Worst Case Scenario

I've been trying to face down this tendency I have (and I think it's either genetic or something I've learned from a very young age) to always see the cost or potential for loss in any situation, rather than focusing on the opportunity. Right now, I want to fight it with some inspiration. There's a really nice compilation at http://www.quotegarden.com/risk.html, but I'll pull a few of my favorites at the moment:

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. - Soren Kierkegaard

A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for. - John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves. - Andre Gide

Split

Try as we will, we cannot be both participant and observer at the same time without splitting ourselves.

- Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

I just read this quote from today's passage in Nepo's book (which I first encountered during a session with my former therapist in which she had me read an excerpt that reminded her of me). And it rings true, because I spend so much time thinking and analyzing that I can often find myself outside of the action rather than in the moment. I know that's not a totally new idea from me, because it's a theme I've been finding in recent months. But the way Nepo frames it as splitting ourselves, as not being totally invested in what we're doing if we're trying to look at it from the outside, objectively, resonates. Maybe it's that this idea of living in the moment is taking so long to sink in for me, and when I get stuck in my head it does, in fact, feel like I'm not really living.

Another thing that's come to my attention in the last day or so is that I have a hard time maintaining a consistent level of happiness (even when I haven't had a rough year), and the phrase "chronic low-grade depression" has been repeated a couple of times in conversation about this. So I Googled this exact phrase to find out if it is actually a recognized phenomenon and if so, whether I might be experiencing it. It turns out that there is a form of clinical depression called dysthymia, which basically consists of mild symptoms of depression sustained over a long period (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dysthymia/DS01111). I don't know if I would actually qualify for a diagnosis, but I can relate to at least some of what is said. One thing that was mentioned in one description I read was that people with this kind of condition often function quite normally most of the time (so it may not be evident that they are depressed because it's quite possible to recall times when they seemed happy). And another thing that stuck out was that people with the condition often respond well to knowing they have an impact and mean something in the lives of the people they know. Both of these apply to me -- more than one person close to me has said, in the face of me expressing a sense of ongoing unhappiness or dissatisfaction, that they can remember me being happy at very specific times. And now, for instance, I am not unhappy. It's just the balance of happy time vs. unhappy time that seems to be off at times, and I often pass happy times with some level of detachment from them rather than really feeling the joy that they bring and experiencing an emotional connection with someone else.

Perhaps more troubling than some of my other recent posts, and with no real conclusion or happy ending, but it's what is on my mind. And I feel good about having some realization of my own problems, because it's only through self awareness that I'm able to improve. I guess that's all for tonight...

(Untitled)

Relationships aren't goals.

It's not that relationships have nothing to do with goals -- we can have goals within our relationships, but relationships at their core are not aimed toward achievement. I think this contributes to the difficulty I have understanding why on earth they happen and how they hold together over time. Even relationships with long term promise and commitment can really only exist in the present, when the people in the relationship are, well, relating. And because I'm so goal oriented and really get a buzz from learning new things, I have a difficult time sustaining attention and engagement with now. I don't notice the joy in the increasingly familiar, the deeper view of an enduring and repeating pattern, because I am anticipating the broadening of my experience.

I'd like to appreciate the unspectacular more that I do now, partly because I want to be in a relationship that lasts through the unspectacular moments (which, to me, are often worse than conflict), partly because I think there's wisdom in improving our eyes to better see things in our immediate vicinity and experience each moment with awareness. I want contentment without settling, and I think the path toward that isn't so much onward and upward as it is inward.

Holding on

I'm in a state of mind that I wish I could hold onto -- calm, unworried, optimistic, happy. The kind of mood that comes after a great conversation over dinner and a nice walk home in the unseasonably warm weather on shiny wet sidewalks that are reflecting lights from stores, houses, and streetlights.

But I know that trying to hold onto this mood is futile. This moment is now, and this is when I get to enjoy it. It's when we stop to think, "I just want to find a way to keep this, to hold onto it", that it vanishes. We can't hoard life. Very frustrating for those of us who want some control and assurance.

