I am probably repeating myself but the message has to come across. Even if I do I will say it slightly different this time. As the King Crimson song says, I repeat myself when under stress. Am I under stress? Well of course - but I am not alone. Gas is climbing to new record prices, the economy is going down the tubes - the chickens seem to be coming home to roost. I mean when one group of people lives and consumes most of the world's resources at the expense of another group, you would think at some point things are going to even out. Bob Marley has a song that goes "them belly full" and it seems that ours as a culture is beyond full - it is outright bloated. But actually - I am not here on a cultural rant, I am off on an individual one. Selfish - I know - but as I am constantly told I am selfish here at home, I guess that is the nature of the beast.
But that is what I really am focusing on - who am I? Who do you think I am? It probably depends on who you ask. My view of any question is there is no one answer. I think the key to accessing the truth is to not lock into one view point. The more ways you can look at it, the more you can see it from different angles, the more it all starts to make sense in its own weird way. There is a book called the "Naked Ape" that describes us as a bunch of animals shitting in the woods and here it might seem offensive for some to see humans that way. But of course - it's true - that what we are. But what about those that see us as civilized and more advanced than apes - well - I can kind of see that works too. What about the spiritual realm - where one sees life and humans as one extension of the realm of God - we are all God's children, God's creations - what about that? Well - why not that too. Science - sees us evolving from a bunch of lifeless particles, to fish, to apes, to humans - we are all in a laboratory in some kind of biological experiment. Well hell - why not that too - why not all of it? Why not look at it from as many dimensions as angles as possible - and why the absolute need to zero in on one as the right way - so that it has to be a war between evolution and religion, or right and wrong. The author of Letter to a Christian Nation boldly proclaims - one of us is right and of us is wrong. The way I see it the only thing that is wrong is the concept of wrong to begin with - kind of along the lines of the only thing to fear is fear itself.
So that goes back to who am I and how you see me. Well let's start with the psychotherapist perspective. Anyone who reads this knows the story, but I'll say it again. My mother was a very troubled woman. I have often seen her as almost downright evil, but I think troubled is a better way of looking at it. I don't sit there fuming in my righteous anger that way. I think she could easily have been thrown in a mental hospital for life if someone ever observed her, but like many of us - including myself to a degree - we learn to operate within the parameters of society and play the game enough so we are left alone, even if we are out of our minds. She hated herself but somehow willed herself through Harvard just long enough to work a couple years and then fall into the sexist role of mother and housewife, which she resented on one level but welcomed at another. She replaced her screaming father with my screaming father and all appeared to be status quo again. Who better then to take out all that rage, blame, aggression and hostility on then her own children - and I was at the brunt of it - like all of us were. I don't know how the others dealt with it, but I know how I did. Sure she knew how to touch every point of pain and hurt like a master surgeon - it was frightening how well she knew me - but since I was her son and a lot like her, it wasn't too surprising either. But as she went on for minutes, hours, timeless eternities of these attacks I believe I had to distance myself from it to certain degree as a matter of self-preservation, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to deal with it. So that's what I did - just like in a dream where it seems like someone wants to hurt or kill you and you defend yourself by saying it isn't really happening - that's what I must have done. And the only reason I know this is that is what I still continue to do. It just isn't really happening - freeze frame - there I am - it's all a dream.
I'll never really know how I got from there to here. Yes there was the flirtation with death - I didn't succeed - it was not my karma too - I guess if that was my time to go I would have - but I didn't. Somewhere along the way I found - I know this sounds cheesy - but I found - for lack of better word - God. I became born again. Not a born again Christian - although I don't have the innate Jewish hostility towards Christianity that I once did. I just kind of look at religion the same way I stated before - once one says this way is right and that way is wrong, I am done with it. Because all of it is right as far as I am concerned. So there is no right answer. Was Christ chosen - he must have been - assuming he really existed - because look at the impact he had on humanity. Was he the son of God - of course he was - just like I am - just like you are - just like "I am he as you are me and we are all together" - I don't like to zero in on one way - you know "God's too big for just one religion". I would like to say that I am completely solid in my faith - but I'd be lying. It is the old heart and mind battle - there is doubt in my mind - after all - I don't want to exclude atheism either. I really don't want to exclude anything. It is all real - God - atheism - science - it all makes sense - even if it is contradictory at the same time. But for me it is not a matter of God being a proven real entity to protect me and give me everlasting life - I would love that to be the case, although I haven't honestly entirely bought into that notion of God - as much as I feel a God like presence in my life which has saved me from complete despair and hopelessness - the two forces of my childhood - and brought me to the point where life seems to be something I can handle now. To all the skeptics out there who want to see this as just a creation in my mind to make myself better - go ahead - because I am not going to rule that out either. I am not going to try to explain it - all I know is it is something I feel in my heart and leave it at that. It has come out through music - through all the groups I loved as a kid - the Beatles, Doors, Elton John, Talking Heads, Led Zeppelin - all the tons of Grateful Dead and Phish shows I saw, and now my own songs and singing. That has been my doorway to "God" along with my own intuition and the thoughts that pop up in my head from time to time that feel like they are coming from somewhere else.
