallpaper, was a 64″ jumbo tv. Mother had to place it in the dining room, because if she put it on one of the living room walls she couldn’t see the whole screen from her chair. This television was invariably on, and playing either Oprah or Dr. Phil. The only art in the entire house was a framed Renoir – a bad reproduction of a lady in a black and white striped dress with a parasol. Mother did not choose that art.
It got worse in mother’s bedroom, where a mattress and a box-spring sat on the floor. The room’s only other furniture was yet another television. In the afternoons, mother would sprawl on this bed and watch soap operas. When she was gone to work at night, I used to jump up and down on this bed – to get rid of “excess” energy and tension. (I still hop up and down in one place sometimes whenever I’m impatient or upset.)
Like mother, everything was shabby and dirty and indifferent. The kitchen crawled with roaches. The white tile on the floors was invariably dirty. The wallpaper clashed with the Renoir and with the television in the dining room, and the sickly yellow of mother’s bedroom walls lent a funerary air to that room. The whole house felt as though it was about to crumble. As though that was the place that people went to die. (This was eventually proven correct, when one of the couches in the living room was replaced with a hospital bed for my grandfather, who was – not quickly enough – dying.)
Anyway… enough about that house.
The apartment that I have just rented and am looking into furnishing is a good apartment, but it’s not the apartment I want. The place I’m moving into is about a block from the harbor in a small town in Connecticut. It has the usual granite countertops, etc, nice dormered living room and bedrooms, and won’t get too dark – I think – despite the dearth of windows. There is a master bedroom, a smaller bedroom to use as an office, and a living room which looks out towards the harbor. I don’t plan on buying much furniture, since nobody will ever come to the apartment except me.
The apartment I want however…
The apartment is in a high-rise building right around 23rd street. It’s on a very high floor, and has floor-to-ceiling glass on three walls. The windows face towards the skyscrapers uptown, and the places where the walls meet look like two prows of a ship cutting through waves – sailing towards the skyscrapers. It’s furnished very simply and sparsely – a few pieces of mid-century modern-esque furniture (like this, for instance) – a couch and two chairs – form a semicircle (or two sides of a rectangle) facing towards the front windows. They have their backs to the black-and-white modern kitchen, and to the bedroom behind – entirely closed in, but with white drapes hung on the walls to simulate windows. Black and white, and modern, is the theme of that apartment.
Right now, that apartment I want is kind of like me – or… at least the way I fancy myself. It’s kind of… sterile, if you catch my drift. Black-brown and white. No accents – I thought about adding blue silk accent pillows to the description, but they seemed out of place in my mind’s eye. That apartment – with its white furniture and drapery and carpets – is not a place for children. Not a high-traffic place with a lot of entertaining. There are no guest rooms. It’s a portrait gallery with no portraits in it, really – it is built to show off the city behind its glass walls… but also, I think (since there are no drapes on those walls of windows), built to show off the inhabitant inside. Living alone on top of the world in the sight of 8 million people. A beautiful – too beautiful – but lonely place.
Before that, the ideal house was something like this – extremely small – placed out in the middle of a prairie somewhere in Wyoming.
The house I was going to buy in TX if I didn’t get into Columbia was a 1920s Craftsman-style which was gorgeous on the outside but needed a lot of work – the plumbing and electric was all original to the house.
In the eulogy that “my husband” wrote a month or so ago, he talked of having a large house with a number of always-filled guest rooms, and children, and animals. Some sort of rambling Colonial with bright furniture and a homey atmosphere came to mind. Right now, I can’t see myself in that house, or that place, or that lifestyle. What has to change in order to make me want that? Should I even set that as a goal or move towards it? I don’t think so. I think that whatever changes are needed will come about organically – without my setting it as a goal – as a consequence of other work. I may be wrong… but that’s sort of what I feel like.
So I’m moving into a quiet, sheltered, dormered affair in a small harborside town. When I stepped into it, it felt “safe.” I’ve already thought of art for it – this, and this, and this. All sort of painterly and otherworldly. My favorite paintings – The Ambassadors, Las Meninas, and others… seem to have no place in this apartment. Which may yet be alright. The Almond Blossoms seems to be more like where I am than Las Meninas does.
Filed under: self-work | Tags: deFOO, hamlet, life story, self-work, shakespeare, therapy
That was actually the name of my first blog: “Unpack My Heart With Words.” I started it, aged 16.
