Happiness as a consequence but not purpose?

Amen to this Values.com quote of the day, although I like to think--from my maybe limited experience--that real happiness from integrity, a less 'carefree' happiness but more whole and abiding, rather than the plasticky bubbliness or shallow exuberance so many seem to think of as happiness in our culture today, is sort of an inevitable consequence of a life so dedicated:

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882);
Philosopher, Poet, Author, Essayist

"Welcome to middle age."

While visiting with the doc today, I had described how my injuries occurred, and he commented on how intense group exercise classes can cause a lot of problems when the group sets the pace rather than each individual.  I told him I had thought I was ready to push myself as much as I was, but it strained me, then I pushed myself another way during my own workout a few days later, and bam: mess.  I said I'm usually pretty cautious and ease into things, but it had been a while since I'd worked those muscle groups.  Turns out he says I'm doing all the right exercises to strengthen the right areas, but I needed not to push myself so much so fast.  I said I had thought I'd been doing really well but just got a little ambitious and would have to be a bit more careful.  Then he said it.

"Welcome to middle age.  As you head into it..."

I kind of chuckled as I missed the rest of his sentence because my immediate, initial reaction was to think, "Ha ha, doc, yeah that's a funny jo--..."  Immediately following this interrupted thought was the next one which interrupted it: "Oh @#$%.  That's not a joke.  It's just true.  I'm heading into middle age."

Fortunately, I'm probably in as good a shape as I've ever been, and I feel good and am apparently still attractive enough to capture the attention of those to whom I'm attracted and energetic enough to play "war" with the kids and spry enough to keep up with twenty-somethings on hikes, so I've got that going for me.  And we're in a time when thirty is the new twenty, so that's fun.  But now I'm even beyond that age people need to comfort themselves about by saying it's the new twenty.  Hmph.

As I related this exchange with my doc to some friends tonight, one of them choked and said, about himself, "Crap, when did that happen?"  Ha ha, can't fight it, so I'll accept it.  Bring it on, middle age.  Let's have a ball.

Going peacefully to the unknown falls

I just had a dream which seems to have borrowed concepts from Meet Joe Black, Dead Like Me, What Dreams May Come, and the like.  It went something like this:

--------------------------------
I had known it was coming, for some reason.  My friend Clint was tasked with passing people from this life.  With a touch, usually unexpected, they slipped away.  With me, we knew it was coming.  The perks of having your friend be a reaper, I guess.  I knew the fast-approaching day and time.

As it approached, my preparations had nothing to do with having wild new experiences and eating amazing food.   I just spent low-key time with people I wanted to spend time with.  I wasn't to indicate I was 'leaving', so I pretty much carried on as normal.  I called people I hadn't spoken with in a while.  Most notably, I expressed affection more freely and let the little frictions go.  I hugged without the fear of how someone might interpret it or what awkwardness might result down the road.  I didn't care.  My road was taking me elsewhere.  I wanted them to know that I cared, and I needn't fear any pain I might feel by them abusing or disregarding that affection since I was leaving anyway.

The days leading up to the event are blurry.  I remember, though, the day.  I was in a classroom of some sort, college-style, and the class was dismissed with a bell.  My first instinct was to gather my things, pack my backpack in a hurry, and head off to whatever important things I had to attend to.  Except...this was the place.  I more casually packed up, walked calmly with my bag to the corner of the room by large bay windows, and set my backpack down on a couch there, where Clint and another friend were waiting for me solemnly but not somber.  I watch the dozens of people filter out, going on with their indefinite lives as I prepared to leave mine within the hour, and chatted with my friends as usual.  I suddenly thought, "Oh, I can't just leave my backpack laying around, I need to make sure my stuff's not going to be a burden to anyone, I..."  It dawned on me none of it mattered.  Someone would take care of all of that.  It was too late to concern myself with such details; now was a time to just...let it all go.  I looked at my backpack, my life in a bag, and I realized I'd never be picking it up again.  My mind went back to the images stored on the hard drive in the computer in that bag: a lifetime of snapshots I'd reviewed to refresh all of my memories, my life flashing before my eyes as it were.  There was no such thing as tying up all loose ends.  I accepted that.

