I’m puking rainbows.
(Everything on the wall comes purely from light passing through the colored glass hanging from the ceiling.)
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In Time
It’s easy to just keep moving. Our bodies and minds are good at working off of muscle memory. When around students I know full well the actionable behavior. With roommates, a different set of habits but no less well established. Friends and family likewise provide a comfortable repose from thoughtful considerations, laden as our rituals are with the dependable reassurance of repetition.
The times in between such company are more telling, however, when the region of my thoughts staved off by routine is allowed free reign over my mind. I think back. I ponder and even come close to regret. There’s something waiting just below the surface, biding its time for when it might be appropriate to no longer smile or join in appreciation of some conventional meme. I am woefully unaccustomed to this experience.
Much more is lost than the mere company of a significant other at the end of a relationship. Brains make plans, nebulous and far-reaching. Ideas of what a future might hold with the person. Like the true puzzle solver it is, the brain seeks out solutions to problems never properly vocalized. Where to live, how to parent, what to do for employment; these questions require reappraisal with the addition of a daunting constraint, another person with their own set of questions. When the other person is gone, so too are the fruits of the brain’s labors. All the mental gymnastics to ensure a clear road ahead were for naught. These things, though abstract, call for a concrete mourning period.
There’s also pain. When you spend so much time with someone, they will simply know more about your hopes, fears, and insecurities than the rest of the world. They become your confidant and you theirs. Perhaps this was my vernal initiation into the world of adult relationships, but one relied on so heavily for outward reflection and day to day opinions is also supremely equipped to cause serious damage. (I am, believe it or not, rather unforgiving of myself and doubt anyone will be as well equipped to shatter my ego. Also, as my previous post suggests, I do not think so highly of my “issues” that my world shatters before them.)
There was nothing in particular that I heard of myself that hurt too badly. No singular biting remark really stopped me in my tracks. It was more the intent of her words. For someone with whom I was so intimate to seek, rather blatantly, to use whatever was in her arsenal to tear me down and leave me shattered was one of the most horrifying sights I’ve experienced in recent memory. This desire in her to wound and scar was more painful than any string of words her lips could have formed. I know her actions were born of pain. I forgive her, of course, but it was a very sobering experience; one that I will take time to not repeat in ernest.
I have no doubt this will all pass; the reminders of time shared and not yet shared, the sting of creating a foe from so much more than a friend, the lackluster return to whatever I call normalcy. That brain that so unwittingly built high a monument only for me to leap off is even now taking pains to package the ordeal in a more palatable memory, clearing the road as it does to ensure pleasant terrain ahead. In the meantime I may not be as sincere in my rituals or enthusiastic in my habits, but I’ll get there.
Mere Inanition
Have you ever heard the phrase “being lonely but not alone”? Funny how few reference the converse.
I feel like I should feel a need to talk to my family or close friends, like I should have a desire for intimate and exclusive disclosure that’s notably absent from my experience. Maybe I lack secrets. I don’t think I say much to anyone that I would fear to be made public. My desires have dwindled but my general hopes remain intact. Even things I make a semi-big deal about seem to be so because I’m going through the socially appropriate motions.
If you tell others certain things and don’t lower your speaking tone or sigh at the right moment while looking away, they won’t react accordingly. People need their cues in order to properly play their parts. I feel surrounded by people while still not really giving much to any individual. It’s overwhelming when I consider how much there is to each of them. Maybe I’m hesitant to impose further on overburdened souls.
Amanda has been having issues with her mother, who doesn’t like the career path she’s chosen and may end up convincing her to do something else. I know this matters to her as her face falls and she contemplates the floor to talk about it. If it goes poorly, will she just resent her for a long time? On the other hand, will she feel ashamedly beholden if all goes well? I wonder if the floor knows the answers, selfishly guarding its secrets as payment for holding us up.