It comes from a scene in – wait for it, wait for it… – Hamlet.
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon’t! foh!
This happens after a mid-length speech where he discovers that an actor of his acquaintance can show more emotion over a fictional queen than he, Hamlet, can show over a real dead father. He accuses himself – having not immediately killed his uncle for murdering his father – of being “pigeon-livered” (i.e. a coward) and other things. The bit above is him saying that since he doesn’t seem to be taking any action, he has to talk about it (and talk only, instead of acting).
I realized this evening while watching that soliloquy that the “like a whore” bit references confession. A woman – who in the middle ages had very little other recourse to make a living – prostitutes herself, and then goes to confess to the priest. She cannot stop what she is doing – or take actual action to repent – and so she goes to the confessional daily to be “forgiven” for that which she must do but cannot do.
Hamlet “must” kill his uncle, but cannot do it – and repents of it in this speech. The prostitute “must” stop prostituting herself but cannot do it – and repents of it in the confessional.
The reason behind my original blog title was a bit of a jab at myself. But really… I was in the same situation. Which is why I liked Hamlet so much, and why I think I revert back to thinking of my life in terms of that play during a reFOO, as I’ve been experiencing lately.
The situation I was in at 16 was this: I realized mother was corrupt. I read The Fountainhead at 11 and Atlas Shrugged at 13 (not a boast – just the facts) and was pretty heavily into philosophy and libertarianism at that time. Stef wasn’t around… but I realized that my mother was wholly irrational and just plumb fucking insane, but I couldn’t get out of her house. Legally, financially… you name it. I was trapped with the corrupt. What I felt I “must do” – i.e. get the fuck out – was also what I could not do. And so I wrote about my anger and frustration and hatred of her in that blog.
The tagline of my blog was “Fie upon’t!” – basically a nice Elizabethan way of saying “fuck it.” Which is, frankly, pretty much how I felt about life.
I haven’t been saying “fie upon’t” lately in regards to life… but it’s been mighty tempting. That old thought of “you’d best not try” is really tempting… but I think I’m soon going to overcome this latest round of reFOO and Hamlet-itis.
3 of 4 therapists have contacted me back. I got a bad instinctual feeling about one, so he’s out. Once I settle the transportation issue, I’ll schedule consultations with the other 2.
Going to see the estate agent tomorrow to look at apartments. There is a chance I will find one for January 1st move-in. If I can – and I get a good instinctual feeling about the situation (and actually take some time, as requested, to THINK about it) – I will try to get settled by 5 January, and make the first appointment for that week.
I am going to try to do 2 sessions a week – a mid-week session and a Saturday session.
So… frankly, no real progress yet, but there’s a hope of progress soon, and a path cleared to do so. Rand mentioned, through Ellis Wyatt, needing only an unobstructed right-of-way to move the world. That’s what I’m aiming at.
The soliloquy in question:
(or, at least, with Stef in the form of podcast 1239)
“When we maintain the irrational… we must manipulate and lie and evade and attack…”
“If we didn’t know it was a lie we wouldn’t resort to such tricks.”
“It’s impossible to respect yourself when you do these ignoble things.”
[note: this was going to be a text post, but the MEs took over.]
I want to be able to respect myself.
Then do respectable things.
Not quite that easy.
Of course it isn’t easy. If it was easy, you wouldn’t respect yourself. The harder it is to be virtuous, the more honor there is in the virtue. We know this already.
I’m not happy.
How virtuous have you been lately?
Not very.
Not very? Can you tell me one thing you’ve done in the past 6 months that was virtuous?
I listened to criticism two times and was grateful, though it hurt me.
And what else.
I came back to the US, and I called these therapists.
And what else.
I realized what I was doing – lying, evading, putting myself in dangerous situations, hurting people – is wrong and..
You’ve been corrupt towards yourself.
Yes.
Is it really any wonder you didn’t want to journal in Moscow?
No.
Why – I want to hear you say it.
Because I needed to maintain that internal delusion – fogbank, evasion, obfuscation.
Why? For what purpose? What have you gotten out of all of this weaselly behavior? What have you got out of shitting on people – yourself most of all?
That’s a bit harsh.