I was admittedly a bit nervous.  My heart was racing just a bit, but as I looked out the window, I saw an expansive view of a richly salmon-hued sunset over a large and gorgeous body of water dotted by sailboats and lined across the far side by majestically rugged mountains and the near side by lush evergreen forest surrounding creamy beaches gently lapped by clear, turquoise water.  It was a conglomeration of all of the places which have 'taken me to my happy place', brought peace, and been home.  It reassured me that this was to be a peaceful process.  On the far right side from my vantage point, the large body of water spilled through an opening in the mountains into...I couldn't see what.  Was it a waterfall?  There was nothing visible beyond it.  "That's one tall waterfall," I thought.  I knew that's where I was going.  It was unknown.  It might be nowhere, nothing beyond that point but the ultimately peaceful stillness of not being.  It might be a step into another life, another sphere with more learning and relationships.  It might be whatever my consciousness made of it, a place of indescribable beauty and peace or fear and darkness depending on what my mind expected and how much I resisted leaving.  I didn't resist.  I would say I was resigned, but it felt more like humble acceptance and readiness to embark than mere resignation.

I said to my friends, "Sunset.  I've kind of imagined it would feel like this, a slowly setting sun as I depart into the unknown.  I guess it's set up that way to make it more peaceful for me, eh?  You know, some consider nightfall to be a new beginning, a dissolution of the garish light of day...or maybe that was me, too.  Ha, well it feels right."

As I gazed out the window, the din of departing students almost gone now, there were people I wished I could bring with me if I was going somewhere new.  There were relationships I wished had not ended or become strained.  There were people I had wanted to call but didn't because my only explanation would have been, "I'm dying," and I wasn't allowed to let them know that, nor did I want to concern them anyway or somehow obligate niceness or interest, and I certainly didn't want to irritate anyone by calling out of the blue or end on a bad note.  Better to hold on to the good memories and let it be.  We all go through it.  We might've resolved things in time, but I didn't need to.  I was moving on, and it was really, truly OK.  I breathed out slowly as fond or poignant memories of happy moments and personal connections washed over me, and I was that much more ready.

I sat in the window across from the friend who would induce my passage.  There was nothing left to say.  Nothing seemed to matter enough to say it.  Memories from my life kept cycling through my mind as I took in the view and felt my consciousness drifting almost imperceptibly outward over the water in the now-dim light of dusk towards the unknown falls and closed my eyes as if to sleep...

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I woke up and decided to record this while it was fresh, kind of hoping my own eventual death is actually anywhere near so peaceful and that I feel anywhere near so ready if I do somehow know it's coming.  While typing, I suddenly grabbed my sideburn...oh, good, all there.  Earlier in my dream I'd had to cut my own hair and nicked myself in such a way that I was forced to chop off my sideburns way higher than I like, and it was totally goofy-looking.  Right back to caring about the stuff that doesn't matter, eh? *wink*

Thinking about a lot of things

Ha ha, I couldn't help but take a break from transcribing my hand-written journal to say I'm pretty sure the single most common phrase throughout is "thinking about a lot of things". I just read a part where I wrote that something had "gotten me thinking about a lot of things" and actually laughed out loud at myself, thinking, "Dude, you need no help with that." To be fair, I didn't write all that regularly in my journal, so when I did, it was during those times when things were particularly weighing on my mind. I just find it funny that I didn't seem to realize how repetitive I sounded, always saying, "I've been thinking about a lot of things," which in turns has me looking at other ways in which I'm repetitive now...shoot...you can bet I'm going to try to shake myself out of patterns, but where I fail to see them or change them, just love me for who I am? :-)

Some things never change...

Ha ha!  I'm transcribing my old hand-written journal, and I had to laugh at the following two entries (particularly the bolded lines):

29 Nov 00

I'm still thinking a lot.  Thinking about my future, thinking about my weaknesses, thinking about opportunities, thinking about who I'll spend the rest of my life with, thinking about suffering in the world, about what I can do to make a difference, about how it seems to take money to make a difference, about school, about friends, about family, about my mission, about people in Ottawa & Montreal, about genuineness of friendship, about writing music, about writing essays to express my thoughts, about writing poems to express my emotions, ...about way too much for 11:00 at night.  I'm going to sleep.