Beth is worried about her new relationship. She jokes around about it, but her eyes droop and her lips sag ever so slightly when she recalls past mistakes. This is how she really tells me what matters to her. What if this is another bad choice? Is she even at fault if she keeps trying, regardless of potentially hurting others? After all, we all make ourselves willingly vulnerable in such endeavors, hoping the risk is worth the payoff even if we’ve all had experiences to the contrary.
Then there’s Carl, obviously concerned with many things that he shares freely to all who listen. Yet, there’s a central theme. I wonder if he even hears how the words “want” and “can’t” seem to struggle forth from between his lips, pried from the very core of his person. His is an internal struggle of self-worth. It feels good to hear what support he can from others, demonstrated by increased voice volume and short bursts of energy, but the Uroboros can only unhinge its jaw by personal will to break the cycle. What will finally make things change?
(I may need to clarify: A, B and C are fictitious representations of similar/plausible entities.)
I’m rambling a bit; I know. I just recognize much of my own impotence in a vast majority of scenarios on any given day. Regardless, I have (and am expected) to continuously react. Give the pat on the back when those human signals are flashing, provide platitudes when nothing immediate is to be undertaken by an expression of remorse and produce what advice my limited lifespan has revealed to me. The cardinal boon granted by meager existence is a stripping down to the very barest of responsibility. I wish them all well.
From this perspective, who am I to burden others? Moreover, what have I to burden others with?
Selves
Downtime again. It’s as if my mind’s come to expect a periodic readdressing of priorities. It often takes advantage of school/work breaks but the latest one was saturated with the white noise of familial obligations and the bureaucratic tedium of American-Venezuelan citizenry. Whenever this occurs, when there’s a space in time when I break out of auto-pilot, I write. A lot. Mostly for no one’s eyes but mine. I’ve even tried to characterize this feeling before, last summer most recently:
“Alone, I feel less emotion. Seldom angry. Mostly happy, but generally more calm and pensive that outright satisfied. I’m likely to reflect on other moments in life, ranging from recent days to regrets of a 10 year old long forgotten to all but me. I wonder if I’m wrong to think of this as the real me. I am not the same person around others (no one is) and only a few people see me this way. Even then, the limitations of subjective thought and perception mean I’m only as able to explain myself as our limited invented language allows. Maybe that’s the distinction. Another me has to exist that can be described in plain homo sapiens words, a proxy model.
I, in this moment, feel characterized by the third-person; detached from this being. The self that observes the self. There’s a Tyler in everyone’s mind, including my own. The real me I’m speaking of is both the observer and constructor of that Tyler. A Tyler that can be translated into simpler terms and brought forth to interacted with others similarly limited by the exclusivity of their minds. A shadow manifests to exist on a lower-dimensional plain; certainly unique to its origins, but only ever a projection of the mental light source upon a greater self. The abstraction will forever exceed what we can understand.
In the same way, I recognize that everyone else’s shadow is all I perceive. This is not sad or depressing (at least not to me), just an intriguing facet of what we call reality.”
So there it is. This is not to say I don’t/can’t reflect objectively while interacting with others, but there’s this feeling a stretched line from source to projection which is sometimes long enough to have its origins completely forgotten. While a great majority of my time is spent on auto-pilot, shadow-mode or whatever you’d call it; I sporadically feel a pulling back in. I breath a little deeper and think a little clearer, though with less bias might be more correct. My perception of shadow-self as just such an outward tool for my usage makes it so I don’t feel the strongest of connections with his most whimsical impulses. In fact, I persistently look to correct them. I ever search for a better construct, one to minimize harm and maximize good. Well, in reality the latter is a bit more complicated, so I often focus on removing the bad and hope an improved ratio is the overall result.
My greater decisions came from this place, this retreated peaceful state. A long reflection on the fragility and irreplaceable uniqueness of every single mind left me forever unable to consume animal flesh. Another pause in my life contemplating the one body I have to interact with the world spawned the imperative to quit being a smoker. There’ve been other, more personal conclusions, which I’ve stuck to just as diligently. It’s as if my proper self, in being more cautious and deliberate to make a decision of any kind, is all the more stoic upon having done so.