A bit? You say you want to respect yourself, and then you hide when anyone comes right out and says it to you. What you’ve been doing is wrong, and foul, and will lead only to unhappiness. And you knew it – we know you knew it, becuse you attempted to hide it. What I want to know is WHY? What good came out of it?
Besides the goods that will accrue now.
You can’t use that as an excuse. The goods that are accruing are things you gave up to go on this jaunt – a stable home, a job, and a therapeutic relationship. So you can’t say that this whole little episode was to gain those boons. You’ve put yourself back 6 months for what, mastermind?
That’s what I intend to find out.
Oh, you intend. You intend. Tell us now! Say it!
I hate you. You’re a big bully.
And just like the other one you’d be happy to do our bidding if only we’d be soft with you.
I might more cheerfully listen and heed your advice.
Cheerfully? Is this something to be cheerful about? You’re spending Christmas alone – and enjoying it, for some unknowable reason, or at least you tell yourself that – because no one will be around you.
Well, is that not deserved?
Yes, it’s deserved.
Well? Should I be morose because I’ve been given a chance to improve?
You had one before, you cow!
What if what Nate said is right. What if this is really the fastest we can improve. So what if what you were saying before is true, and people have completely written us off. (It’s NOT true, because at least some of them are willing to help us – but let’s give you the benefit of the doubt.) How many people did we write off who have done amazing things and come back to impress us?
None have strayed from that path with less cause than you.
But we don’t know that! I can’t give you the answer to “why” – but I can take you to the place that will help all of us find it. I think there is a cause, or we would not have done it. You saw how much energy it took to get us moved.
Less energy than it took to obfuscate the fact that you’d gone off the rails – and you turned to Stef of all people for a justification. And he was right that you could have dealt with some of these things abroad… but you didn’t, did you.
No. And – I’m anticipating your argument – even all the energy we’ve spent both physically and mentally in the last 6 months does not equal the amount of energy it would have taken to really make a go at therapy.
You’ve grasped it.
And because you’re angry at me, you’re making me take self-punishing action.
You’ve miscalculated?
Well, you say you don’t want to do this stuff… and then you yell at me and you’re completely incurious…
…no more incurious than you’re being with me…
and then… Alright, fine. Fine, guilty as charged. We’re both being incurious. Which is one of the reasons why we have these problems, my dear!
I’m not going to be first to make it up.
So you want me to listen to that podcast again – ok, two of them – and be the first to capitulate.
See when you phrase it like that, how does it help us.
You want me, then, to be the proverbial “better man.”
No, still not right. How does sarcasm help us?
I’m sorry. I’m doing right now what I’ve been doing all along. I don’t want to admit I’m wrong. I don’t want to admit I’ve miscalculated. I’m scared of being attacked.
And rightly so…
…because I’m attacking you?
Hah. See how that thought was reversed.
It made it more true. I’m attacking first.
Like a counter-offensive. What we always did with…
…mother. Ex-act-ly. Pre-cise-ly.
So this all goes back to her.
Well, she set it up. But you’re the one who set it whirring again.
For what reason?
Now who’s asking why?
But we can go to the place to figure this out.
Sure.
Till then I want to be safe. Can we have a cease-fire?
No. Because you won’t go as slow as is required.
I’ll go slower.
No, you won’t.
Try me.
Prove it, then. If you actually pause at any time in the next 10 days before you take a decision, I’ll be flabbergasted.
Going slowly makes me sick.
You know a synonym for quick?
Heedless.
Exactly. Heed-less. Not listening. Everything becomes a blur – of motion. You obfuscate.
If you do the same thing and expect it to yield different results…
…then you’re mad. Can you respect someone who is mad?
Not if they have chosen the madness.
Can a madman be virtuous?
Not if the madness is of his own choosing.
Then don’t choose to be mad. And by the way, stop reading the emotional repression manual that is Rand. That shit didn’t work when we were 12, either.
Any port in a storm…
…of your own making.
You’ve a point.
Now go sort this stuff out. Don’t add procrastination to your list of other faults.
“Go slow” and “don’t procrastinate” contradict each other.
You’re wrong, and you know it. Go prove it to yourself. Also, stop buying things.
Yes, I ought to.
Feed us – simply – clothe us – in the stuff we already have – and shelter us – in a permanent home and not this series of a-room-and-a-plane-and-a-room-and-a-plane-and-a-room-and-a-plane we’ve been on for 6 months.
Saturday then, if you’ll help with negotiations.
