silpheed_tandy (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} silpheed_tandy) wrote,@ 2007-10-27 04:07:00 |
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(ramble) (skippable post)
For the past hour, I have been meaning to start this post. If I ended up not started for even ten minutes more, it may have faded too much to even start; I have experienced that far too many times before. Let's try to push the typing of this post through, locally moment by moment, yes?
` It did take me putting on "Letting Go" (sung by George Canyon), which is a song which relates to me the way that prayer or a longing aching movie does for others.
` ` Is it just illusion? Is it just some artistic positive thought that brings you to some moment, though nothing Overarching has changed, no reassurance in some Overarching Truth, some Order, that lets things make sense? But then, for these local moments, /something/ must be able to account for their existence, so /some/ level of Reassurance might be there?
` ` And besides, is not everything just "illusion", a kind of trying to cope with life and live your moments in some happiness, though none of us have much of an answer [or certainly I don't, and my worldview is tunnel-visioned to find it hard to assume or see or think along the patterns of thought that say that perhaps others /are/ stable: that their souls AREN'T troubled?].
You have:
` (say, image?)
` -> someone lying back on the psychiatrist's couch, as in the movies.
` or a child in his Papa's arms. "Shh, my child", Papa strokes the child's hair (I myself sometimes stroke my own hair; I don't know why, I do not try to justify it, I do not look at the inconsistencies. I just enjoy it sometimes in the moment that I do. Stroking my own hair brings up -- I'm not sure why -- my own sense of comfort, as if fantasy of me as parent, or fantasy as God or Time comforting me. Not that it is /true/ or of /reality/, but it is of comfort .. fantasy based or positive-thinking based or even just for-no-real-goal but-just-in-the-moment.. .) a child in his Papa's arms, Papa strokes the child's hair, "Shh, my child, it's alright". And the child knows that it is okay. It is okay if he cannot explain things well. It is okay that he cannot explain things at all.
` or a friend. a /good/ friend. One whom you can call up even though you don't know what you'll say. Where normally you'd feel shame and pressure, but here, you do it in faith -- faith established by a) yearning and b) indication from the past. [is this similar to how faith works with God?]. no guarantee, but it lets you go on as if guarantee? or wish some beneifits /as if/ guarantee?
` ` and so you call your friend up, and then something in the warmth has you talk and you don't even realize how much time has passed. You are not under pressure to make things work.
And though you could not explain things at first,
you start off with fragments,
but something /outside of you/ lets the talk flow, you "talk it out".
and then by the non-pressure (no, the unpressure ? ), you seem to find yourself
` seen, believed in, as
` More You.
So this is an entirely skippable post. I am needing to just "talk things out" right now. I was even about to not write this here in lj, but for some reason I'm needing some of the not-hiding comfort (or whatever else it is) that lj gives to me. Please know that this rambling post is entirely skippable, more so even than my other posts.. .
` Shannon -- housemate a little over a year ago in the summer -- used to leave me her food when she went on occassional weekend trips. She'd leave a note on the fridge. It meant a lot to me at times -- in real, concrete, "I really was needing this" ways. One time she left chicken salad for me. I felt loved. I was in depression that day, and I was needing something to eat but was completely overwhlemed to bust through the complexity and the uncertain feeling ("/am/ I even able to accomplish such an impossible task as to find something to eat? there are no guarantees after all. no security for that"). But I found her kind note on the fridge, and I ate the salad, and I felt loved. -- not alone, not alone!! a big deal to be in contrast to the aloneness of depression and insecurity .. an existentially fundemantally different feeling. not alone, but loved.
` How nice it is for housemates to leave things for you.
` Scott occassionally did the same thing. Not quite out of the same explicitly shown "this is warmth from me to you!" unhiding presentation, but still out of the same attitude. He had extra food, he (being the super organized and practical person he is) did not want to waste it, and so in a way that beneifitted both him and me, he offred some to me. Not hanky-panky gushy, almost offhand remark;
` but I think he knew how much it meant to me. This was his very guyish way of showing affection while simultaneously giving up no ground in his own vulenerability -- because Scott was like that; he showed kindness without having any obligation, or vulenerability. He was always too independant and driven and "I'm movin' on!" for that.
idea? : that things can be different?
Sometimes all the thinking and worries about
` collapse (environmental, social, or even personal (cancer, breaking a bone -- and no one to take care of me) can seem to invalidate everything else. The reality is that the world is not a fair place. If you're lucky to be born into a good station, or if you're lucky to have the strength to fight to improve your life [and lucky enough that it works], then great. But not everyone is lucky.
` [and this is where I hope that the afterlife is the great equalizer and makes everything just in the end. It may be just an idea, but after all, it is (at least partially) "just ideas" that we use to prevent ourselves from getting horribly depressed and unfunctional.. it is "just ideas" that have us continue to live the next day. I haven't found the "just ideas" I need, but others have, perhaps?]
` However, sometimes if you're lucky enough to have it, good things in a very local moment can seem to bring validity to things. Not validity that answers to the broad, big, unkind cruel reality; but validity to a very local, very small little bubble -- validty to your life even in half a day, but still validity. Maybe even illusionary, but still.. .
` Things like being loved.
I missed JOY Fellowship today. I slept in. I felt (and still feel) very very bummed out about that.
(Oh, but can you imagine? Where the yearnings that I ahve and the good things I got from JOY Fellowship and beginning to love Victoria's and Sarah's and Alan's fellowship .. what if these good things were
` /consistent/ things in my life later on?
` That my fulfillment could be brought out? Even if no guarantee for forever, no security for forver, then just what about for five or ten years? Five or ten years of good lived life?)
Do you know of, when you get something really neat, a toy? As a child?
Like a new movie.
The objective images on the screen, etc, is not what makes up the experience in itself.
Buying a DVD that you've been looking forward to, researched on, had lots of pre-thought and pre-hype about.. so that your excitement made it almost a part of /you/, the way Spice Girls seems to be really tied closely to middle school for many people, instead of its objective "it's just a band" ...
` buying a DVD that you're looking forward to, it FEELS different than downloading [illegally] for free. The latter is no big deal. The former is mroe of an /experience/ when you watch it.. .
I would say that
the "essence" of what that film (say, Mary Poppins) is
` -- and how it affects you, means something to you
` is not "held within" itself objectively.
` No, it is co-created, cast in an enriching light,
` of the viewer's experiences and connotations and excitement of her own self.
Such personal experience and excitement can tend to make things feel meaningful. It gives meaning to your life.
` Grim objective reality -- the stuff that gets you down -- is blind to this very local delight. This is part of what makes us divine, human; our cosnciousness is something that mere objective reality cannot fathom nor understand. It is the magical factor X that defies all the logical reality and creates life and spark and mystery when really all the logic says should be possible is dust.
