The Evolution of a Tough Exterior

Back in the day racing bikes, and by ‘bikes’ I mean bicycles, were made of steel. Shock-repellent, built to withstand the elements, the rocks that were inevitably to strike, the falls, the crashes and collisions. Steel is strong, rigid and unbending. Built to take a blow.

But steel is heavy and hard to maneuver. Due to its weight it takes effort to move it. It will take a lickin and keep on tickin but at the cost of a lot of expended energy to move it.

Subsequent designs brought to us aluminum. Much lighter and more maneuverable, still a bit rigid but definitely getting better. Certainly it will not take a blow like steel but it is getting lighter. Perhaps a period of sacrificing a bit of 'strength' as a trade for offloading some of the weight and therefore requiring less energy to drag it up those hills.

With the advent of carbon fiber the construction really starts to change, little by little. The concept of what is strong, what is tough begins to evolve. We are moving from heavy and rigid construction designed to repel that which hits it (imagine if you will bullets bouncing off Superman’s chest) to construction that is built to absorb the blows and protect the posterior area of the rider (think crumple zones in cars).

Carbon Fiber and Titanium. Light and maneuverable. Shock absorbing rather than shock repelling. Built to absorb the blows and protect the rider. Very light so it requires much less energy to operate.

A new, different and more gentle concept of what it means to be tough.

The Glue that Binds the Family Together

I need to know, I need to understand how it is that this phenomenon exists that tells us that it is acceptable to need help, to be hospitalized for physical illness but it is shameful, unacceptable, weak to need help, to be hospitalized for mental and emotional illness.

We readily accept that we cannot cure by sheer force of our will a broken bone, diabetes, cancer, and so we seek out medical help, we talk to our friends to get referrals to doctors, we do our research, we involve our families, at least we have no problem telling them. When we walk into the hospital to have our broken bone x-rayed and set we walk in with our head held high, we are not embarrassed, we accept, hell we don’t give it a moments thought that we cannot fix this ourselves and that we need medical intervention or it’s not going to get better. Broke my arm, go to the doctor and get it fixed.

I know, I know, I am asking that age-old question. And yet this strain of thought persists. We don’t readily admit it. If a friend tells us of their own mental anguish we don’t think twice about instructing them to get help. But when we’re feeling our own mental and emotional anguish, when it is our child, our spouse who is dealing with depression, with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse then somehow it becomes shameful. We cannot accept this version of ourselves or this version of our child, a person who is attached to us, who is an extension of ourselves, a version of a person who cannot ‘handle’ life, who is somehow not ‘strong’ enough to tackle what life throws at them.

And so when we walk into that psychiatric and substance abuse facility it is under cover of darkness, under a cloud of shame. We do not walk in with our posture ramrod straight and our head held high but we shuffle in quietly, not wanting anyone to know. Nobody calls all their friends and family prior to entering a 30 day rehab stint to tell them that they’re going into rehab and “hey I’ll see you in month, please come visit me if you can” and when we get out our friends and family are not lining up eager to ask us about the experience. “So… tell me all about it, who’d you meet, how was the food, any eligible men, women there?”.

*****

I come from a family where substance abuse has tunneled its way into the very deepest core, it has become one of the threads, that connects, that defines this family and I’m not just talking about my immediate family which is to say my husband and son and my brothers and sisters. My father had a terrible problem with alcohol, his father had a terrible problem with alcohol, some of his brothers had a problem with alcohol, some of his sisters married alcoholics, some of my cousins on my father’s side are alcoholics and I know that at one time or another in their lives a couple of my brothers had a problem with addiction and one of my sisters had a long relationship with a man who had an alcohol problem. Alcoholism has become the glue that sticks to, that binds, that joins all branches of this family together and it keeps attaching itself to members generation after generation after generation.

Substance dependency has attached itself to my son.