Being reactionary for extended periods of time makes me forget how different everything looks from this perspective. I suppose I can sum up my current sensation as bridled thrill. I really enjoy these software updates, even though at times they prove little more than routine debugging (e.g. -let go of that grudge, you’ve done worse yourself-, -love them all the more if they meant well-, -you can stand to be more selfless-). It’s been a long time coming and there’s quite a mess on my in-box to sort out.
I look forward to seeing what comes out the other end. My mind has really been turning around some doozies lately and I trust I’ll be the better for it.
See you on the other side.
On Perspective
It’s a short one today. I just want to reflect on perspective. People often seem unaware of the power they have over their reality. I marvel at this sometimes. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I think we undoubtedly create our own form of bliss or torture in the existence we already occupy. This is not the cliché you might be thinking of, I mean we actually manufacture a construct that has the potential to be uplifting or terribly burdening.
I’ve intoned that I don’t find it all that difficult to relate to those around me, but some struggle with what I might call the negative people of the world. I speak of those who are selfish or critical of others to the point of being undesirable company. I still can’t bring myself to dislike them, though. I consider the unenviable situation they’re in and I can find nothing in my heart other than pity for them.
If a person is arrogant and haughty, the poor bastard is surrounded by idiots! Individuals who think their peers are mean or despicable are doomed to a life among people they hate. I can think of nothing worse. Oh, but the glory of the life lived in acceptance of everyone met. Every day is spent in the company of friends and people of merit. If you seek out the best of others, that is what you will reap from the experience.
Loving everyone is not as altruistic as it seems; it’s actually a bit selfish. ^_^
Similar Differences
I’m constantly amazed at the subjectivity of our individual perspectives. Despite the progress we’ve made as a species to communicate our thoughts with written/oral/body language, we remain inexorably limited in our ability to express what is going on in our gray matter. Even the actual machinations of forming cogent thoughts from external stimuli and internal consideration are beyond the human capacity for comparison. We may be extremely different or similar in this respect and we’d have no way of knowing. I’m sure some forms of thought and memory filing systems are better suited to remember every word in a conversation while others have a remarkably easy time remembering faces. (The latter is astounding to me, since I have a terrible time remembering people by what they look like. Facial features seems so arbitrary to me and not the least indicative of one’s personality.)
We can gather quantitative data about our brain function, no sweat. Examples of this include specific hormone levels and their correlation to certain types of behavior, specific areas of increased brain activity when under controlled conditions, etc. However, though we’ve gotten quite good at predicting behavioral patterns, concrete description of the middle-man that is ‘thought’ eludes us. There seems to be an odd distinction here between individuals. It’s actually a big dilemma in philosophy as well. Certainly we can’t deny that thoughts exist, but they aren’t something we can touch, smell, or taste. All anyone ever sees are the results of your thoughts, while you and only you will ever be privy to the considerations that concluded in a specific behavior.
This may be an odd point to make, but it sets up my real musing. I don’t believe our thought processes are set in stone. Indeed, many variables seem to constantly mold who we are and how we react to things. We often encounter people with whom we share a lot of the same conclusions and thus get along with. At the same time, some people that have drastically different perspectives can excite us and lead to changes (for better or worse) in our own personas. The validity of one way of thinking over another is almost entirely subjective in detail, though some more antisocial perspectives are generally rejected by society and rightly so.
My point may seem disjointed at first, but it is this: I have found something to love in everyone I know. People are myriad influences and experiences that result in whoever they might be in a particular moment in time. I cherish the opportunity to understand the underlying mechanisms that move people, often ignoring the actual behaviors as chance byproducts. What I mean to say is, it’s hard for me to take things personally from anyone before I actually understand them. And more often than not, once I glimpse the general machinations of an acquaintance, it’s still hard to take offense from a way of thought that is doomed to it’s own output at the onset. Even the most off-putting individuals are so because their pattern has led to a conclusion that is simply not socially acceptable, which is in itself a highly capricious standard.