As an adult now, my mind is not aligned with that wavelegnth of magic and off-out-of logical and constrained thought. It used to be, though, as a child, I'm pretty sure. In ways that I cannot fathom or comprehend now.
Clearly, I struggle with the idea of privileged, and indeed my own privilege. I am not brave or selfless enough to do anything about it (more on this later in this post?), at least not at this point in my life. (Can you imagine what it might be like to
` have gradually made lifestyle changes, so that
` giving away your time and effort and money to charity, to others, is not scary and nor does it make you youreslf feel unstable or insecure? -- we were discussing part of this idea -- not on a "let's find an answer" logical abstract impersonal level, but on a "letting our wonderings and the subtle Jiminy Cricket conscience to speak out and discover itself" minstering or tending or "it's okay to find yourself where you're at; it's valuable to be together all kind of where we're at like this, not to force a chance but to be with each other for the time being"" level. (at least, that's teh way it was for me).
` I struggle with privilege clearly.
` On one hand, you have Mary Poppins film.
` ` - a bit of artwork, much like music, has given comfort and positive thinking and acted like a prayer that understood you, or inspired you, or otherwise connected with your humanness that makes life feel meanignful .. ; however, it is something that only us in rich, industrial societies have.
` ` - I am reading about programming philosophy, struggling to remember things I knew so well in High School about what the enjoyment of learnign was, and trying to think about what I wish University could be for me now (which then -- after recognizing what I wish -- helps me to put that aisde (as if it's acknowledged and seen so it's okay to put that aside) and then be okay with what I have and formulate perspective on how to appraoch what I have currently) .. .
` One of the things as I read about programming philosophy
` is it coming to mind what the pleasure in good programming practice and philosophy that drives the programming /experience/. the stuff that gives you delight.
` And I felt this (more deeply) in other areas. Especially music. Good foundations in music that had you REALLY undersatnd DEEPLY what you're engaging in, from many many angles, and from personal exploration in such a way that the stuff is made /personal/ to you .. makes you feel
` special, almost closer (ish) to spiritual, with the stuff you're working with
` The team of people, like musicians who personally and deeply know their stuff in such a way that they see connections, envision wild possibilities that have pwoer to /rouse effect/ within people (create or rouse something that was not there previously!) ...
` The team of people who made Mary Poppins were much like such musicians who deeply knew their stuff. They were /artists/, and skilled ones at that.
` There are skilled programmers out there, too. Who deeply know the philosophy behind what they do. They don't just "do" their thing, but they understand the "music" or the "why" behind what they do.. . The driving force, the delight, the "nature" behind it all.. .
` but?
` Is this only stuff for a privileged group of people? Why should some have the benefit of such good things, and others not? Does it make it invalid for those with privilege to have it? Or what about: does it make it invalid for those who are privileged but not brave or selfless enough to make the lives of other unprivileged people better...?
and the thought of insecurity: that my delight in film or delight in music or delight in working hard to make University a good experience for me that is personally fulfilling [supposing I actually were to do that] or to work in a job that made use of my new insights and talents -- all this stuff that only cna be done within a paradigm full of privilege --
` .. the thoguht of insecurity says : all this can be taken away from you, you know.
Do you remember the Disney film Pinocchio? I used to have it for VHS as a child. While I didn't watch it as often as the other films -- it was a bit niche title for me, so I didn't watch it the probably 20-30 (or more?) times that I would have watched Beauty and the Beast -- I look back on it now and remember how dark that movie was.. like when Pinocchio goes out into the world on his own.. a scary world at that.. tries to make it on his own as an actor [?], but falls into greed [?] and gets turned into a Donkey? [was that how it worked?]
` oh, what saved him? I can't remember. Was it the one who gave life to him, the Blue Fairy? And then you have Geppetto, the father to Pinocchio.. not quite the life-bringer that the Blue Fairy is, but the one who loves his son dearly, so much so that he searched tirelessly, almost driven to insanity if I remember correctly -- losing his health, too -- to a whale.
(There's something sweet in the image -- it's coming back to me, a few images! that I had forgoten! -- .. the image of Geppetto and Pinocchio being trapped in the whale but reunited, ... with Geppetto saying that even in this trapping, they at least had each other and could live a fairly happy life. There was lots of tunafish coming in ("tuna!" Pinocchio echoed excitedly) ...
` ... some may charge this as unrealistic, but it's certainly different than pessimism, and it sees more possibility and meaning in dark times than what realistic pessimism could see.. ).
Actually, now that I think about it.. that film really was special, in the sense of how different it was from my other Disney films I had on VHS. Indeed, it was probably the darkest of all films, but also the most .. uh, charming in its low-key presentation of something warm and comforting. Almost sweet but not in an overly-flashy sacharine [rw?] way. The image, for example, of the cat rubbing itself around the ankle of Geppetto [loosening his sock terribly -- funny how such small details seemed so significant to my child's mind back then] .. in their modest little dwelling, as Geppetto worked on his little thing that let him be happy in life. I don't know, there's something low-key sweet in this non-grand, quiet little image.
One day I was sick with some bad flu or something, and I was quiet miserable. My brother put on Pinocchio and watched it with me; and it ended up taking my mind off things. In the strange way that very small snapshots of memory -- some kind of strange image, strangely pulled out of context -- in the strange way that very small snapshots of memory from childhood stay with you, this is one of them: during some rather scary scene panning out as that scene ended ("I'll make an ass out of you, yet!" a sinister selfish con-artist says to himself about Pinocchio, and then out pans the camera to show the activity continuing on in a typical day of the corrupt and unhappy land Pinocchio has found himself in), my brother did say out loud something about how good these Disney films are, and wasn't this nice watching it?
` I thought so. I was happy (and drugged-up-feeling, too, I think :-) but flus do that to you), even despite the flu. It was nice to watch the movie with him.. no justification needed. Just me and my Disney which I liked and my big brother watching it with me.. .
One of my housemates (or maybe all of them, I'm not sure) buys People magazine, and sometimes I find it on the table next to the kitchen. On page 108 of the Nov 05 2007 issue, they profile one of the "2007 People Heroes Among Us Awards" :
====
Judy and Jerry Horton - Ownders, Down Home Ranch.
Why: Because in wondering what the future would hold for their daughter Kelly, born with Down syndrome, they created a unique residence for young adults with disabilities. "All of us parents had dreams that were shattered by the births of our special-needs children," says Judy (with Jerry and Kelly, 23, on Sept. 8 in Elgin, Texas). "Be new dreams took their place."