We’ll be there.
This has been painful. But thank you for the help.
Such as it’s been.
Don’t underrate yourself. That’s my province.
Heh. Go.
A dialogue from this morning.
–
Fine. So we have a lakefront cottage, an SUV, and a job at a hedge fund. Great! We’ve become what we’ve always dreaded. Middle America. God help us, the upper-middle class Connecticut mother. “O I say, Buffy! Biff has spilled my best beaujolais on his Dockers.” “O, hilarious! But, I say, this chateaubriand is singularly toothsome!”
Not that we’d serve beaujolais with chateaubriand.
No. Of course not. And this is my fucking point.
What?
That what the hell are we doing. Settling(down). Settling. Now all we need is the goddamned golden retriever. We should be out there! Like Ranulph Fiennes, climbing the Eiger by the most dangerous route at the age of 60. Or like Tim Ferriss – you know, the guy who just had his sperm frozen at a sperm bank because he’s afraid he’ll be killed or incapacitated before he ever has kids. We should be doing THAT! Exploring things?
Well…
Right, right, when you put it that way it sounds a little dangerous.
A little? Do you know how many times Ranulph Fiennes has almost died?
Yeah, so?
And… are you really saying we should live in such fear for our lives that freezing our genetic material is the only way we think we’re going to be able to reproduce.
Well, what the hell else choice is there?
But it’s not the choice you seem to make it. It’s not a choice between mouldering in the middle class and living life on the edge of the knife.
Well how the hell do you reconcile that?
Well, that’s what we’re going to therapy to figure out, isn’t it? Why one part of us never wants to leave the prairie and wouldn’t resist mouldering in obscurity, and another part wants to keep throwing us into dangerous situations that we don’t even realize the danger in?
But how the hell are we going to have any fun?
Was sitting in a holding tank in London fun?
Occupational hazard.
Was trying to go and beg for a job in Russia fun?
Occupational hazard.
Ok, is getting told by our friends that they don’t want to speak to us because we’re contributing to their anxiety or scaring them fun?
No.
You didn’t tell me it was an occupational hazard.
No. Because it’s not their occupation.
You were thinking earlier how Ranulph Fiennes must be always alone, weren’t you.
Yeah.
And do you think Tim Ferriss has any friends like Jake or Stef or JC or Colleen or any of those?
No.
So… do we really want to have the kind of life that is – by default… and I would say almost by design – going to cut us off from virtuous people?
No.
And I did mean by design – because that’s what it is, isn’t it.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Like hell you don’t. *sigh* I’m… sorry. You do know what I’m talking about.
Well…
It’s the life that “impresses” people, isn’t it. You have people on the one hand telling you you’re a legend and fearless… but the people you really want to “impress” ain’t all that happy with you, are they.
No.
So the kind of people who tell you you’re impressive…
…are not the kind of people I want to attract long-term.
You’ve grasped it.
It’s actually easier to go back to Russia.
Short-term, sure. And that little jaunt to Kurdistan that you were thinking of taking.
Well, not seriously.
…and it’s not the “real Iraq.” Come on, who is falling for that?
You did, almost.
Look, mate, Iran is bad enough. Do you think they’re going to want to hear about that, when you go? Do you think they’re going to be glad you went?
But I can’t live my life for them. I can’t deny the things I want just to please what I think they want. That’s a half-life.
That’s also what we’re going to therapy to figure out. Because is a healthy person going to really want to go to a country where there’s a war on?
Well… we’re already in a country where there’s a war on.
In our head, yeah. The outward circumstances match the inner, contrary to the adage.
We want to stop the war.
Hence therapy. And I think the part that does things like make us consider going to Kurdistan – or even going to Russia without a plan as to what and where and how we’re going to live – is the one that’s making us tense any time we reach out to a therapist.
Because that guy’s come out to play a lot.
Yeah. And that’s the scary guy. The devilishly attractive but fucking scary guy. We’ve been thinking about Tom and Mephistopheles – and we don’t need the real Tom or the Faustian demon. He’s here! He’s us.
Well, he did serve a purpose.
Sure, which he’s continuing to fulfill now. Teflon armor. The legend. The self-aggrandizement amongst other people whose only purpose was self-aggrandizement. But he’s not the guy that attracts virtuous people.
But he can spot non-virtuous ones a mile away.
