Blog Posts

redemption

I think one of the most dangerous things you can be right now is a lonely GenX’er. Over the past few years, sprinkled evenly between the apocalyptic number of boomer-aged celebrity deaths has been an even match of 40 & 50 something’s taking their own lives. It happens so often that nobody asks how anyone dies anymore, we all just assume that another casualty of depression, anxiety, and loneliness sat in our midst without our knowledge.

I can’t speak to the state of mind of someone toeing up to the ledge at any age, because I know what dark thoughts are and I know that they’re not all the same. What I can speak to, is that doling out guilt by way of telling everyone to ‘check in on your friends‘ can’t possibly work – this coming from someone who has always answered every question about my own well-being the exact same way: I’m fine – and when I do so, it’s either because I actually am fine, or I don’t want to get into what is not fine.

I’ve taken to planting seeds. Or trying to, anyway.

I try to speak openly about attainable notions in mixed company. I’ll often be caught dropping lines like “everyone is doing their best” because I truly believe they are. I’m always down for both light and heavy conversations about things like self-improvement, goals, and likely what is most important – redemption.

Redemption. The notion that it is entirely possible that I am not the same dipshit I was when I was 22 years old. The very idea of human advancement and growth is predicated on the idea that we can not only do better, but that we can absolve ourselves of our wrongdoings.

I won’t pretend that the vultures don’t gather, rubbing their talons together at the prospect of squeezing money from every searcher among us, because that’s a real thing and a real concern.

However, the notion of meeting someone on a spiritual level and being of service – just humans being human to each other – can turn things for anyone. No church or holy book required, and not just checking in on people, but actually seeing them – looking them in the eye – and relating to them on a spiritual level that goes beyond stylistic choices, upbringing, body fat percentage, musical taste, or any other judgement that can be passed.

I used to think and say “everyone’s just waiting for their turn to talk” but the truth is that they’re waiting to be heard, and seen, and respected – which, if we’re being honest, respect is a suitable substitute for love, and love is what we really need.

All this from a borderline-reclusive introvert.
I know, I know… but there’s redemption for me, too.

For what it’s worth, I’m not posting this in an emotional response to the Christmas season, or New Years, or any of that, so I hope this isn’t lost in the holiday well-wishing shuffle. I actually wrote this at the beginning of November.

Much love.

always searching

With each passing day, it becomes more clear to me that the 40-year game of addiction whack-a-mole I’ve been playing isn’t about substance at all so much as it’s about pacification. Pacification. I almost wrote ‘nurturing’ in place of that word, but it would have been in error.

I’ve not known what I needed or how to go about getting it so I’ve put a metaphorical soother in my mouth to hold back any crying I might have done (but let’s face it, crying still happened) in some half-hearted attempt to appear strong or attractive or badass, all of which worked. For a while, anyway. If these things didn’t work, then we wouldn’t use them as coping mechanisms.

That’s why drugs, sex, money, alcohol, gambling, food, jumping out of airplanes, and social media are such a problem – they work and they are powerful… that is, they work until they don’t, in which case not only do you have to go back to solving the problem and dealing with your newfound (powerful) addiction, which is hard – much easier to spin the ‘wheel of misfortune’ and find something else to; yes, pacify.

That’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.

That’s also why junkies & fuck-ups get really into Christianity, or body building, or 12-step programs, or workaholism, or become gym rats and health freaks who find themselves running low on bare skin with which to tattoo something meaningful – this is feeling self referential now, I’d better watch it – and these things will work, too, especially if you don’t want to do the work. Nobody is going to go up to a well dressed man in a $700 suit driving an Acura and tell him he’s clearly got a problem, nor does an Olympic gold medal bring about an intervention, because these things are great achievements… as though great achievements and successes couldn’t be the result of an addiction, or at very least a fixation.

Don’t misread me, though – I’m not saying that the desire to be successful or the desire to be the best at something is unhealthy. Goals are healthy. Achieving them is fantastic. However, these accolades can serve to mask a deeper problem… such as Elon Musk’s fixation on putting people on Mars as an effort to escape his relationship with his own father, or Donald Trump’s fraudulent aspirations for success, for the same reason.