====
I'm not this brave. Nor am I this organized. [To make actual change? To be brave enough to get the resources needed, call people up?] I fear the job hunt, I could never be an entrapeneur, I have little common sense about resources to get new things discovered and real progress underway for things like organizing a centre, even less confidence to do so, and even less habit or familiarity in actual experience doing so.
` Hell, I can't even take care of myself right now!
` But -- along with these thoughts, I wonder... could this be temporary, my inability?
One parenting book that I browsed through and read bits and pieces here and there, called "Raising Resilient Children", it makes a link (that's probably obvious, but it's one of those things whose significance is underscored when explicitly discussed) between some things parents do in a child's life, and the strength and resilience that the child later finds as an adult.. .
` It is such children -- children who have come to be familiar with the ideas of perseverence, positive thinking, etc, so much that it's almost "just in their bones" and their worldview -- that are more likely to find it easier to do brave things like set up chairiies and make real change for the world... .
More generally, it is not just being brave, unselfish, good resource finder, etc that I fail at at this point in my life,
` it is also other things which I used to know well.
I used to have the concentration and imagination and sensitivity to
` - play videogames
` - fiddle with music. or crafts.
` - or go to new places. go to the library.
` - or otherwise find /possibility/ in things and to /put myself OUT there/. (in fact, for example, this is what got me into linedancing -- I went right ahead adn pored with interest through teh pages of the city's recreation programs, and it was this interest driven by my own self (don't know where it came from, not my doing, but it was there) and watned to join things like
` skating, and pilates+more, and line dancing.. .
` the freedom and interest in me /found place to be/. Largely because my environment provided for it (high school, a big brother to take me to skating lessons when I was young and didn't know about buying skates or taking the bus or wehre to go -- even navigating mississauga was all new and magical and exciting and BIG, OUT THERE to me! and it translated into grade nine and ten when I would love taking various bus routes and visitting every library in mississauga and going to all these new malls which i never heard of before and never been to.. i really enjoyed this newfound freedom.. .).
but now, i find myself far too often in bed. unmoving.
and not making use of the things i /do/ have.
yes, i lost a lot.
but i objectively have some tools [like the internet] which i was able to /use/ and tap into and bring my energy and excitement into, much much more effectively in past years, than now. it's become flat, unimaginiative, uninspired habit. i don't see the /excitement/ or possibility anymore.
my room, it's disorganied. it's a mess. it's not a happy living arrangment, nto a reflection of my happy self.
back when i had cable, i loved watching those home design shows. how functional, how expressive-of-personailty they all seemed. the room as a reflection of the /person/. more than just mere survival. and more than clutter, too. some kind of /effect/, as if the moments lived there are a type of canvas, canvas of space-time.. .
imagine if things could change in my life?
i also would watch shows like "health on the line" on life network [no longer airing], and you had these parents who would be like visionaries. so different than me, they had perseverence, they found inner strength, they had energy. they FOUGHT and sought possibility for their children who had disabilities or illnesses. they were /there/ for them and gave them things that they needed. they found possibility where others didn't.
` they had the organization, the energy, to do so. they somehow found the inner strength to fight for things and to discover the things.
this is something I grossly do not have nowadays. I had it somewhat more in past years than now.
there are people who manage to keep moving, keep hope, and keep /energy/,
` seeing vision in whatever enviornemnt they're placed in, whether there's much in it or not.
` ideas that you get from first glance at books like "Man's Search for Meaning" plays easily for them: they're comfortable wiht the idea of responsibility and how your own attitudes change things. It jives asily with them.
Not so easily for people like me, who feel the need to be loved first at our current point in our lives, before we could be so brave or noble or effect-creating.. .
a little bit of success can let you feel good about yourself. sometimes it's necessary to not justify it or see it against the backdrop of reality that says really it's all susceptible to loss.
` sometimes a little bit of success in being able to engage in things artistic and have a really good praciticng session where your spirit stumbled upon something new, something spiritual, [back when i used to be musical]... sometimes this makes you feel good.
` or in the few times this year when I was at Tim Horton's and had really good study sessions, where I wasn't just successful at studying stuff so I understood it for teh assignment, but studied it in a way that had me think about my /own/ personal ideas important to me, about exploration and the learning process in mathematics, and about the "music" behind mathematics... yes, this was a bit of success, I was /happy/ to hae experienced this valueable and able thing in me that perhaps is not in everyone.. .
people can seem so .. well, full of their own lives, that you don't really matter. to be in belnoging and be seen is so important.
` i know it's entirely setting yourself up for unhappy reaction / hurt / loneliness to think anyone "sees" you or cares about you through blogging medium [ESPEICALLY when your posts aren't very readable or accessible] -- blogging just seems to be a medium that demands too much attention, effort, and "putting yourself aside to feel what the person is saying from /her/ perspective" ... blogging seems to be just too difficult a medium that incites human care to other humans. anyone trying to leave a sensitive comment that is useful to the writer, in a way that indicates that you "see" what she was feeling, instead of merely putting in a distanced and irrelevant little point about yourself -- .. leaving good comments are difficult. [and indeed, this is probably why it's a good policy to not /try/ to leave insightful comments, but just to leave a comment as a sort of "hello!" without pressure to relate it to the post itself; and for the writer to receive this "hello!" and not expect comments all that sensitive to the post]. Writers, you find, who have REALLY TIGHT AND INSIGHTFUL blog posts often get the /fewest/ comments.
` So blogging is /not/ a medium that brings out instances of care and "seeing" other people or feeling that others acknowledge you as special and unique, etc. email is better. Seeing someone weekly and having warm discussions is best. Something about the voice and joking inflections that happen in real-time and whaps across the head, etc, something about that draws the best human caring spirit in us and bonds people... .
` Anyhow, that was more verbose than I meant it to be.
` Thi sis the thing about belnoging. With blogging, you try to voice yourself out as "hey, this is me.. I hope I can validate my specialness", but it can seem that /no one cares/. The nature of uncareful blog skimming is one where the reader can't get "into" you enough to really move to care for you enough. It's like you don't SEE the REALITY of the person there, as you would if you actually met her and saw her. It's more difficult -- you have to make a real effort at it.
` So you come away with something like "Yes, I see she is significant, I see she is smart, I see she has really great ideas". But you don't pause to really DIGEST and hear the complextity and richness of it. You just skim right through it all.
` You don't give the richness of her justice. That's just the nature of blog reading -- that's just the tendancy.
So what happens when (say) I have the [very] occasional chat with Wen, or when I was at JOY Fellowship for those few weeks, these special things about /me/ *were* "seen" and *were* found as valuable and useful to otehrs. That's the nature of these /other/ mediums.
People need to have the medium of friendship, belonging, so badly. People need to feel of value, so badly.. .