There is no doubt in my mind that the glue has found its way onto him through me. I cannot speak to genes, this may or may not be true although I will say that I have found nothing, no piece of literature that convinces me that this so-called ‘alcoholic’ gene is a scientific fact. It is a theory. I only know that somewhere along the line I rubbed up against him and left traces of the glue on his skin. But it isn’t really like that.

Somewhere along the line my psyche rubbed against his psyche and left traces of the glue in his mind, in his soul. The mental and emotional ‘stuff’ that was injected into me as the result of my having an alcoholic parent rubbed up against him, was transferred to his mental and emotional control center by his simply being with me, by simply living in, being raised in an environment by a person who was raised in a house with an alcoholic.

It is not necessary for the X- factor (that’s me) to be an alcoholic themselves to pass the glue on. The X-factor merely has to have had the experience and not bothered to get the help they needed before having their own children and passing on, however unwittingly, the glue.

I never got the help I needed because I was ashamed and I would not accept that first of all I could have an emotional problem. The shame ran deep in my house growing up as it does in so many homes where substance abuse has taken over. I would not accept that I needed help, although frankly if I had managed to figure it out years ago I would have had to figure it out all on my own because again, denial runs deep and strong in these homes. But slowly through the years it became somewhat apparent even to me that it might be just the tiniest bit possible that I was suffering the effects of living with an alcoholic. But I could fix it myself. Through sheer will-power I believed that I could fix it myself, or rather through sheer force of will I believed that I could control my oftentimes volatile behavior and I did, for a number of years I pulled it together, got it under control and got to thinking that I was ok.

Funny thing happened on the way to the forum. What is controlled through sheer force of will on one side of the room will manage to find its way out through the cracks in some other wall in that same room. If it throws itself against the wall on the left side of the room and cannot penetrate it figures this out immediately and simply goes to the wall on the right side of the room. No big deal. Can’t get out this door? I’ll try that door.

Problem is and unbeknownst to me at the time my son who was in his formative years of physical, intellectual and emotional maturity was caught up in all the wall-banging and he was getting thrown around the room with me, by watching and hearing and feeling what was emanating from me.

The sins of the father (and oftentimes the mother).

Don’t let anybody ever tell you it’s a gene. It is NOT just a gene.

He is ashamed of himself. Ashamed that he needs help, ashamed that rehab is probably on his very imminent horizon, ashamed that he cannot, through sheer force of his own will beat this addiction. And I cannot convince him that it is not he who should be ashamed but all of us who came before who refused to look, who refused to acknowledge, who continue to willfully and wantonly refuse to look this demon of our family in the eye and say “Enough! It ends here.” There is no shame to be felt in finally deciding to exercise by sheer force of our own will the choice to exorcise the demon that has to this point been welcome in our home.

I Don't Want To Be Perfect

This notion of perfection, I cannot handle it, I can’t do it. Many organized religious doctrines indicate that our life is, or at least ‘should be’ a striving for the perfection of God, to be ‘like God’, to become ‘like God’. I don’t know what this means. I don’t know what it means and so I would be, will be striving for something that is out of my reach. Attempting to model myself after some ideal of which I haven’t even the slightest hint of a definition. Any concept of perfection that I can devise on my own can only be flawed because I’ve never seen perfection and I am not perfect. I know the word ‘perfection’ but I’ve never actually seen perfection.  Have you?


We acquire this thing called ‘wisdom’ as we move through life, grow older, deal with the ups and downs, gain perspective, let go of what we cannot, strive to pay attention only to that which we can and I wonder in all of this striving, this hanging on and letting go, I wonder if I really need this thing that appears to be somebody else’s idea of ‘wisdom’. Sometimes I think the acquisition of wisdom is just one more intellectual feather in our intellectual cap by which we measure our spiritual progress.

Ah yes, I am gaining wisdom she thinks to herself and therefore I am getting closer to perfection.

What is that line again? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!