So back to who I am now - who I am depends on how you either see me or how I see myself. My wife when she is up late with my daughter who is having a fear attack will see Sara as having something wrong with her, see her as an emotional cripple. And maybe it's true - at least on one level. Then again maybe I am an emotional cripple too - am I? Well - look at me. Fear and depression still are very strong forces in my life. They haven't just gone away. My mother's haunting venomous words will be with me forever. As the same emotional cripple I once came to her desperately needing love and I experienced horribly cruel rejection instead. And that is what I will continue to experience. That is what I know. In my intimate relationships, after the great sex and passionate kissing come to an inevitable end, then that is what I will gravitate to. I can long for love somewhere else - a love with great sex and passion, but I will seek what I am familiar with. So again - here I am - in my song I say there is nowhere else to go - because there isn't. You can't get away from yourself. So I seem to play different roles in my life without even trying. There is the goody two shoes nice guy role. I am good at that. I got good grades, knew how to please the teachers. In my job everyone loves me. I can do no wrong. I took over for a guy who was fucking up left and right, who was pissing off everyone in and outside of the company, and now here I am just doing what I do and everyone talks of me so adoringly. And to a certain extent I am not even trying - I am just doing what comes natural - being the good guy. I go to someone's home, play the nice guy, write them a check - they think what a nice guy - and I get a compliment and everyone's happy. I do what I do - play the nice caring guy and everyone is thrilled.
And then at home there is the opposite extreme. I can't do anything right here. No matter what I do, whether I am trying or not trying, I am going to screw it up. My role here is to play distant father. I don't try to play it, but that role was assigned to me by my wife, and of course I had a distant father too, so it all fits perfectly. Sara fell off her bike yesterday - and there it is - yelling - crying - too much reality. If my wife wasn't there I would try to comfort her, but all I would hear is I want Mama. I couldn't say anything or do anything to make it better if Mama wasn't there. In this case Mama was there doing her thing and I let it be that. I didn't do anything. I froze - stepped back - and let it take care of itself. Today without warning I was told by my wife how upsetting that was to her that I wasn't doing anything. But I do stuff like that constantly to upset her. I am the distant father - at least that role is assigned to me by her. It doesn't matter if I try to convince her that I love my daughter, that she means everything to me - because that is my role in her mind and nothing can change that - which in turn - leads to the rejection from my mother - transferred now to Sara's mother - that I am so comfortable with. Everyone plays their roles perfectly. I was chosen by my wife as distant father - which is why she married me - and I chose her as rejecting mother and we are all doing a great job with our roles. It hurts - it sucks - it isn't fair - it's hell - it's all of those things - but on another level - it just is what it is.
So I live out the two roles - the one who can do nothing right and the one who can do nothing wrong - in the eyes of others- and I ask you - which one is me? And am I even here to begin with, as Syd Barrett says in one of his songs? I like the first one better, but I seem to have tons of experience living out the second. I could do no right in the eyes of my mother either. They are both very real to me. And I am struggling with it. It is hurtful - I still feel like crying - hey I am even watering up a little now. Why does it have to be this way? It just does - and that is part of the key to me - accepting it for what it is. Is karma a punishing cruel force or is it more of a life lesson? What do I get from this? Very simple - if I want love - I have to turn to the spirits for it. It is not going to come from a human member of the opposite sex. I might find the act of sex and love there, but in my experience at this point in life anyways I am just not meant to have it in the flesh as a real experience. Maybe some day. It happened with work - my job is much better than it used to be. Can it happen with physical love too? I don't know. Hasn't happened yet - at least not a "love I can hold on to" (Olabelle lyric). But in the spirit it is another matter entirely. Yeah - sounds like a ton of masturbation - which obviously is a part of it, but not really all of it. This is where God and the spirit come in - and why I like the Goddess concept so much - or Jung's anima - because you just go straight to the source - it's all a dream, it's all in my mind anyways - and when I am out there playing my guitar and feeling a joyous rapture with the mountains breathing, the trees making faces at me, and the birds and wind coming in at just the right time - I am tuning into the real force of what life is all about - and I seek love, merge with love, become love and then I can deal with everything else. I feel the presence of a woman - a spirit woman - and she provides nothing but love. I can deal with the cruel reality of marriage, of the neurotic forces that bring us together and realize that no matter how anyone sees me, it is all a lie. It is what I truly believe and see in my heart that matters. And in my heart, when I am out there feeling these things and writing these things, love is the answer to everything. So when I hear I am fucking up again, I know I am doing the best I can. I know no matter what I do a role is going to be assigned to me that I have no control over - whether it is a bad or good role. So what can I do? Just what I am doing now - no more or no less. I work out every day, play guitar every day - work hard every day because I need to do these things to believe in myself. I am not doing them for fun - I am doing this to survive - phyically and emotionally. Because if not for those things, I am going to go back to being suicidal again and I just can't afford to do that now. Too many are depending on me - even if they don't necessarily appreciate me, they are depending on me - and I need to come through for them. I need to survive. I have finally figured out how to do that.
Am I an emotional cripple? Sure - you want to call me that - go ahead and I won't argue with you - there is enough evidence to win that argument. Am I oversensitive, irritable, angry, depressed - do I worry too much - yeah of course. I am those things too. But I also know I am something else. I am a part of God, the Goddess, the great spirit - whatever you want to call him or her - the great mystery and magic that makes up all of the meaning in life - I am a part of it and when I tune into it I am right in the center of it - and then another's concept of me means nothing at all, no matter what it is. I have to work at it - sometimes it is right there, other times it is not and the forces of fear, hopelessness and sadness take over. No one ever said it was easy. And I can't tell you what will happen with my marriage, relationships - I just don't know. All I can do is my part and know I am doing the best I can at being me. You want to give me an F - go ahead - in my mind I am getting an A all the time - I am doing the best I can at being myself. Like I once said in a song, I can only be who I am. I have to keep on digging into that well of love every day - sometimes I hit gold, sometimes I come up short - but knowing it is there I keep on trying and sometimes I succeed and sometimes not but overall the fact I am still here fighting on speaks for itself. I have to do it because as the line from So Many Roads says - who else will?
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