` Or I sure do.
this whole post that i'm typing now? it's sort of an attempt.
i could not justify it, but i just did it. something subconscious called me to do it.
as a kind of trying to move against -- trick myself against -- the unhappiness and slight paralysis keeping me stuck in ebd, not moving, diffiulcty in thinking, and generally doing very poorly. i wanted to see that I Am a little bit. I guess that's part of what this typing was about. I could not come up with these thoughts at first -- it is not delieberate to come upw ith these thoughts; they just sort of happen in the process of unpressuring yourself and giving yoursel fpermission to do what you feel you need to do, and in this case I needed, wanted, to be fragmentory and type not privately but on lj.. .
I found myself having great difficulty to sit down adn /read/. Or to know what I'm reading. To actually gain knoweledge or flexibility of mind.
` In fact, all of the assignments and tests that I've written thus far in University [ie and mainly all of them within the last two or three weeks!] -- all of them were based on very /minimal/ understanding. Hell, I woudln't even call it understanding. It's rote memorization. Didn't reach /deep/ within insight or a flexibility of mind.
` Things were different in Hgih School. More motivating, too. It takes real effort -- lots of effort you need to put in -- to find something similar in University. High School made it /very easy/ to really get into things very deeply.
Even now, I migth ahve typed all of this (and with my usual poor writing skills, but off course to write well is /not/ the point right now).., but I still can't /get into/ something I read very deeply -- to glean away the real /depth/ and importance of what's being talked about, such that I carry it with me and it affects me and I respond to it.
Maybe someday...?
I used to have very strong undersanding of
` my sexual orientation
` and my sexuality as part of the full (healthy, visionary) fabric of my identity.
I had since forgotten.
I used to have clear ideas and ideals about how being gay
opened my eyes up to what tolerance and inclusiveness and What Coming Together is like.
This used to be in my younger years.
I had since forgotten what this conviction, drive, ideals, dreams were about.
I had fogotten these things of identity.
I am more or less a drone right now, empty sexuality, uninsightful, undelighting.
But sometimes I get inklings? No, not inklings, weaker than that. But it's some suggestion brought to mind that I used to know of more. Just like how the familiarity and personal connection when learning choir lyrics and fitting in your notes with teh energies and tensions of the whole piece, and how the fun and group dynamics building is as much a part of teh music as the notes..? How this was more?
I get such weak suggestion or inkling of things I no longer knew but used to know,
when I read things like coming out stories.
Or about's piece of why Judy Garland was a gay icon for men in the 50s and 60s. In fact, like a good essay, it brings light and the kind of awareness that piques your interest and compells you to think yourself .. in teh way that really good writing does:
====
Gay mag The Advocate refers to gay icon Judy Garland as the "Elvis of homosexuals." Even though Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) had numerous gay friends and a gay father it is believed that her true connection with gay men was rooted in her ability to overcome the inner conflict, instability and loneliness that defined her life even during stardom. Judy's necessity to maintain a "stage presence" at all times despite her inner turmoil led to a severe prescription drug addiction and eventually her tragic death. Gay men of the homophobic 50s and 60s identified with the dichotomy of her life as they too had to hide behind walls of perceived strength.
====
(http://gaylife.about.com/od/moviesthea
(the whole article is short and, I think, well written).
Do people -- at least, I I -- know of such deep-hitting experiences? Of such strength?
Certainly not now. Life is just sort of an empty "go with teh cogs". I am neither visionary nor brave. I'm not even organized. I'm just sort of floating in my disorganization, hoping to pass my courses. My real yearnings aren't coming through and making stuff happen. Nor am I getting braver and finding spiritual strength to encite change.. or even to seek the love and belongign I so desperately /need/ so that I might /in fact/ become strong. Or even to foster positive thinking that perhaps God out there is less hard on me than I am on myself, where he *undersatnds* my needs and doesn't demand I be much different at this point if my needs aren't being met...?
An advice article linked from the above page (http://gaylife.about.com/od/gaysexques
` brings to mind the complexity of people's experiences, how they can't be seen in overly simplistic cut-and-dried ways.
` The article writer understands why the woman is "Mad as Heck", but also understands the kind of pressures that closetted gay men live through when living the double life. He both is sympathetic to such closetted gay men while simultaneously suggesting that they aren't acting in brave ways. He both sympathizes with teh gay men but also says that it does not excuse them from putting a straight woman in the middle of all of this.
` This was the refreshing kind of complexity-acknowledging thinking that attracted me strongly, back in my days of puberty when my gay sexual orientation was demanding to be acknolwedged as it became more and more strongly relevant in the fabric of my Being.
Things can easily get me down, be triggers. I don't deal well with them; I feel without grounding, assurance, support to say that I'll be okay and I can handle this.
` Stressful financial or housing issues have devastated me in the past.
` Hearing housemates coming in can even be a trigger. I can be calmer, more functional, the good stuff in me coming out and /making things happen/ and compounding productivity in this way, in the absence of such stresses.
` Even coming across an unexpected trigger about privilege in an article about programming philosophy (found by a google search "Java Philosophy") can bring me down:
====
For years now, the computer industry, largely in marketing efforts, has given the average consumer the impression that computing technology is abundant and ubiquitous [4]. Neither is really the case. Comparatively very few people in the world even own a personal computer and those who do mostly live in only the richest countries in the world. To the average person an Apple IIe or Commodore is a dream machine. This trend in marketing tends to encourage wastefulness both in the industry and at the personal level.
====
something that sometimes helps me is to kind of seperate such things in the world of privilege -- the things I'd delight in learning more about in high school (wow! all this knowledge and ways of thinking, I feel smart! and how exciting it is to explore all of this and feel great that you have the capablility to do so!) -- from the other concerns of the underprivileged, the stuff you think about that makes all the stuff in the world of privilege seem invalid.
` For example, I used to love watching fashion design shows such as Project Catwalk and Project Runway -- what creativity ! what ideas ! what effort and design skill to make it happen. So skillful! Or cooking shows -- for the same reason.
` But all of these things are in the world of privilege, and recongizing how much suffering there is in the world (and my own selfishness to not change any of it) makes my enjoyment in watching fashion or cooking shows on cable TV -- my rich western privileged lifestyle (which in fact all could fall away with societal collapse, or more locally with personal collapse) -- all seem so invalidated.. .
` What I had done at times was to basically say "Be selfish, be ignorant, put blinders on. At least for when you're engaging in those things of privilege that lets you feel good and be a bit more functional in the paradigm you're living in." But this approach is all jarred away with coming across passages like in the above.. .
The one thing that seems to be any kind of constant is -- if not God [since I dn't know God] --, then at least love / belonging / family. (Isn't that what some "primitive" societies have so much more than what us lonely and spiritually-distanced-from-each-other western people?].