Exactly. But right now, he ain’t on our side. As has been amply shown since June.
Maybe the good doctor can talk to him.
Well… it’s worth a shot.
I had a conversation with a person (I hope I may still presume so far as to call him a friend) that gutted me. At the end of the conversation, I was sad (lord, that doesn’t sound near weighty enough) and grateful in equal measures.
I woke up – not rembering if I’d had any dreams – and set round to work. I still felt sad… but it’s the sort of sad that makes one change for the better. The sort of sad that I felt in May.
Today, I have gotten the financial turmoil I left myself in when I ran off to Russia almost all cleared. I’ve cleared one debt, requested a refund of fees from another place, closed one bank account, gotten my credit reports and marked down things to dispute or pay off, and I’ve picked up my Xmas present to myself – a pair of shoes.
I’ve also set up an appointment to look at permanent places to live in CT, begun the research necessary to purchase a car to get me back and forth to work, and narrowed the field of therapist candidates to 4 – and will be calling them this evening.
I can work like this unconsciously. But… that didn’t happen today. The work I’ve done today was not accomplished in the dissociated, disembodied frame of mind of the past couple of months – when the planning that got me from London to Russia to London to Russia to Paris to New York occurred. That was done automatically – almost as if I was just watching another person make those preparations.
Today, though it’s been difficult at times, my mind has been in it.
It can’t be that easy. I’m going to keep this mindfullness for as long as I can make it last – but I don’t think it can last for long without therapy.
I will begin therapy in the first full week of January – the week of the 5th. I will use the time until then to get my living and (insofar as is possible) my financial situations in good order. The holidays are only setting me back a little bit.
I begin work on the 19th. I should have the living, transportation, financial, and mental health situations sorted by then.
I still feel sad. But… it’s not the sadness of depression. It’s… one of those rich sadnesses. This may be a taste of what I’ve not let myself feel in months. If so, bring it on.
One of the benefits of working at Company B that I didn’t mention in my board post out of embarrassment, is the fact that the average age of the employees there is 29, and it’s mostly men. As in, “Hallelujah, it’s raining…”
Bad jokes aside, it’s been 3.5 years since my last real relationship – apart from the one brief interlude this spring that (I’m glad) didn’t go anywhere. This seems to be about normal for me. The “relationship” (I say that very, very, very loosely and with a lot of disgust inherent in using that term) before the one 3.5 years ago ended 3.5 years before that. And with the exception of one brief interlude that (I’m glad) didn’t go anywhere, I spent that 3.5 years single.
I realized, a bit earlier tonight, that I didn’t actually want to be in any of these “relationships” – otherwise I would have chosen men who were available. All of the men that I’ve ever been in a “relationship” have been unavailable in some way: emotionally (all of them), physically (due to distance or other factors – all of them), and one – I’m terribly ashamed to admit – was married when I met him. Every single one of them, unavailable.
Frankly, the idea of being in a relationship scares me a bit. It scares me so much, actually, that I’ve begun to tremble while writing this. A lot of reasons come up – that I am not ready for or don’t want that level of responsibility, that I’m just figuring out who I am and don’t want to get lost in another person, that I’m sick of forbearing for other peoples’ sake, that (ok… let’s just come out and say this) sex doesn’t interest me that much because I invariably give more than I receive… and others.
Except… all of those aren’t true. Or, I don’t think that those things would be true of a good relationship, and not the sort of mind-meld, borg-brain, let-me-live-solely-for-you sort of “relationships” I’ve been in, which vaguely equate to my pandering to the neuroses of various broken and/or unavailable men in order to avoid my own anxiety.
I’m not ready yet, frankly. It’s not time yet. Some serious therapy has got to go on before I even consider it. But… that’s a little breakthrough, I think: realizing that I actually didn’t want to be in a real relationship when I chased after these men (or responded to their chasing), and that how it was is absolutely the antithesis of how things should be.
Really, I want what Stef and Christina have got, for instance. But I’ve not made it to the launching pad to get to that interstellar sort of awesomeness yet.
I feel sad, typing that. I want very much to love and be loved – and to have someone to do things for, someone to share things with… and a whole host of other things. I feel like the man dying of thirst in a desert who knows that the well is about a mile away, and wonders if he’s ever going to be able to make it to that well.
I’ve got to get there with myself, though, before I go there with other people.
