Monthly Archives: July 2019

One of the things that daily blogging is uniquely suited for is keeping tabs on where your mind is at – because you are mandated to write something everyday, over time it can provide a window into what you are thinking.

Sometimes it’s not good.

I’m going through a bit of a rough period, and my mind is starting to perseverate on too much negative shit. When this happens, it can become kind of a death spiral – each new blow piles onto the previous one, creating a negative feedback loop.

That’s where the blog comes in – often when we start thinking in negative patterns, we don’t recognize it happening until it’s too late – it just slowly creeps up on us. But when you’re writing something everyday, it comes out in your posts whether you want it to or not, and it can be hard to miss.

So here I am – realizing I am starting to become overwhelmed by the events life is presenting me with. It’s time for a serious reappraisal of what’s going on my life…

What’s important? What isn’t? What do I need to step away from, and where should I refocus my attention? What exactly is upsetting me?

And most importantly: How do I refresh, reboot, and recharge?

Someone recently asked me how I became an expert in a difficult procedure. Without hesitation, I answered with the first thing that came to mind:

I smiled and said “By failing in every way possible.”

Not just casual touch – no, touch with intent. Because, of course, intent is everything.

One person in pain, perhaps sick, maybe dying. Feeling about as far from desirable and useful as possible, instead experiencing the shame of being a burden, like a useless pariah. Frightened of the abyss they’re trying not to face.

A second person administering care to the afflicted as if it was the most normal thing in the world – in the process touching them with the intent to help them heal, to assuage their pain.

Perhaps unaware or unknowing of the powerful exchange of healing energy that takes place in this simple act.

Touch in this manner may not heal the physical pain or disease, but it helps heal the psychic anguish brought on by chronic illness and pain.

The best part is that it’s free and requires no special training. Incredibly powerful – no prescription needed.

I know they’re around here somewhere goddamnit, they were here a minute ago. Maybe I just need to adjust my perspective…

When they go missing and I finally find them it usually turns out they were right in front of me the whole time.

And by “you” I mean me. An unfortunate side effect of having an active mind and being creative is the tendency to become self-involved. Crossing this line is something I’ve always been sensitive about, often wondering “Am I just really involved with (insert whatever I am working on at the moment), or am I being too self-centered?” It’s a lot easier to see this phenomenon in someone else than it is to see it in yourself.

So I try to constantly remind myself to at least attempt to serve and give back to others, and hope that I am sensitive to the needs of those I am close to. The thing is, for a certain type of person, it’s really easy to get deep inside your head and not come out. Nobody really likes the self-involved asshole, including themselves.

Mental note: Let’s try not to be that person.

As someone who considered himself free from prejudice, this 62 year old white male would like to acknowledge being a bit late to the party in understanding everyone else’s experience in the United States of America (that phrase now sadly seems like an oxymoron but, hey – it is the name of our country).

The key words here are empathy and gaslighting. Allow me to explain…

Even for someone who felt “enlightened” and supportive of equal rights for everyone, I missed a glaringly obvious point for longer than I’d care to admit. Sometime in the last few years the penny dropped and, for someone who considered himself at least somewhat bright, I felt personally embarrassed and more than a little dumb.

That point is this: If you’re a white man, of course you aren’t going to see prejudice and inequality everywhere you look – you’re fucking white! And a man no less – for Christ’s sake, the whole deck is stacked in your favor! Moreover, if you already present yourself publicly as not condoning racism, xenophobia or sexism, here’s a news flash – other white men who are racist aren’t going to include you in their rants. And of course you aren’t going to hang around these people, further insulating you from this rampant hatred. So you don’t see it – you intellectually know it’s there, but that’s not the same thing as experiencing it – not by a long shot.

The byproduct of all this is to not fully realize how bad things are. You think you are doing the right thing and trying to live righteously and fairly, but you’re really fucking clueless. Clueless, that is, until the 2016 election when you suddenly realize you’re not living in the country you thought you were.

So here’s where the empathy and gaslighting part comes in. When these issues arise, it’s important to really listen and try to imagine the world others have experienced that you were fortunate enough to have been blissfully unaware of. To empathize means to try and understand another persons experience – for some people this is going to be easier than for others. Regardless, you must make a sincere effort.

But whatever you do, don’t deny another persons experience – this is called gaslighting, and it is a common tool used for oppression. You cannot deny how another person feels or experiences life, to do so is to not only deny their reality, it is, in fact, essentially denying their very existence. This act of denying anything unpleasant is unfortunately endemic to white culture, and is definitely a significant part of the problem – after all, you can’t fix something that you won’t even acknowledge is broken.

So what is the answer here? Unfortunately I don’t have any answers, except to simply try and be a good person on a micro level. I know it sounds banal, but it’s the best I’ve got.

Let’s just be respectful, try to keep an open mind, and treat everyone you come contact with with some degree of compassion. Oh, and BTW – don’t take everything so personally.

This isn’t about you.

Neurons melted down like a burnt and frayed piece of wire. Too much input without the proper resources for processing.

It seemed like a pretty innocent request at the time – it was asked by someone I have worked with for almost 10 years, someone I trust and feel close to in the sense that we have worked together intimately in a demanding and stressful environment.

Do you have hearing loss?

I immediately thought WTF! and my heart sank – I looked down and said Why do you ask? She answered Because everyone (I’m paraphrasing here) has noticed but they’re afraid to say anything to you about it…

I have known I’ve suffered some hearing damage for a long time, but it’s an insidious thing. Here’s why: Because our brains are capable of “filling in the holes” of our perceptions of the world we live in, it will quite literally do just that. Indeed, if you have ever studied how our brains interpret what our eyes “see,” you will understand what I mean. Our minds construct a visual representation of our world that is only pertinent to each of us – neurological perception is a highly individualized and variable thing. This is true for all of our senses.

Hearing is no different. Imagine you have spent your whole life listening intently to sound because you are a musician – within a relatively short amount of time (say, 10 years or less), you will have built up a very detailed database of “sound perception,” that is, your brain will have built a catalog of how things should optimally sound based on your preferences.

Now imagine that slowly, over decades perhaps, you begin to lose your hearing acuity. Your brain will happily slowly “fill in the gaps” to compensate for any deficiencies, making it seem as though nothing is wrong. But eventually, reality will bring the whole illusion crashing down.

In my case, it was this simple question.

So yeah, I’m a bit bewildered and struggling with what to do next. It’s a real mindfuck.

I’m not going to complain.

I’m not going to complain.

I’m not going to complain.

Sigh…

I’m not going to complain.