For the past hour, I have been meaning to start this post. If I ended up not started for even ten minutes more, it may have faded too much to even start; I have experienced that far too many times before. Let's try to push the typing of this post through, locally moment by moment, yes?
` It did take me putting on "Letting Go" (sung by George Canyon), which is a song which relates to me the way that prayer or a longing aching movie does for others.
` ` Is it just illusion? Is it just some artistic positive thought that brings you to some moment, though nothing Overarching has changed, no reassurance in some Overarching Truth, some Order, that lets things make sense? But then, for these local moments, /something/ must be able to account for their existence, so /some/ level of Reassurance might be there?
` ` And besides, is not everything just "illusion", a kind of trying to cope with life and live your moments in some happiness, though none of us have much of an answer [or certainly I don't, and my worldview is tunnel-visioned to find it hard to assume or see or think along the patterns of thought that say that perhaps others /are/ stable: that their souls AREN'T troubled?].
You have:
` (say, image?)
` -> someone lying back on the psychiatrist's couch, as in the movies.
` or a child in his Papa's arms. "Shh, my child", Papa strokes the child's hair (I myself sometimes stroke my own hair; I don't know why, I do not try to justify it, I do not look at the inconsistencies. I just enjoy it sometimes in the moment that I do. Stroking my own hair brings up -- I'm not sure why -- my own sense of comfort, as if fantasy of me as parent, or fantasy as God or Time comforting me. Not that it is /true/ or of /reality/, but it is of comfort .. fantasy based or positive-thinking based or even just for-no-real-goal but-just-in-the-moment.. .) a child in his Papa's arms, Papa strokes the child's hair, "Shh, my child, it's alright". And the child knows that it is okay. It is okay if he cannot explain things well. It is okay that he cannot explain things at all.
` or a friend. a /good/ friend. One whom you can call up even though you don't know what you'll say. Where normally you'd feel shame and pressure, but here, you do it in faith -- faith established by a) yearning and b) indication from the past. [is this similar to how faith works with God?]. no guarantee, but it lets you go on as if guarantee? or wish some beneifits /as if/ guarantee?
` ` and so you call your friend up, and then something in the warmth has you talk and you don't even realize how much time has passed. You are not under pressure to make things work.
And though you could not explain things at first,
you start off with fragments,
but something /outside of you/ lets the talk flow, you "talk it out".
and then by the non-pressure (no, the unpressure ? ), you seem to find yourself
` seen, believed in, as
` More You.
So this is an entirely skippable post. I am needing to just "talk things out" right now. I was even about to not write this here in lj, but for some reason I'm needing some of the not-hiding comfort (or whatever else it is) that lj gives to me. Please know that this rambling post is entirely skippable, more so even than my other posts.. .
` Shannon -- housemate a little over a year ago in the summer -- used to leave me her food when she went on occassional weekend trips. She'd leave a note on the fridge. It meant a lot to me at times -- in real, concrete, "I really was needing this" ways. One time she left chicken salad for me. I felt loved. I was in depression that day, and I was needing something to eat but was completely overwhlemed to bust through the complexity and the uncertain feeling ("/am/ I even able to accomplish such an impossible task as to find something to eat? there are no guarantees after all. no security for that"). But I found her kind note on the fridge, and I ate the salad, and I felt loved. -- not alone, not alone!! a big deal to be in contrast to the aloneness of depression and insecurity .. an existentially fundemantally different feeling. not alone, but loved.
` How nice it is for housemates to leave things for you.
` Scott occassionally did the same thing. Not quite out of the same explicitly shown "this is warmth from me to you!" unhiding presentation, but still out of the same attitude. He had extra food, he (being the super organized and practical person he is) did not want to waste it, and so in a way that beneifitted both him and me, he offred some to me. Not hanky-panky gushy, almost offhand remark;
` but I think he knew how much it meant to me. This was his very guyish way of showing affection while simultaneously giving up no ground in his own vulenerability -- because Scott was like that; he showed kindness without having any obligation, or vulenerability. He was always too independant and driven and "I'm movin' on!" for that.
idea? : that things can be different?
Sometimes all the thinking and worries about
` collapse (environmental, social, or even personal (cancer, breaking a bone -- and no one to take care of me) can seem to invalidate everything else. The reality is that the world is not a fair place. If you're lucky to be born into a good station, or if you're lucky to have the strength to fight to improve your life [and lucky enough that it works], then great. But not everyone is lucky.
` [and this is where I hope that the afterlife is the great equalizer and makes everything just in the end. It may be just an idea, but after all, it is (at least partially) "just ideas" that we use to prevent ourselves from getting horribly depressed and unfunctional.. it is "just ideas" that have us continue to live the next day. I haven't found the "just ideas" I need, but others have, perhaps?]
` However, sometimes if you're lucky enough to have it, good things in a very local moment can seem to bring validity to things. Not validity that answers to the broad, big, unkind cruel reality; but validity to a very local, very small little bubble -- validty to your life even in half a day, but still validity. Maybe even illusionary, but still.. .
` Things like being loved.
I missed JOY Fellowship today. I slept in. I felt (and still feel) very very bummed out about that.
(Oh, but can you imagine? Where the yearnings that I ahve and the good things I got from JOY Fellowship and beginning to love Victoria's and Sarah's and Alan's fellowship .. what if these good things were
` /consistent/ things in my life later on?
` That my fulfillment could be brought out? Even if no guarantee for forever, no security for forver, then just what about for five or ten years? Five or ten years of good lived life?)
Do you know of, when you get something really neat, a toy? As a child?
Like a new movie.
The objective images on the screen, etc, is not what makes up the experience in itself.
Buying a DVD that you've been looking forward to, researched on, had lots of pre-thought and pre-hype about.. so that your excitement made it almost a part of /you/, the way Spice Girls seems to be really tied closely to middle school for many people, instead of its objective "it's just a band" ...
` buying a DVD that you're looking forward to, it FEELS different than downloading [illegally] for free. The latter is no big deal. The former is mroe of an /experience/ when you watch it.. .
I would say that
the "essence" of what that film (say, Mary Poppins) is
` -- and how it affects you, means something to you
` is not "held within" itself objectively.
` No, it is co-created, cast in an enriching light,
` of the viewer's experiences and connotations and excitement of her own self.
Such personal experience and excitement can tend to make things feel meaningful. It gives meaning to your life.
` Grim objective reality -- the stuff that gets you down -- is blind to this very local delight. This is part of what makes us divine, human; our cosnciousness is something that mere objective reality cannot fathom nor understand. It is the magical factor X that defies all the logical reality and creates life and spark and mystery when really all the logic says should be possible is dust.