28 Dec 2000

Amazing.  Nearly every night, I tell myself, "I need to get to bed--if I stay up later to write in my journal, I'll throw my schedule off."

Now, thinking back to my mission about how every little things counts, I think that if I just make sure to write in my journal daily, even if only a sentence, it will remain or become a habit for which I will make more time.

So much has happened...well, for "normal" life.  My first accompaniment on the piano even, with the First Ward choir's The First Noel.

I just read my previous entry (29 Nov).  I've been thinking plenty.  I have to act more now.

Interest exploration

Making my previous lists got me thinking about what I generally spend my time thinking about in analytical ways or how my thoughts tend to prioritize if I don't consciously try to remember certain things or have obligations which demand specific attention:

1. Relationships and communication/psychology (this is a rewarding and never-ending experimental laboratory in my life: no funds required, no end to the questions and puzzles, always something to figure out or test either in someone else or in myself and my own reactions...)
   
2. Politics and cultural/social issues
   
3. Religion and philosophy
   
4. Travel and other social plans/commitments
   
5. Specific issues in daily life, like events, or goings-on in friends' and family members' lives, figuring out a career path, etc.
   
6. Chores and errands I need to do, like actually looking for jobs, cleaning, getting dressed, etc

There's probably a lot more to be gleaned from that list than what has to do with finding career interests, but I thought it was interesting because I suppose not everyone is quite the same in this sense. Then I started thinking about what I've spent most of my time reading about online (the bulk of my informational intake, not counting the time I'm actually producing [blogging, uploading photos for sale or display, responding to messages, etc]):

1. Social media (Facebook, blogs, chatting, YouTube, and learning about everything below through social media, so this isn't all fluff time but is largely not exactly peer-reviewed journalistic kinds of stuff)
   
2. Social issues and politics (particularly political and social science, philosophy/religion, psychological and other sciences, and history as they relate to mohodom [ask me privately if you don't know], relationships, health, or issues like climate change, gays in the military, marriage rights, sustainable energy resources, immigration, economic recovery, etc)
   
3. Random tangents (IMDBing an actor, investigating scientific bases for alternative healing methods, finding out what material my blanket is made of and what its properties are, checking the stats on my blog, finding Waterloo, Ontario on Google Maps, looking up the origins of pink lemonade or the phrase "on the lam"...)
   
4. Entertainment (watching TV online, mostly)
   
5. Job-hunting
   
6. Computer/tech news and information
   
7. Natural sciences
   
8. General news (I get more news from radio than online: I just research the news online)
   
9. Looking into fields of study

Obviously, this does not bode well for finding answers about a career path soon. Hence one reason for my deactivation of my Facebook account. I'll need to work on this more. Part of why I've decided to blog about this is to integrate my propensity to analyze what I blog about, and vice versa, and organize my thoughts into something at least coherent enough to articulate in some way, even if it's too long-winded and boring for most readers to get through. :-) So then I thought, when I actually decide to read a book, what kind do I read?:

• Fantasy/Sci-Fi
  
• Philosophy, politics, religion, sociology non-fiction
  
• Natural sciences (esp. marine or other aquatic and African and South American ecosystems) non-fiction
  
• Communication and relationships
  
• Other "self-help"
  
• Other novels

And documentaries I watch?:

• Social/Political (usually about or incidental to current controversy)
  
• Psychology/Sociology (especially human development, relations and abnormal psych)
  
• Natural sciences (especially fauna)
  
• Religion (especially common threads, history of religion and relationship with modern society)
  
• Arts (especially music, performing arts)
  
• History (especially natural, religious, WWII, Civil Rights in the U.S., ancient civilizations)

Courses I most enjoyed at the university level:

• Intro to Marketing
  
• Intro to Psych and Abnormal Psych
  
• Intro to Geology
  
• History and cultures of Latin America
  
• Biology
  
• Business Law
  
• Sociology
  
• Hispanic cinema
  
• Spanish for Business
  
• Writing and rhetoric
  
• Statistics & Risk Analysis
  
• Discrete Math

Well shoot, no wonder I left college more confused than ever...