I couldn’t blatantly say something like that anymore than I could say that everyone who does intermittent fasting has an eating disorder. It’s simply not true, though intermittent fasting is an excellent way to mask an eating disorder.

I’ve been told somewhere along the path that I should not become too good at the wrong thing, because the success will keep me unhappy for the rest of my life. As much as I have done that in my professional life, it means something different now.

Now, I’m gonna keep running, and keep playing music, and keep working on cars, and keep getting tattoos, because… fuck you I won’t do what you tell me – possibly forever – but these things have to; for me, anyway, operate in conjunction with doing the brain work, and the soul work, as well as the body work.

It all has to be in alignment or the machine doesn’t run right.

new growth

I have a monstera plant in my home, and allow me to assure you beyond any doubt that it has lived up to it’s name in the 8 months it has dominated our living room. The growth of it’s dominion over our front room was slow, anarchistic and seemingly uncalculated until one day I found myself with a bit of a stiff neck that I can only attribute to my passive attempt at seeing the TV; first around, then through, it’s overt foliage. It’s menace seemed even more obvious when we moved it to an empty and freshly painted room only to discover that it required a quarter of the space in the room.

When it eventually suited me, I found some information online regarding how to prune and take proper care of this plant and was reminded of several things I already knew about plants – the first of which is that there is a specific way to do it. This; I knew. This is why I didn’t just dive in unlearned. The second: that strength and new growth is possible through pruning, sculpting, and when required – bracing.

The aptly named; and to my surprise, toxic, semblance of vine, tree, and massive leaf, needed all three aspects of pruning, so adhering to the guidance of the hostess of the YouTube channel ‘fun with plants and cats’ I cut back the most obviously superfluous 25-30% and propped it’s main stalk up with the strongest bamboo stake in the garden shed before commenting to myself that as though the framework for growth is in place, it’s not where I’d like it to be just yet.

For starters, it’s amazing that the cumulative 12 minutes of time I’ve invested (7 of which were spent watching a video) has led to an expectation of performance based on my investment. It’s also interesting that I began to relate to it, and even as I write this the parallels between the structure and framework I’ve given it and the structure and framework I am giving myself make for easy comparison.

This is the strongest and most ridiculous plant in the house, and thus it takes up a lot of attention. It is loud and boisterous, and at times obnoxious – but it is also the most obviously in-need of assistance, guidance, and nurturing of all of it’s leafy brothers and sisters here. It is beautifully vulnerable but it is not weak.

Perhaps I could stand to be a bit more vulnerable as well.

when it gets dark

First, a brief synopsis.
Then, analysis.

The book of Job is a book of the bible, that for all intents & purposes is sorta just wedged in there. We’re given no real parameters for the setting. All we know is that Where Job lives, in Uz, is far away from Israel, but we’re given no context of time, which seems intentional. The story itself starts with the introduction of the character: Job. He’s ultimately a good dude and is a righteous follower of God… and God says so. In God’s court; however, The Satan or The Accuser contests this and tells God that Job is only a devout follower because he’s prosperous, and that if Job’s prosperity were removed that he would curse God… and inexplicably, God plays this game and allows The Satan to torment Job.

This is where the record scratches off the turntable for most people. Why would God go along with this? Well, spoiler-alert – that question never gets answered. The book gets into more about whether or not God is just and fair. The assumption made by the humans (again, Job, a non-Israelite, and his non-Israelite friends) is that God works the same as most of our modern assumptions about Karma might work: Do good things, get good things / do bad things, bad things happen.

This means that Job, who is a good dude as the book states, is being unjustly punished – meaning that either God is not fair, and unjust – or that his punishment is not from God at all. Job’s friends disagree, and assume that Job has sinned against God, and even start to speculate how.

Another friend comes along and provides a third alternative explanation: God uses suffering to teach and build character. But – Job is choked and starts questioning God… and God shows up.