As an adult now, my mind is not aligned with that wavelegnth of magic and off-out-of logical and constrained thought. It used to be, though, as a child, I'm pretty sure. In ways that I cannot fathom or comprehend now.
Clearly, I struggle with the idea of privileged, and indeed my own privilege. I am not brave or selfless enough to do anything about it (more on this later in this post?), at least not at this point in my life. (Can you imagine what it might be like to
` have gradually made lifestyle changes, so that
` giving away your time and effort and money to charity, to others, is not scary and nor does it make you youreslf feel unstable or insecure? -- we were discussing part of this idea -- not on a "let's find an answer" logical abstract impersonal level, but on a "letting our wonderings and the subtle Jiminy Cricket conscience to speak out and discover itself" minstering or tending or "it's okay to find yourself where you're at; it's valuable to be together all kind of where we're at like this, not to force a chance but to be with each other for the time being"" level. (at least, that's teh way it was for me).
` I struggle with privilege clearly.
` On one hand, you have Mary Poppins film.
` ` - a bit of artwork, much like music, has given comfort and positive thinking and acted like a prayer that understood you, or inspired you, or otherwise connected with your humanness that makes life feel meanignful .. ; however, it is something that only us in rich, industrial societies have.
` ` - I am reading about programming philosophy, struggling to remember things I knew so well in High School about what the enjoyment of learnign was, and trying to think about what I wish University could be for me now (which then -- after recognizing what I wish -- helps me to put that aisde (as if it's acknowledged and seen so it's okay to put that aside) and then be okay with what I have and formulate perspective on how to appraoch what I have currently) .. .
` One of the things as I read about programming philosophy
` is it coming to mind what the pleasure in good programming practice and philosophy that drives the programming /experience/. the stuff that gives you delight.
` And I felt this (more deeply) in other areas. Especially music. Good foundations in music that had you REALLY undersatnd DEEPLY what you're engaging in, from many many angles, and from personal exploration in such a way that the stuff is made /personal/ to you .. makes you feel
` special, almost closer (ish) to spiritual, with the stuff you're working with
` The team of people, like musicians who personally and deeply know their stuff in such a way that they see connections, envision wild possibilities that have pwoer to /rouse effect/ within people (create or rouse something that was not there previously!) ...
` The team of people who made Mary Poppins were much like such musicians who deeply knew their stuff. They were /artists/, and skilled ones at that.
` There are skilled programmers out there, too. Who deeply know the philosophy behind what they do. They don't just "do" their thing, but they understand the "music" or the "why" behind what they do.. . The driving force, the delight, the "nature" behind it all.. .
` but?
` Is this only stuff for a privileged group of people? Why should some have the benefit of such good things, and others not? Does it make it invalid for those with privilege to have it? Or what about: does it make it invalid for those who are privileged but not brave or selfless enough to make the lives of other unprivileged people better...?
and the thought of insecurity: that my delight in film or delight in music or delight in working hard to make University a good experience for me that is personally fulfilling [supposing I actually were to do that] or to work in a job that made use of my new insights and talents -- all this stuff that only cna be done within a paradigm full of privilege --
` .. the thoguht of insecurity says : all this can be taken away from you, you know.
Do you remember the Disney film Pinocchio? I used to have it for VHS as a child. While I didn't watch it as often as the other films -- it was a bit niche title for me, so I didn't watch it the probably 20-30 (or more?) times that I would have watched Beauty and the Beast -- I look back on it now and remember how dark that movie was.. like when Pinocchio goes out into the world on his own.. a scary world at that.. tries to make it on his own as an actor [?], but falls into greed [?] and gets turned into a Donkey? [was that how it worked?]
` oh, what saved him? I can't remember. Was it the one who gave life to him, the Blue Fairy? And then you have Geppetto, the father to Pinocchio.. not quite the life-bringer that the Blue Fairy is, but the one who loves his son dearly, so much so that he searched tirelessly, almost driven to insanity if I remember correctly -- losing his health, too -- to a whale.
(There's something sweet in the image -- it's coming back to me, a few images! that I had forgoten! -- .. the image of Geppetto and Pinocchio being trapped in the whale but reunited, ... with Geppetto saying that even in this trapping, they at least had each other and could live a fairly happy life. There was lots of tunafish coming in ("tuna!" Pinocchio echoed excitedly) ...
` ... some may charge this as unrealistic, but it's certainly different than pessimism, and it sees more possibility and meaning in dark times than what realistic pessimism could see.. ).
Actually, now that I think about it.. that film really was special, in the sense of how different it was from my other Disney films I had on VHS. Indeed, it was probably the darkest of all films, but also the most .. uh, charming in its low-key presentation of something warm and comforting. Almost sweet but not in an overly-flashy sacharine [rw?] way. The image, for example, of the cat rubbing itself around the ankle of Geppetto [loosening his sock terribly -- funny how such small details seemed so significant to my child's mind back then] .. in their modest little dwelling, as Geppetto worked on his little thing that let him be happy in life. I don't know, there's something low-key sweet in this non-grand, quiet little image.
One day I was sick with some bad flu or something, and I was quiet miserable. My brother put on Pinocchio and watched it with me; and it ended up taking my mind off things. In the strange way that very small snapshots of memory -- some kind of strange image, strangely pulled out of context -- in the strange way that very small snapshots of memory from childhood stay with you, this is one of them: during some rather scary scene panning out as that scene ended ("I'll make an ass out of you, yet!" a sinister selfish con-artist says to himself about Pinocchio, and then out pans the camera to show the activity continuing on in a typical day of the corrupt and unhappy land Pinocchio has found himself in), my brother did say out loud something about how good these Disney films are, and wasn't this nice watching it?
` I thought so. I was happy (and drugged-up-feeling, too, I think :-) but flus do that to you), even despite the flu. It was nice to watch the movie with him.. no justification needed. Just me and my Disney which I liked and my big brother watching it with me.. .
One of my housemates (or maybe all of them, I'm not sure) buys People magazine, and sometimes I find it on the table next to the kitchen. On page 108 of the Nov 05 2007 issue, they profile one of the "2007 People Heroes Among Us Awards" :
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Judy and Jerry Horton - Ownders, Down Home Ranch.
Why: Because in wondering what the future would hold for their daughter Kelly, born with Down syndrome, they created a unique residence for young adults with disabilities. "All of us parents had dreams that were shattered by the births of our special-needs children," says Judy (with Jerry and Kelly, 23, on Sept. 8 in Elgin, Texas). "Be new dreams took their place."