This line of thought made me think of the verse (and it turns out that it's actually many verses, repeated throughout the gospels), "Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it" (Luke 17:33). This is said with reference to the story of Lot's wife, who looked back on the life she was leaving behind and as a result was doomed. Perhaps a bit of a creepy story, but the idea that it's wrong for us to live looking back as what we've had up to now makes for an important lesson. I spend so much time planning and analyzing that I forget to enjoy the moment.

So tonight, I'm going to enjoy this, knowing that the moment won't last long but it's all I have right now, and that's a lot to be grateful for.

Hard to Relate

I've been trying to gather into coherent thoughts some of the truths I've been experiencing and trying to learn lately. All the connections between ideas and thoughts are so weblike that I have difficulty getting started on a blog, because there is not really a starting point or a finishing point. Nonetheless, here goes...

Lately I can feel a difference in the way I think about and interact with people and the world around me, and I think it's a sort of maturing process. I found this nice quote that pretty nicely fits how I think it's been going for me:

The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.

- Alden Nowlan

At least for me, perfectionism and the accompanying attempts to feel in control of circumstances have been a hindrance to being a fully functional adult. It's been very difficult for me to start letting go of the parameters I'd set for myself and the world. It's extraordinarily hard for me to acknowledge that life is a process, and we can't attain our goals without some new goal or need popping up to replace them. It's a struggle for me to enjoy a journey to God-knows-where. Because I'm a bit of a control freak, and I am just starting to forgive myself for my imperfection and my imperfectibility. A few days ago, when I was having an especially hard time with this, a former teacher of mine posted this really helpful quote as his facebook status:

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

- Lao Tzu

Another helpful thing that I discovered recently (but admittedly haven't explored much yet) is the Japanese worldview and aesthetic of wabi-sabi. According to Wikipedia, "[Wabi Sabi] is sometimes described as one of beauty that is 'imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.'" This really stuck with me:

[Wabi-sabi] nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect.

- Richard R. Powell

I really love the idea of beauty in the imperfect, but it's hard for me to get my brain into that track. At this point, there seem to be a couple of options to approach life. In the face of inevitable imperfections, we can learn to accept them and settle for what we can actually attain (and maybe even appreciate them a la wabi-sabi); or we can fight them and work toward change and progress. I think a balance of both is necessary. To live right now and be happy, we need to be at peace with the world and with who we are and enjoy with gratitude all the great experiences and things that we are able to. But to sort through it all and come out with some sense of meaningful narrative, we have to be mindful of what we can do to impact reality and take action to change things that we want to change, keeping in mind that it's a lifelong process and we're not guaranteed anything -- we're never going to finally sort it all out, at least in this life. I can know in my mind that peace doesn't come so much from circumstances as from outlook, but it's a lot of work to maintain a can-do outlook when I'm feeling such uncertainty. I'm trying to find happiness in the process.

I think relationships are the key to learning happiness in the process. I tend to be goal-oriented rather than people-oriented, which means I seek a lot of my fulfillment through personal achievement rather than interpersonal relationship-building. This is heavily tied to the fact that my sense of self has really rested on what I can do and how competent I am, rather than who I am in relationship to other people. Do I need to mention that this has been a major problem for me? I've set myself up to feel like I'm never quite as good as I'd like to be, and I end up being critical of myself and others rather than seeking mutual support and understanding. It's very self-isolating. And it's sort of a hard thing for me to grasp, but this seems to capture the truth of the matter well:

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

- Sam Keen

I think the most appealing religions and philosophies acknowledge imperfection, and however they explain its source, they tend to offer solutions that connect us to community. Healthy functioning churches are more about sharing experiences and support than about bringing people in line with a rigidly delineated path of righteousness. Even very individualized practices like yoga and meditation seek to help us realize our true selves and put us back in connection with a shared reality. We really can't go it alone (if we try, we're deceiving ourselves), and since independence is my natural tendency, I know that I have a lot of learning ahead of me when it comes to community and relationships.