God makes clear the many unfathomable moving parts of the universe he’s created, not stopping short of the Leviathan and the Behemoth, (both of which are already namesakes for metal bands) in order to show Job the real dark stuff that still has purpose and beauty. Eventually Job apologizes, they reconcile, and Job is made more-than whole for his trials.

It’s not a feel-good story.

I came across this story through unconventional means, I suppose… through recovery channels, but being raised a church kid means I’d heard of the book of Job the same way I’d heard of all sorts of books of the bible that I hadn’t read. Through these channels I’d also learned of a series of drawings by William Blake that outline the brooding darkness of the Leviathan and Behemoth as he understood them to be. They are dark and brooding, of course, but not shocking in the way they would have been when they were new, like so many installments of Friday The 13th movies that gave kids nightmares in the 80’s and have become appropriate Saturday morning viewing for kids by today’s standards.

Upon analysis; however, Job and God look the same in these drawings. I naturally concluded that Job was created in God’s image, and that God is inside him as we’re told when we’re young.

However, if God is within us and God has created all these dark entities that we don’t understand then me must also conclude that the dark parts of ourselves that we stumble across from time to time are NOT ONLY there by design, but that they have purpose and function beyond our own understanding.

This might not help you to understand yourself at all, but it helps me to understand the many sides that form me. We all have a capacity for darkness but that capacity for darkness must then also be God’s… and that I am not waiting for God to save me so much as I am conjuring the power to save myself, because God’s power is also mine. I have had a moral compass within me all along, and what I needed to know is that when I struggle with loss or anger, that God holds on to the pain until I can carry it myself. It’s part of an internal process for anyone who’s ever said “it just hasn’t hit me yet” when coping with the shock of tragedy, for example.

In other words: I am the hero I am waiting for.

To go one further, I could also conclude that since these things are within me, that when I hear something that resonates with me and stays with me, allowing me to change or adapt, that this is either the voice of God speaking to me, or an echo of the voice of God, keeping me on my path.

God talk turns a lot of people off and I am sensitive to that. It turns me off sometimes, too, but if you read this far then I thank you. That said, I don’t really write this for anyone’s approval, and for all I know I’m dead-wrong about a lot of things.

I’m just working my way through.
Same as you.

bracing for festivity

“What I know of my own behavior as a consumer is that it has developed it’s own selfish tendencies, partly as a defense mechanism and partly as an unwitting and occasionally problematic habit, so it’s not hard for me to confirm that, yes – my blind willingness to stay home and eat brownies on the couch rather than put on a nice sweater and exchange pleasantries…”

As we encroach on the season of giving (used here in a fit of irony and humor as we’re all quite aware that this season of giving has been co-opted and rebranded as “shopping season” as though there was a season that wasn’t predicated on spending money), I can already feeling myself recoiling into my couch, here in my safe domicile where I am protected by warm slippers, and even warmer dog, and even warmer vegan baking.

Why am I so reluctant? I may blame the cold, and the cold may have earned it’s fair share of blame, but I know at my core that I am a social creature by nature. And if it is by nature that I am social then it should come naturally as the term indicates, so again I ask myself (in greater analytical detail): what unnatural urge has beset me that I am so keen to draw the shades and hide from the outside world? It’s only the 25th of November and I am already feeling the post-holiday malaise.

Let’s excavate. What I know of my own behavior as a consumer is that I’ve developed selfish tendencies, partly as a defense mechanism and partly as a coping mechanism, I’m sure, so it’s not hard for me to confirm that, yes – my blind willingness to stay home and eat brownies on the couch rather than put on a nice sweater and exchange pleasantries with other people in the spirit of the season, where I will permit myself to talk about myself, but not too much, and then allow someone else to talk about themselves – careful not to interrupt, or change the subject back to something I find more interesting.

That sounds like a lot of work. Even my vague and figurative explanation of what might transpire is a bit cynical in nature, which reinforces my desire to hide.

