Once the delusion of changing the world recedes and we are faced with the prospect of controlling the one domain we can influence - ourselves, the equation changes and all the helplessness and frustration one might have struggled with while strategizing about changing the world become victories and accomplishments · what a happy thought. So too grows the capacity to care, for there is no more delusion about being a source of joy or misery for another, rather you are sharing the mystery of life and simply a witness to another’s breath. This is not to say there is not much to be gained by listening carefully to the stories of others and lending aid where possible, but only as a fellow wanderer occupying this vale of tears for a moment in eternity.
Nor is it necessary to travel hither and yon to find what you always carry within you - the thump, thump, thump of your heart muscle as it oxygenates the cells of your body with its steadfast rhythm regardless of where you stand or what you seek. If that ain’t a miracle, i don’t think they exist. Realizing this i cannot imagine myself every being friendless or lonely again. Not one of my wives was as faithful as my heart has been, though they protested to the contrary. As always, i have to assume full responsibility for that charade, and am nearly certain each was only attempting to reassure me about what i must have ceaselessly expressed a hunger for - that i was loved; it was only much later that i learned that i would never be loved until i found love for myself deeply buried under the scars of socialization and the imaginary specter of impossible approval.
The more that i tried to understand another, the more i realized i can never know what someone wishes to obscure. The best i can do is to witness behavior and reflect that observation back as neutrally as possible without condemnation or judgement - i’m not there yet, but i’m getting closer. I’ve learned to accept that anger inside of another does not translate into my behavior, good or bad but rather a choice that person makes and for which must remain responsible. It is likewise for my own actions; if i veer from someone, i owe it to myself to understand what it is about that person from which i clench my heart closed, and to know that i am not being destructive through dishonest denial, or whether the person i veer from is actually dangerous or just unintentionally obtuse.
In which case, we may have much in common - a different kind of danger · “Only your friends can hurt you, your enemies can’t get that close.” - A. Nonymous · Blindness is its own delimiter, which may be a reason i can be seemingly cerebral, when i am in fact a very sensory individual; amongst an entire constellation of contradictions that comprise my conscious reality - don’t get me started about my unconscious fantasies, a shaggy beast i’d rather befriend than tame, if only because denying its existence only seems to strengthen its hold on my outward behavior and wreak havoc with interpersonal relations as well as “peace at heart,” whatever that might mean.
For my money it is the promised land where there is no air between behavior and affect; i do something because it pleases me and don’t do other things without questioning my prerogative or rueing the consequences - a life of action · as well as inaction without remorse. Mostly i wish to return to a state of love with all i encounter and be free of fictional burdens about things that are not of my making, while acting freely on my loving impulses with those i understand to be receptive to my peculiar aura, and tolerant of my aberrant inclinations understanding that they are not part of me for destructive purposes but rather as sensory tentacles to aid me in my distorted visual, aural and emotional capacities by providing vivid feedback that helps me to recognize subtleties of human interaction that others with more acute faculties would experience normally - whatever the fuck that means.
jts 07/01/2021
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