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I'm not this brave. Nor am I this organized. [To make actual change? To be brave enough to get the resources needed, call people up?] I fear the job hunt, I could never be an entrapeneur, I have little common sense about resources to get new things discovered and real progress underway for things like organizing a centre, even less confidence to do so, and even less habit or familiarity in actual experience doing so.
` Hell, I can't even take care of myself right now!
` But -- along with these thoughts, I wonder... could this be temporary, my inability?
One parenting book that I browsed through and read bits and pieces here and there, called "Raising Resilient Children", it makes a link (that's probably obvious, but it's one of those things whose significance is underscored when explicitly discussed) between some things parents do in a child's life, and the strength and resilience that the child later finds as an adult.. .
` It is such children -- children who have come to be familiar with the ideas of perseverence, positive thinking, etc, so much that it's almost "just in their bones" and their worldview -- that are more likely to find it easier to do brave things like set up chairiies and make real change for the world... .
More generally, it is not just being brave, unselfish, good resource finder, etc that I fail at at this point in my life,
` it is also other things which I used to know well.
I used to have the concentration and imagination and sensitivity to
` - play videogames
` - fiddle with music. or crafts.
` - or go to new places. go to the library.
` - or otherwise find /possibility/ in things and to /put myself OUT there/. (in fact, for example, this is what got me into linedancing -- I went right ahead adn pored with interest through teh pages of the city's recreation programs, and it was this interest driven by my own self (don't know where it came from, not my doing, but it was there) and watned to join things like
` skating, and pilates+more, and line dancing.. .
` the freedom and interest in me /found place to be/. Largely because my environment provided for it (high school, a big brother to take me to skating lessons when I was young and didn't know about buying skates or taking the bus or wehre to go -- even navigating mississauga was all new and magical and exciting and BIG, OUT THERE to me! and it translated into grade nine and ten when I would love taking various bus routes and visitting every library in mississauga and going to all these new malls which i never heard of before and never been to.. i really enjoyed this newfound freedom.. .).
but now, i find myself far too often in bed. unmoving.
and not making use of the things i /do/ have.
yes, i lost a lot.
but i objectively have some tools [like the internet] which i was able to /use/ and tap into and bring my energy and excitement into, much much more effectively in past years, than now. it's become flat, unimaginiative, uninspired habit. i don't see the /excitement/ or possibility anymore.
my room, it's disorganied. it's a mess. it's not a happy living arrangment, nto a reflection of my happy self.
back when i had cable, i loved watching those home design shows. how functional, how expressive-of-personailty they all seemed. the room as a reflection of the /person/. more than just mere survival. and more than clutter, too. some kind of /effect/, as if the moments lived there are a type of canvas, canvas of space-time.. .
imagine if things could change in my life?
i also would watch shows like "health on the line" on life network [no longer airing], and you had these parents who would be like visionaries. so different than me, they had perseverence, they found inner strength, they had energy. they FOUGHT and sought possibility for their children who had disabilities or illnesses. they were /there/ for them and gave them things that they needed. they found possibility where others didn't.
` they had the organization, the energy, to do so. they somehow found the inner strength to fight for things and to discover the things.
this is something I grossly do not have nowadays. I had it somewhat more in past years than now.
there are people who manage to keep moving, keep hope, and keep /energy/,
` seeing vision in whatever enviornemnt they're placed in, whether there's much in it or not.
` ideas that you get from first glance at books like "Man's Search for Meaning" plays easily for them: they're comfortable wiht the idea of responsibility and how your own attitudes change things. It jives asily with them.
Not so easily for people like me, who feel the need to be loved first at our current point in our lives, before we could be so brave or noble or effect-creating.. .
a little bit of success can let you feel good about yourself. sometimes it's necessary to not justify it or see it against the backdrop of reality that says really it's all susceptible to loss.
` sometimes a little bit of success in being able to engage in things artistic and have a really good praciticng session where your spirit stumbled upon something new, something spiritual, [back when i used to be musical]... sometimes this makes you feel good.
` or in the few times this year when I was at Tim Horton's and had really good study sessions, where I wasn't just successful at studying stuff so I understood it for teh assignment, but studied it in a way that had me think about my /own/ personal ideas important to me, about exploration and the learning process in mathematics, and about the "music" behind mathematics... yes, this was a bit of success, I was /happy/ to hae experienced this valueable and able thing in me that perhaps is not in everyone.. .
people can seem so .. well, full of their own lives, that you don't really matter. to be in belnoging and be seen is so important.
` i know it's entirely setting yourself up for unhappy reaction / hurt / loneliness to think anyone "sees" you or cares about you through blogging medium [ESPEICALLY when your posts aren't very readable or accessible] -- blogging just seems to be a medium that demands too much attention, effort, and "putting yourself aside to feel what the person is saying from /her/ perspective" ... blogging seems to be just too difficult a medium that incites human care to other humans. anyone trying to leave a sensitive comment that is useful to the writer, in a way that indicates that you "see" what she was feeling, instead of merely putting in a distanced and irrelevant little point about yourself -- .. leaving good comments are difficult. [and indeed, this is probably why it's a good policy to not /try/ to leave insightful comments, but just to leave a comment as a sort of "hello!" without pressure to relate it to the post itself; and for the writer to receive this "hello!" and not expect comments all that sensitive to the post]. Writers, you find, who have REALLY TIGHT AND INSIGHTFUL blog posts often get the /fewest/ comments.
` So blogging is /not/ a medium that brings out instances of care and "seeing" other people or feeling that others acknowledge you as special and unique, etc. email is better. Seeing someone weekly and having warm discussions is best. Something about the voice and joking inflections that happen in real-time and whaps across the head, etc, something about that draws the best human caring spirit in us and bonds people... .
` Anyhow, that was more verbose than I meant it to be.
` Thi sis the thing about belnoging. With blogging, you try to voice yourself out as "hey, this is me.. I hope I can validate my specialness", but it can seem that /no one cares/. The nature of uncareful blog skimming is one where the reader can't get "into" you enough to really move to care for you enough. It's like you don't SEE the REALITY of the person there, as you would if you actually met her and saw her. It's more difficult -- you have to make a real effort at it.
` So you come away with something like "Yes, I see she is significant, I see she is smart, I see she has really great ideas". But you don't pause to really DIGEST and hear the complextity and richness of it. You just skim right through it all.
` You don't give the richness of her justice. That's just the nature of blog reading -- that's just the tendancy.
So what happens when (say) I have the [very] occasional chat with Wen, or when I was at JOY Fellowship for those few weeks, these special things about /me/ *were* "seen" and *were* found as valuable and useful to otehrs. That's the nature of these /other/ mediums.
People need to have the medium of friendship, belonging, so badly. People need to feel of value, so badly.. .