The truth; however, is that I am resistant to engage with people.
Why?
Because people exhaust me.
Why?
Because people only want to talk about themselves.
Why is that a problem?
Because I want to talk about me.
Why?
So that I can control the narrative about myself.
…
So that they don’t draw their own conclusions.
…
Because I want to be accepted.
And loved.

That’s right – There’s a strong likelihood that I don’t want to go socialize because I want to be accepted. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it?
This is starting to sound like an exhausted parent telling a child why we can’t go out for ice cream: “We don’t have to go out to be accepted and loved, we have acceptance and love at home.“

So we’re back to square one, reframing the same question in more and more critical ways to point out our own unwillingness to change: Is my resistance really me, or is it some mish mash of hormones and laziness enabling me to embrace my ill-informed preference? Knowing that tomorrow I’ll feel completely left out, especially after I log in to Instagram and see the myriad of photos of people I know enjoying a function I opted out of and not really being consoled by the minor dopamine hit that I might get from the half-dozen likes I got on the picture of my dog I might post instead.

It’s happened before. I’ve quit jobs, bands, and clubs in the past and then promptly; as if on cue, felt left out as though the situation wasn’t of my own design.

I ought to go put that sweater on and drag a brush across my head.
God forbid I accidentally connect with someone.

laughable

Certain recent global pandemics that shall remain nameless shook things up a lot. If an understatement exists, surely it was the one I just made.

Mixed into the barrage of things we all had to roll with whether we liked it or not; were a couple things that a good number of people I’ve talked to recently actually miss about the inappropriately termed ‘lock-down’ time. The most consistently cited was the slower pace of daily life.

<sarcasm> y’think??? </sarcasm>

I’ll start by quickly assessing and then pushing aside the fact that it wasn’t actually the slower pace of the pandemic that appealed to us, but rather that the break-neck speed of e-commerce and the never-sleeping algorithm forever parting us with our money in exchange for temporary amusements is not a pace that the human body was ever designed to endure, nor was our collectively exhausted brain – and now that the aforementioned break-neck speed has resumed, a great number of people are resounding in wonderful rebellious chorus: fuck this.

I don’t remember the exact point at which I stumbled across a meme informing me that “it’s ok to stop mainlining cable news” and my respect for meme-culture, if that is indeed a thing, shifted.

Between my conscious decision to stop watching new news; having determined that anything truly important will be brought to my attention either directly or indirectly, and the more recent advent of news outlets being forbidden from posting directly to Facebook (because Facebook refused to pay them for their stories being shared… which is another fun discussion for another day), I am happy to say that the fear machine, in my world, has been cut off at the knees.

As a member of the adult, caucasian male demographic in North America in 2023, and a fervent self-analyzer, I can assure you that most of our decision making is based in one thing: Fear. It’s for this reason that I’m elated to have these reach of these news outlets curtailed significantly, even if it means they might sink to some desperate depths in order to retain Canadian readership.

My observation is that in order to unite any number of people is through connection on a common emotional level. It’s spiritual in nature, because it’s subtle and personal. On a small and positive scale, it’s what unites young couples – the sharing of stories and laughing together; laughing of course being one of the few expressions of self that is socially acceptable. The sharing of tears has a similar effect, but it more acceptable in settings such as bible studies and addiction recovery meetings, or occasionally in a movie theatre where Schindler’s List of some similarly heartbreaking film is being watched, as it’s heartbreak that crosses all personal boundaries. The imagination is triggered in most cases and a relatable experience may come to mind, cascading the emotion – which is why when you’re laughing, the cracking of another joke can make you laugh harder, even if it wasn’t as funny. A shared sadness can have a similar effect, but generally speaking people find these feelings uncomfortable, and avoid these scenarios.

The same emotional connection is made when a feeling of fear is shared, except without the obvious jubilation that a shared laugh brings about. Fear is more humbling and subduing because of it’s negative nature, so when fear is broadcast and shared, it has a sweeping effect as it; too, triggers the imagination and causes a cascade of negative emotion. What is even more problematic about fear is that we as humans tend to fixate on it.