What brings me to life?

I've been trying to focus my attention and energy more on figuring out what to do with myself educationally or professionally, how to make a living and engage in something I care about.

Thinking about it, I've tried to look at the basics, like what makes me come alive in a way, what has consistently piqued my interest, or what jobs I've seen which have made me want to "do that".

So I thought I'd make a couple of lists. First, a quick list of things I've actually done that have ignited something in me:

• Helping eyes light up with knowledge as they grasp new ideas and principles.
  
• Helping resolve conflicts, whether in workflow or in relationships, with improved systems of practice or approaches to communication.
  
• Putting on grubby clothes and exploring for critters in tidal pools or dense forests, away from the frivolous demands of dress codes and etiquette (though I love to learn non-human communication, or etiquette, so go fig).
  
• Service projects which make positive differences in people's lives and take pressure off of productive organizations which provide needed services without the lust for profit.

Then, a list of things I'd love to do in some capacity, without worrying, for now, about whether I believe I'm actually good at any of them, whether they're feasible for employment, etc:

• Capturing rare moments in photos which illustrate positive principles or draw emotions, increase understanding, maybe challenge perspective, or connect humans with the world they didn't realize they're a part of or haven't stopped to notice.
  
• Living in or at least visiting a simplified setting more connected to the processes I live from, which really put financial comforts and luxuries into perspective.
  
• Writing a story which compels people towards understanding.
  
• Working with people with particular challenges to help them learn to connect with other people and function in daily life in ways that work for them or enrich their experience.
  
• Identifying and speculating about behaviors and patterns in the natural world. Observing complexities of ecosystems and relationships between organisms, even if only to discern how it all works without any immediate practical application.

There are other things I can enjoy doing or can be good at which may be incidental to these things, like organizing (maybe conceptually or logistically) educational or service events, or preparing a marketing presentation, or editing documents, or taking family or wedding photos, or writing academic essays, or coming up with the most efficient system to keep track of documents, writing about places in the world and reviewing accommodations, researching and identifying target markets for a service/product, surveying for information, studying case law to tease apart the principles and regulations to be applied, etc. But getting my hands dirty with the things like those listed above is what has, in the past, really made me come alive. I think I've mentioned before (either here or on Facebook) that on my mission for the church, I lived out of two suitcases, and I often thought, "There is such value in being satisfied without luxury comforts and material goods, and I hope I never forget that." I've always been a little bit afraid I would because I do have some mid-range-to-expensive tastes: I really enjoy a good home theater system, would make delightful use of advanced computer and high-quality camera equipment, want a large saltwater aquarium, love me some Fran's Chocolates and the chocolate mousse tort at B&O on Olive Way, like an occasional $50 dinner on special occasions, would like a modest home but with a beautiful water garden and a view of the ocean or a lake, etc. But as much I've enjoyed finding the best chocolates or key lime pie, I've never "felt it" resonate in me as I have things like those listed above. Maybe I can conclude, then, that while I want to be financially independent and have enough resources to be able to help others when needed, maybe my pay needn't be a primary goal because I'm more likely to achieve a successful living if I do what I care about rather than doing something I don't care about in order to earn money. Money or office don't excite me enough to arouse my faculties, but the prospect of being financially independent and able to help others in need and give to worthy causes does, as does the ability to live where I want or enjoy really good food and the ability to travel and find experiences on which to build great memories with people I care about and expand my perspective. So there's probably a balance to be found...money would be nice to facilitate the things I want to do, but intellectual stimulation is more important, and I'd rather be professionally engaged in something meaningful and animating than wear expensive suits or eat gourmet dinners every night. But this is all a big tangent: back to what excites me. I figure I can either do those things in my spare time or find a way to make money doing them, but I want to invest my energy in these things somehow, wherever I think it will actually be productive. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of a separate list of specific jobs or parts of jobs I've actually gotten a bit giddy or motivated about as I've talked to people about them or seen them in documentaries or in person:

• Climbing a tree in a jungle to research and discover new species of epiphytes.
  