` Or I sure do.
this whole post that i'm typing now? it's sort of an attempt.
i could not justify it, but i just did it. something subconscious called me to do it.
as a kind of trying to move against -- trick myself against -- the unhappiness and slight paralysis keeping me stuck in ebd, not moving, diffiulcty in thinking, and generally doing very poorly. i wanted to see that I Am a little bit. I guess that's part of what this typing was about. I could not come up with these thoughts at first -- it is not delieberate to come upw ith these thoughts; they just sort of happen in the process of unpressuring yourself and giving yoursel fpermission to do what you feel you need to do, and in this case I needed, wanted, to be fragmentory and type not privately but on lj.. .
I found myself having great difficulty to sit down adn /read/. Or to know what I'm reading. To actually gain knoweledge or flexibility of mind.
` In fact, all of the assignments and tests that I've written thus far in University [ie and mainly all of them within the last two or three weeks!] -- all of them were based on very /minimal/ understanding. Hell, I woudln't even call it understanding. It's rote memorization. Didn't reach /deep/ within insight or a flexibility of mind.
` Things were different in Hgih School. More motivating, too. It takes real effort -- lots of effort you need to put in -- to find something similar in University. High School made it /very easy/ to really get into things very deeply.
Even now, I migth ahve typed all of this (and with my usual poor writing skills, but off course to write well is /not/ the point right now).., but I still can't /get into/ something I read very deeply -- to glean away the real /depth/ and importance of what's being talked about, such that I carry it with me and it affects me and I respond to it.
Maybe someday...?
I used to have very strong undersanding of
` my sexual orientation
` and my sexuality as part of the full (healthy, visionary) fabric of my identity.
I had since forgotten.
I used to have clear ideas and ideals about how being gay
opened my eyes up to what tolerance and inclusiveness and What Coming Together is like.
This used to be in my younger years.
I had since forgotten what this conviction, drive, ideals, dreams were about.
I had fogotten these things of identity.
I am more or less a drone right now, empty sexuality, uninsightful, undelighting.
But sometimes I get inklings? No, not inklings, weaker than that. But it's some suggestion brought to mind that I used to know of more. Just like how the familiarity and personal connection when learning choir lyrics and fitting in your notes with teh energies and tensions of the whole piece, and how the fun and group dynamics building is as much a part of teh music as the notes..? How this was more?
I get such weak suggestion or inkling of things I no longer knew but used to know,
when I read things like coming out stories.
Or about's piece of why Judy Garland was a gay icon for men in the 50s and 60s. In fact, like a good essay, it brings light and the kind of awareness that piques your interest and compells you to think yourself .. in teh way that really good writing does:
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Gay mag The Advocate refers to gay icon Judy Garland as the "Elvis of homosexuals." Even though Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) had numerous gay friends and a gay father it is believed that her true connection with gay men was rooted in her ability to overcome the inner conflict, instability and loneliness that defined her life even during stardom. Judy's necessity to maintain a "stage presence" at all times despite her inner turmoil led to a severe prescription drug addiction and eventually her tragic death. Gay men of the homophobic 50s and 60s identified with the dichotomy of her life as they too had to hide behind walls of perceived strength.
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(http://gaylife.about.com/od/moviesthea
(the whole article is short and, I think, well written).
Do people -- at least, I I -- know of such deep-hitting experiences? Of such strength?
Certainly not now. Life is just sort of an empty "go with teh cogs". I am neither visionary nor brave. I'm not even organized. I'm just sort of floating in my disorganization, hoping to pass my courses. My real yearnings aren't coming through and making stuff happen. Nor am I getting braver and finding spiritual strength to encite change.. or even to seek the love and belongign I so desperately /need/ so that I might /in fact/ become strong. Or even to foster positive thinking that perhaps God out there is less hard on me than I am on myself, where he *undersatnds* my needs and doesn't demand I be much different at this point if my needs aren't being met...?
An advice article linked from the above page (http://gaylife.about.com/od/gaysexques
` brings to mind the complexity of people's experiences, how they can't be seen in overly simplistic cut-and-dried ways.
` The article writer understands why the woman is "Mad as Heck", but also understands the kind of pressures that closetted gay men live through when living the double life. He both is sympathetic to such closetted gay men while simultaneously suggesting that they aren't acting in brave ways. He both sympathizes with teh gay men but also says that it does not excuse them from putting a straight woman in the middle of all of this.
` This was the refreshing kind of complexity-acknowledging thinking that attracted me strongly, back in my days of puberty when my gay sexual orientation was demanding to be acknolwedged as it became more and more strongly relevant in the fabric of my Being.
Things can easily get me down, be triggers. I don't deal well with them; I feel without grounding, assurance, support to say that I'll be okay and I can handle this.
` Stressful financial or housing issues have devastated me in the past.
` Hearing housemates coming in can even be a trigger. I can be calmer, more functional, the good stuff in me coming out and /making things happen/ and compounding productivity in this way, in the absence of such stresses.
` Even coming across an unexpected trigger about privilege in an article about programming philosophy (found by a google search "Java Philosophy") can bring me down:
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For years now, the computer industry, largely in marketing efforts, has given the average consumer the impression that computing technology is abundant and ubiquitous [4]. Neither is really the case. Comparatively very few people in the world even own a personal computer and those who do mostly live in only the richest countries in the world. To the average person an Apple IIe or Commodore is a dream machine. This trend in marketing tends to encourage wastefulness both in the industry and at the personal level.
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something that sometimes helps me is to kind of seperate such things in the world of privilege -- the things I'd delight in learning more about in high school (wow! all this knowledge and ways of thinking, I feel smart! and how exciting it is to explore all of this and feel great that you have the capablility to do so!) -- from the other concerns of the underprivileged, the stuff you think about that makes all the stuff in the world of privilege seem invalid.
` For example, I used to love watching fashion design shows such as Project Catwalk and Project Runway -- what creativity ! what ideas ! what effort and design skill to make it happen. So skillful! Or cooking shows -- for the same reason.
` But all of these things are in the world of privilege, and recongizing how much suffering there is in the world (and my own selfishness to not change any of it) makes my enjoyment in watching fashion or cooking shows on cable TV -- my rich western privileged lifestyle (which in fact all could fall away with societal collapse, or more locally with personal collapse) -- all seem so invalidated.. .
` What I had done at times was to basically say "Be selfish, be ignorant, put blinders on. At least for when you're engaging in those things of privilege that lets you feel good and be a bit more functional in the paradigm you're living in." But this approach is all jarred away with coming across passages like in the above.. .
The one thing that seems to be any kind of constant is -- if not God [since I dn't know God] --, then at least love / belonging / family. (Isn't that what some "primitive" societies have so much more than what us lonely and spiritually-distanced-from-each-other western people?].