In psychology, this is noted as a belief that people are basically algorithmically run. Their distinctions are a result of millions of hidden assumptions and perspectives that result in individuality. Perhaps my math-mindedness makes me give this considerable credence. I find assumptions in common with every person in my experience and it gives me hope and a sense of connection with the entirety of our species. The religious nut shouting at you for being a whore is concerned with people living life the most moral way possible. Though we differ greatly on our assumptions of religion, I can’t help but find the purpose of his shouting exceedingly laudable. The skinhead who wants to kill the jews is afraid of what he believes to be an attack on what he holds precious. Again, I can’t help but disagree with their methods, but what more primal and relatable emotion is there than fear? Indeed, that one seems to trigger a lot of the most erratic and destructive behavior. Anger as a response isn’t nearly as helpful as reassurance, once you spot the man behind the curtain.
Does anyone else find this exciting? Everyone is so gloriously different and similar at once! Love, jealousy, anger, worry; we’ve all felt these emotions in different degrees and they’ve led to decisions in our lives that differentiate us as the unique person to have gone through precisely our birth, our childhood and our later growth. My only wish is ever to cure people of what I find to be mistaken and damaging assumptions if possible and hopefully improve on my own set as well. That last bit begs for a willingness to accept that, at any time, my most cherished assumption may not be the better and warrant correction. A harsh lesson I’m sure I’ll be reminded of again before long.
Words of an eternal optimist.
Speak and Be Heard
This may seem disappointingly cliché to many who would read this, but I want to to blog on the subject of personal relationships. Here things will grow very subjective and Tyler-centric (as if a blog could inspire anything else). Mercifully, I’ll keep it short. It’s just something else I need to get off my chest. It relates to my first topic in that my search for self-improvement goes hand in hand with continual self-criticism. I want to be a better person and so spend my share of time reflecting on what I’ve done and whether or not I could have done it better. This leads to a form of self regard that is both fickle and unromantic. No matter how I may behave, I’m not likely to fool myself as to the breadth and width of my strengths and weaknesses.
I was recently involved with possibly the most intelligent and insightful woman I’ve had the pleasure of being with. In our time together, I grew very aware of certain things she provided that I will now come to expect of future relationships. Nothing dirty, people, I’m talking about a sense of understanding and willingness to be open that was, for lack of a better word, refreshing. When we spoke in confidence, it was always with honesty and open minds, with one glaring exception. I came to end the relationship for reasons I had been harboring for the better part of its duration. I did not come forth with these thoughts and doubts with the intention of sparing her feelings. I know now that it was very wrong of me to do so. It bespoke my hubris in thinking I might know what was better for her to know or be kept from. Now, while I agree that there are things we do not readily share with anyone we come across, there are certain implications in being in a relationship that I overlooked.
As I see it, a relationship is two (or more) people coming together to share company, thoughts, hopes, experiences and many other things. However, the participants should not become an indivisible unit. Each one will hopefully maintain some independence, lest their identity is lost to the union. Yet, the institution they are intending to build is not the property of any one individual. It’s a fragile construct with multiple architects. When one wishes to take the design in a certain direction, the others must be informed or it’ll all come tumbling down in the end. Though there are many things that an individual can and should keep sovereign to their person, those pertaining to the relationship must pass into the public domain or risk damaging what’s being attempted by the group. As I have insinuated, I am guilty of not following this little piece of advice in the past and hope never to repeat this error.
Just another random thought.
Personal Meaning
Hello to anyone reading this. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, but I suppose it won’t do any harm to send some ideas out to that great void that is the Internet. They’ll hopefully roam the web for some time as spawn of a little-known blogger; free to be stumbled upon by anyone with a browser and free time, to intrigue them or induce apathy at leisure. I’ll attempt to maintain a central theme throughout each post and hope readers will forgive me if I accidentally ramble. If you’re looking for cogent prose and enticing narrative, go pick up a Twilight novel at your local Barnes & Noble. (Just kidding, Stephenie Meyer is shit. :-p)
For my first post, I’d like to comment on something that hit close to home recently. When I was in Venezuela over the winter break I was more than once suggested to not believe in a purpose to our existence. This was presumably brought on by the fact that I am an atheist and some people believe that without gods or some religious belief I must think everything random and without purpose. I wish to outline how, at least in my case, this is a false assumption.