• Researching navigational behaviors of hammerhead sharks.
  
• Counseling couples to help them resolve the conflicts in their lives.
  
• Counseling people with mental illnesses or chemical imbalances to help bring them stability and happiness.
  
• Organizing the volunteer training or educational outreach programs of the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific.
  
• Heading coral propagation or seahorse reproduction research at nonprofit aquariums.
  
• Traveling to natural settings or social crises to document, in photography and maybe in writing, what most people will never see or understand firsthand.
  
• Self-employed stock photographer
  
• Fish breeder/supplier
  
• Researching Asperger syndrome or other aspects of human psychology and neuroscience

I do probably have to face some realities: if I were passionate about diving into the ocean, I probably would have already gotten Scuba certified at the very least. If I were a jungle-tree-climbing guy, I would probably be more of a camper. If I were really interested in research of marine creature reproduction, I probably would've studied more biology in school. If I were...screw the "if I were"s. I've been letting those stifle me all along. Nevermind what I've done: now is the time for what I really want and what I'm willing to go after, and if what I'm willing to go after is being an administrative assistant, then I'll find the best place to be one and be the best @#$% admin assistant they'll ever see. If I want to be a coral propagation specialist, then I'll have to study a lot more biology and chemistry on my way, but I always stifle myself really quickly with all of the "buts", and I've decided I really do believe I can do what I set my mind to, and even though it's late for me to be starting a career path from a B.A. degree, I'm not going to let that or anything else keep me from what my real limiting factor is: figuring out what I want without stomping it out with what I think are the "realities" keeping me from it. Maybe sometimes, you've got to figure out what you want and start moving towards it before you fully know whether it's possible. Until I start to pursue it, I might not know whether it's the impossibility or merely the fear of impossibility that's holding me back from seeing it through. Maybe the practicalities can come after I figure out what I'm actually interested in focusing on, which is why I'm done "discussing" this stuff with anyone: everyone always has a bias, a "but", a practicality to throw in there, which I consider before I've really figured out what I want. This goes way back...I won't go into it here. Maybe I'll go into it with a career counselor. :-) My first question is not "am I too old" or "can I afford to pay for the education" or "will it pay well" or "can I do it"...those can come later. My first question has needed to be: what do I want to do? What kind of work animates me and makes me feel like I'm living and contributing? What fields or environments stimulate my noggin and engage my curiosity or passion? I've already learned I feel numb, dead, and lost if my work doesn't satisfy those, and I suspect life is too short and too full of opportunity to settle quite yet.

Part of the problem is maybe the breadth and not depth of my interests, but I think a big part of the problem has been that I never let myself get very far in answering that before I decide an interest is "too this" or "not that enough" to consider seriously. Maybe that's been a copout, an excuse for putting off deciding. Maybe it's been a way to mask what I really want to do because I don't believe I can or should do it. But whatever the reason, it's been the hardest question for me to answer. I need some space from the many voices about job market realities and financial concerns and pay levels and job demands and theoretical future family considerations while I try to figure it out. I've discovered that when I find a passion, I will go for it, and I can take risks for it, and even if it doesn't work out, the journey and lessons learned along the way are worth something.

Realizations inspired by canine quirks

Despite having had a rough day, while reading in the most secluded room in the house tonight, I couldn't help but smile at the weirdness of my brother's family's dog's behaviors during his nightly routine: attempting to dig a hole in the carpet next to the couch, daintily but vigorously nibbling itchy spots on his leg with awkwardly exposed teeth, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes like he's slightly self-conscious about this habit, fluffing and re-fluffing his bed and walking around on it in tight little prancing circles to get it just right, lying down, then repeating because it apparently wasn't quite right after all... These were all behaviors I haven't noticed during the day when he's eating, playing, napping, begging, or out for walks. These are the quiet little behaviors he does when there's nothing to beg for, nothing to eat, nobody to play with, no energy to go walking with.