I’ve heard this described as an evolutionary trait, wherein once upon a time, our primitive ancestors might be foraging for food miss something helpful and nourishing such as a fruit tree because they were more concerned with the presence of snakes lurking in the grass. Seeing the snake would be more important to survival than eating an apple or a pear in that moment, so attention to the negative is crucial in times of stress for this generation of ancestors. Eons later, we live under constant stress and anxiety to the point of physical fatigue… but this age-old trait is apparently why we have such trouble looking away from car accidents, too.

So, to have the presence of this fear reduced dramatically will ideally make more room for the sharing of laughter and tears, and connecting with each other on an emotional and spiritual level – the kind of connection we were truly missing through the pandemic (and I would argue much further back than that). Meaningful connection through the sharing of stories, and the spoken word is absolutely crucial to our existence as a species and as a group of individuals, because we quite honestly share more commonality than difference.

It’s fear that serves to categorize and label us. Not love.

I recently drove between opposing sides of an issue – a protest and a counter-protest, held on opposite sides of the street on my route to work. It was big, and people were still just arriving at the time I was passing through. Upon exiting the protest/counter-protest gauntlet, I came to witness a couple walking up to a cross-walk wearing traditional religious garb small-talking with a couple of; and I use the term lovingly, blue-haired freaks. It was fairly clear that both couplets were destined for opposite sides of the street to address the issue at hand, but they appeared to be walking together, and being cordial and polite despite the impending discord.

It made me think about both sides of the issue, and how quickly political and societal issues would be resolved if each side saw the other side for who they are: people… doing their best.

be better, do better

If I want to learn a skill, whatever it may be – Yoga, Bass Guitar, Brazilian Jujitsu, whatever you like – the methodology of improvement is almost mathematic:
Desire to learn + Knowledgeable Instructor + Time = Improvement
There are other factors such as inspiration and discipline, of course, but the reality of the situation is that you can do whatever you want. It’s not until we start applying labels to things that we start building a resistance movement against our own progress, and start telling ourselves that we’re too tall, too short, too fat, too slow, and so forth, that we start talking ourselves out things.

My favorite; and by favorite I mean least favorite, is “it’s hard.”
Of course it’s hard.
Anything worth doing is hard, and is worth doing well. Once we truly embrace that truth, we can begin to understand that we’re probably not going to master a skill immediately after starting. But can your ego handle it?

Although there’s a need to ‘toughen up’ in regards to these things, it should be stated that we should be toughening up toward our own internal resistance and we often toughen up to everything except for that resistance. If anything we punish ourselves for trying in the first place, when it’s through trial and error that we really learn the ropes of what we’re doing, but love and kindness are the only things that can permeate the thick veneer that protects the inner child. As a child; or as a childish man, I tend to reject this notion in an effort to protect the ego.

Adversity breeds character.
Mood follows action.

So; too, are matters of the mind, heart & soul.
It’s not a stretch to say that we’re all doing our best. Our ego may take issue with the level at which others are handling things, but we may never rise to the same level as others because our standards are as different as our levels of pain. So yes, we are all doing our best – and as I reconcile that with whatever heated emotion I might be feeling at any given time, there comes a different level of respect and tolerance for those around us.

So while we’re taking it easy on ourselves, we should also take it easy on each other. When the labels we use to divide each other (and ourselves) get stripped away, and there is no ‘too fat’ or ‘too thin’ or ‘too tall’ or any number of other expletives we’ve come up with to label one another, we might actually start to see ourselves in each other.

What I’m talking about is spiritual connection.
Again, I believe we feel the need ‘toughen up’ because it is in us to do so, but we toughen up towards each other when we should be toughening up to our own ego… to our resistance to vulnerability. Because vulnerability is hard.

And again… Of course it’s hard.
Anything worth doing is hard, and is worth doing well.
Once we truly embrace that truth, we can begin to understand that we’re probably not going to master a skill immediately after starting. But can your ego handle it?