If I am not careful I could really start to believe all those people when they tell me that I possess this ‘wisdom’ thing. It happens and it makes me wince a little, that momentary jab in the pit of my stomach that is discomfort. That feeling tells me "don't fall for this!"  If I attain to, if my desire is for our general concept of wisdom I might be inclined to start thinking that I’m a hell of a lot wiser than I really am and the effect of that will be (trust me on this) a constricting of my sphere of perception. I will stop looking and listening for others and start thinking that yeah, I’ve got it pretty well figured out.

When I start thinking I have it figured out I stop listening for what others hear, I stop feeling what others feel, I stop paying attention, I close my mind and my body to the experience of others and in doing this I stop allowing new experience for myself, when I do this I restrict my own opportunity for the endless possibilities of experience to be had.  I close down rather than open up.  I slip out of 52" high-definition, widescreen color and into 12" low-definition small screen,  black and white.

When, as regular old and flawed people, our minds meet over a shared feeling, when our hearts connect for that instant in mutual acknowledgement of shared experience, shared feeling, whether it be in joy or pain, when we truly ‘know’ the other in this way then we are truly and definitively the image of God. I do not see where ‘perfection’ or intellectual ‘wisdom’ has any part in this.

The Mind is a Terrible, TERRIBLE Thing to Waste... So Don't

What is the purpose of having a mind that has the power to generate thoughts, that is driven to create new ideas if we’re not then going to put those ideas out there for discussion? Consider all the possible thoughts of all of the possible people out there and imagine (if you’re willing) all the good stuff that could come of it if we were all willing to put our thoughts out there.


If we intend only to be drones blindly following the opinions of others or machines like computers who can do nothing but take in information, occasionally regurgitating that information in some other bland and lifeless format then why bother to expend the energy to think at all?

Yes, I know there will be people who disagree, who will look at you funny, call you crazy, even send hurtful insults your way. I’ve been there and I’m still here.

We don’t want to be different, we want to conform… but do we really want to conform?  How many of us harbor a secret wish that we had the courage to speak our minds, to stand by the strength of our convictions, to unleash the creative juices that flow.  We are afraid to stand out, afraid to disagree, afraid to appear insolent or argumentative, afraid that our ideas will not be well received, afraid, afraid, afraid.

Afraid of what? That somebody won’t agree with us?

I do think that one of many definitions of courage involves a willingness to push past that fear of the consequences of self-expression and do it anyway. There will be those who will chastise you for it, strongly at times but my guess is that there will be many, many more who will secretly envy and respect you for it.

And still we don’t. Still we are afraid.

(she says as she anonymously posts to her blog).

Hey, just because I think it doesn’t mean I’m ready to actually do it yet.

Props: Thanks to Little M for the inspiration for this post.

Where Titles of Essays Are Not Possible

 
A quote from ‘The Unholy Bible’ by June Singer:

“Many problems of the individual psyche are not measurable in the same way [as the measurable data of mathematics and the natural sciences], that is they cannot be compared with a predetermined standard of measurement for they are subject to an infinite complexity of variables which serve to color each experience differently.”

This is a very exciting statement. One might take the first part re: the immeasurability of psychic data against anything that we can quantify in measurable terms as a hindrance or a weakness or a problem of psychology and the human psyche in general as it pertains to science and scientific study. Certainly if I am a scientist trying to prove my theory to colleagues or get my paper published in the scientific journals than to be sure I have encountered what might be considered an insurmountable obstacle. I suppose it matters to what extent the approval of our colleagues and our theories being published in scientific journals weighs on our minds as proof of our success, not to mention the impact on our self-esteem. Again I digress although into an area so very pertinent to my over-all theme.