As I sat watching bemused from the couch, I thought, "This is the stuff that endears me to the critter. ...Heck, this is the stuff that endears me to people, too." As much as many people seem to "have to adjust" to others' idiosyncrasies and quirky behaviors they do when they think nobody is looking or out of habit without realizing it, I've realized those are the very behaviors and quirks which often most quickly endear me to someone. I have a habit of people-watching, but I'm usually not so much making up stories about them in my mind as watching for their general temperament and gestures, or the quirky little things they do differently from most people. And as silly as it may be, I feel like I get to know someone more at one overnighter where I see their nightly routine or catch glimpses of their late-night, less-guarded demeanor somewhere between alertness and sleep than I will in three hours of lunch conversation in which they put on their best face.

In short, quirks aren't something I feel like I have to get past or overcome about people (except for those rare, uncomfortable ones like reaching into their underwear to scratch deep in their rear end then handing you a glass of water without washing their hands...those kind are not so endearing, even if revealing) but glimpses into a person which I look forward to seeing when I'm really interested in getting to know someone and which endear me to someone more quickly than just about anything they might say or do when trying to be as "normal" as they think most people want them to be.

I just wanna be understood, is that so wrong?

In different times of life, I think we each long for different things. I happen to be in a place where I'm wishing there were more people in my life who, when I described my journey or experiences or thoughts, were able to say, "I totally get that." I don't doubt I have people in my life who love me, and I try to be grateful for that, but right now, it doesn't offer much comfort, if any, to hear it. What I want to hear is, "I understand you. I get it." More than that, I want to be able to believe it when someone says it. I suppose we tend to want most what we most perceive is lacking. In my case, it's not people I can have fun with, or talk with about serious things, or who feel affection for me and genuinely care, but people who really understand me. Maybe I've always kind of felt that way. Thought that way? Not sure which...or both? But maybe I've reached a point where that's too much to expect. At my ripe ol' age, what are the odds someone else's experiences, perceptions, beliefs, questions, and conclusions truly match up with mine? Smaller and smaller all the time. Ah, this is why getting married before you're too old is helpful. I'll try not to resent the hand I was dealt and the challenges it has presented to forming lifetime partnership relationships.

Maybe it's too late to hope for someone with mostly shared perspective on life, the universe, and everything. Maybe affection, mutual goals and values and principles, and mutual respect will do. And I can build associations with a variety of individuals who can identify with different aspects of my experience and relate on personal levels to portions here and there. Maybe that will hold me over until the next time I start thinking maybe I've found a soulmate of sorts who doesn't have to understand me from the start but with whom I can embark on the exciting journey of learning about each other and understanding one another more profoundly than anyone else understands either of us, and loving each other with a wholeness of passion (and I use this word at least as much in the sense in which you're passionate about or attracted to an enriching hobby or field of study as in the sexual sense...I can feel strongly attracted to a lot of people, but this kind of passion is more complete and soul-encompassing) I've felt only a couple of times in my life (sets a rather difficult standard for the future) but dream about feeling again.

Under Stress

From Personality Types Under Stress, some random site I ran across which may or may not be credible but does make me nod:

INTP

INTPs lack follow-through and this can isolate their ideas from practical examination. Their notions become over-intellectualized and too abstract to be of practical benefit. With their sharp critical thinking and analytical abilities, INTPs tend to nit-pick, hair-split, and generally overdo simple issues. Their desire for accuracy and precision exacerbates any error they may perceive in themselves or in others — they are, in other words, highly self-critical. Wanting to be competent and know everything, their standards grow increasingly higher. When fear of failing becomes overly pronounced, INTPs are quick to feel unintelligent, slow, and powerless.

If stress continues, the INTP's mind seems to freeze and block out the vital information it has worked so hard to accumulate. Their creative juices stop flowing and they suffer from stage fright, writers block, and a general inhibition of their ingenious thinking and fluent language skills. Preoccupied with performance failure, INTPs become self-consciously distracted in anticipation of their failure. If the stress becomes too overwhelming, the fear of blanking out prevents them from taking risks in areas they desire to succeed in. Attempting to avoid incompetence, they fail to gain the expertise and mastery they so desperately need.