I think we can all agree that none of us are perfect in this life; far from it. Some feel anxiety at this notion. From this, I think they may even come to hope that there must be some better existence around the corner where perfection is a more obtainable goal. I spoke to a close friend over the break who had adopted a belief in reincarnation in which everyone gets as many lives as necessary to keep getting better, again circumventing the imperfection dilemma. Many of my other friends are followers of one of the afterlife religions, where one comes to know perfection after leading as good a life as possible in this imperfect ‘obstacle course’ of an existence or what have you. Those close to me already know that I subscribe to neither belief. I instead focus my energies on the one life we have concrete reasons for believing to be real. We can get into a discussion about the failings of empirical belief, but suffice it to say that most of us don’t think we’re in the Matrix or Truman Show and believe what is happening around us to be what we may agree upon as reality. I do not go so far as to assume further ones without reason.
In this way, I find less anxiety in our imperfections. I do not bear the prejudices of a just-world hypothesis and accept life’s discrepancies as a matter of established rule. In other words, the fact that some selfish bastard can grow rich and powerful his entire life at the expense of others while a virtuous man may die in a coal mine trying to make ends meet for his family may irk me, but I do not endeavor to conjure a system of supernatural justice or ultimate being to set all things right in the end. From my view, some things are unfair, period. However, here comes the beauty of imperfect existence: there will always be something to improve. In a world where ultimate perfection can never be achieved, it can always be strived for. Thus the path is laid before us. We can, every single day of our limited lives, seek out features to make us better individuals and work to rid ourselves of behaviors that cause harm to others. Indeed, it seems human nature to want to correct and improve where we see fault. I speak not only of our own failings, but of the systems which govern us. I look at history and rejoice that, despite their continued prevalence, it’s getting harder every day for the assholes of the world to get what they want without consequence.
Are there still flaws to be found? In great abundance, of course! Our road to improvement is long and narrow. Yet I take heart in that we no longer abide slavery without reproach. No longer do we burn women with opinions at the stake under the accusation of witchcraft. No longer are children expected to work when they cannot read. In the world, there are fewer monarchs and unfettered tyrants running our nations. Accountability is on the rise. (I speak mainly of western society given my familiarity and firsthand experience. There are exceptions to these, but far fewer than in centuries past.)
Here you find what I exhibit proudly as my notion of purpose. I believe existence precedes essence. Purpose is not given us, but it is there to be found. We can make things better as a whole and should always work to do so. It begins at an individual level and grows from there. I hold our capacity for change in great esteem. We may never stop injustices such as those suffered by the people in Haiti, but we can make the next Madoff’s job a living hell. We can seek to end social injustices where we find them even if natural ones elude us a while longer. There are things well within our sphere of influence and it is these we must take great pains to address. Even in Haiti, the tragedy having occurred, there are things we can and are doing to help those who remain. Worrying over events outside of our control, such as our own impermanence, seems to me a waste of energy.
You may ask, why improve given that this is a passing thing? If anything, my belief that this is the only life we live makes it infinitely more valuable to me. I don’t think I’ll get another chance to redeem myself as a person. I don’t think that I should tolerate others’ foul deeds because they’ll get what they deserve on another plane. The more good we do and the more we improve, the better the world simply is. I don’t think a moral man is guaranteed a happy life or an immoral man a lousy one. I believe in good for goodness’ own sake. The imperfection of our reality begs for improvement and I’m one for taking up the task. I think it was Ghandi who said we should be the change we want to see in the world. It’s a passive yet effective form of global improvement. What can I say? I’m an optimist. You may completely disagree with every bit of my worldview as stated thus far, but I hope it may at least dispel the notion some hold that an atheist must profess to exist in an uncaring void of pointless coincidence.