However… what if I am a human being interested in living my life? What if I am a human being whose only purpose, whose one goal in life is to discover myself, discover the potential for a creative fire burning within? What if my purpose is not to prove my thought patterns, i.e. the validity of my ideas and feelings based on some scientific data of what is right or wrong, fact or fiction but rather to experience me, myself and I in relationship to the world both seen and unseen. To think what I want to think, what I actually do think, to feel what want I feel, what I actually do feel and to express those aspects of myself using whatever medium I choose for my self-expression.

What if that and only that is what I cared about? What small, tightly enclosed, dark box would I find myself crawling out of if I could actually succeed in living my life this way? I think one cannot imagine (assuming one lives in the aforementioned box) the possibilities inherent to this manner of living. What discoveries would we make of ourselves, of our family and our friends and our society? What incredibly cool things would we stumble upon along the way and what, WHAT might this feel like. What Freedom might we experience living this sort of life?

Is God there? I don’t know, let’s find out. I wonder what it does it mean if He is. I don’t know, let’s find out.

*******

Hard to do. Hard to break out of the chains of past experience that bind me. Hard to extricate myself from old thought patterns which seem to have left indelible tracks burned into my mind and heart and soul. Tracks that lead to thoughts of uselessness, of worthlessness, of sadness and grief and loss and fear. Oh that fear is a tough one to conquer, always, always knocking at the door, tapping on the window, sneaking in through the cracks. A seemingly permanent brand that screams limited or no possibility, too much chance of failure and then what?
 

*******

To be sure the work of a lifetime; to break free from the bonds of rigid and limiting thought patterns passed onto us through our environment. Limiting and rigid thought with its rules and regulations, its harsh and destructive judgments. A lifetime of work it seems always pushing a boulder up a hill, one tiny step forward only to roll back ten feet.

We must understand and accept that it is not a straight shot UP at even the slightest trajectory but rather a spiraling, like a coil where UP is preceded and followed by seemingly interminable periods of spiraling, spinning in place, walking around in circles, not gaining, not losing.

That is undoubtedly reality. It is a total body make-over that is not defined by L’Oreal or Estee Lauder or even Jack LaLanne. Rather it is a make-over that is defined by the Spirit of Infinity whose boundaries know no bounds and UP is part of a Whole that we can only see when we stand back and gaze from a later distance, a later perspective. Then and only then can we see the UP that somehow occurred without ever realizing.

Of Harried Housewives and Holy Men

I do believe that all the mystic-speak, that is to say the language of the mystics can have the undesirable effect of distancing the experience of knowing God, can make it seem as though the possibility of knowing God becomes less and less likely and so we don’t even bother to look. The possibility of exercising, never mind that, the possibility of even having a hope of discovering our own sixth sense, our own intuitive knowledge of God becomes so foreign due to the obscurity of the mystical language that it remains something to be dismissed, laughed off, forced off our internal radar as potentially viable.


Why would I bother to look for a God that in the telling of others is so inconceivable to me as something I can attain to? If indeed He is so close why would I not have the slightest idea where to find Him? Why would I have no sense of the possibility that I could reach Him if I tried?

Must I be a twelfth century monk, friar, cloistered nun, theologian, saint? Must I wear a brown frock tied with a rope, must I shave my head or cut my hair using my cereal bowl as a guide in order that I can know God? What if my life includes grocery shopping and toilet cleaning in twenty-first century America? Am I destined never to know first-hand the love of God because of the luck of my draw in life?

It is unfortunate, crossing over into blatant tragedy that the mystical life is presented in such obscure terms and of people who are presented to us as remote and above and beyond anything we could ever know because we go to work in an office and coach youth sports on the weekend.

This presentation makes it so easy to deny for twenty-first century western society the possibility of a life fuller than we could have ever imagined, of a realization of our potential beyond what we could have ever thought possible for ourselves (assuming the spiritual books are to be believed that is).

I gotta run. The phone’s ringing, the Fed Ex guy is knocking at the door, the school bus is waiting and rush hour traffic is a bitch.

The End of the Earth

Where Deep calls to deep

And leaves a memory of something long forgotten.