Ugh. There are threads of other types under stress which I think apply to me, but this one was probably pretty accurate. Growth and progress can be such a pain in the butt.



Note: to those of you who will fail to understand this, I'd like to point out that just because certain simple issues may be "overdone", this does not mean that every issue is simple or that all issues are overdone. So step off, you don' know me.

Blocked by the opposite of writer's block?

I have so many thoughts milling about politics, religion, spirituality, relationships, social interactions, or whatnot and so many experiences this year that I can't keep up with them in writing. I'm not sure anyone who reads my blog is actually interested in most of the thoughts or daily goings-on, anyway. Or if they are, I'm not sure whether I can articulate them completely enough without the endeavor consuming my free time at the expense of job-hunting, relationships, or personal interests like photography. Balance is a bear.

I also would rather have personal conversations about these things than broadcast them here, because they've reached a point of depth, or sensitivity, or controversy, or whatever, that it's easier to focus on the universal here and approach the finer but more controversial points one-on-one as I talk with y'all personally.

And yet I want to be open to have these thoughts challenged politely and constructively by those with whom I don't normally get to talk or wouldn't dare approach the issues. I want input from those who don't have a large incentive to avoid rocking the boat, as it were, because they see me regularly and don't want to risk our relationship by threatening my security or having their own security threatened by the disagreement.

I don't want to hide these things, either. I don't mean to keep my perspectives a secret. I just prefer to explain them in full as I have opportunity to do so with individuals. So it's easier to leave it alone and just wear my universal hat here. Yet...my drive for authenticity makes this a tense game for me as it calls for increasing dialog and understanding through constructive conflict rather than fostering a false sense of harmony through universality.

Of course, there's the light and fluffy I enjoy sharing, too. It's just that this last year has been such an exploration of self and re-assessment of paradigms that I benefit from articulating it and hammering out the details, and there's so much to explain about where I've been and where I think I'm going. I guess I have a lifetime to philosophize, but it's the exploration, as much as or more than the destination, which fascinates me, so it's hard to set it aside even when I'm OK with not knowing everything now. And again, I want to catch you all up, but maybe I just can't. Maybe that's OK. You don't know what I've been up to or the memories I've been making with various people, you don't know my thoughts as I sit alone, you don't know my shifting paradigms on life, the universe, and everything, and you don't know the experiences, positive and negative, I've had this last month or two or ten. I just can't share it all. But I'll share as I can, and as I think is appropriate, and hey, one-on-one, I'll catch you up as much as you want. Y'know, most of my travel is to visit friends and family, and I'll answer most any question thrown at me. I'm rambling now. I do that.

The short update: I'm well. Life is good, my outlook is hopeful and skeptically optimistic, unemployment is coming to an end (I feel it in my bones), and I haven't been up to anything remarkably exciting, but I've been really enjoying my low-key life.

Good night!

Monogamy Schmonogamy?

I've thought quite a bit, over the past year, about relationships, monogamy, open relationships, arranged marriage, plural marriage, group marriage, etc. I've had a tough time wrapping my mind around ideas like open relationships and group marriages, including the one-sided (many women to one man) plural marriage (polygyny) practiced by early members of the LDS Church. While I can understand the possible, theoretical benefits of arrangements like open relationships and plural marriages, I always come back to the fact that I just want one special someone. People are so complex that I want to understand someone as fully as possible, not a bunch of someones "pretty well". I want to share memories with someone that are special and unique between us. I want to come home to the same person every day. I know there are no guarantees. Relationship strains, death, or other unpredictable circumstances necessitating geographic or emotional distance may wedge their way in. I understand that no one person can ever be everything to me and that I need many people in my life who understand the different facets of me or share my hobbies, interests, or goals. I hope to always have close friendships which access and support and enrich all aspects of me. But though I understand those things and realize I might lose that someone and start from scratch later, I want someone special, just one companion for life.

I think most people in the U.S. today "believe" monogamy is best, whether or not they're very good at it. I think many men (and some women), religious principles aside, would tend to want sexually open relationships, but when they believe they'll lose the emotionally intimate relationship they may have with a partner or spouse, they are compelled to rein in their appetites, and they make trade-offs. Monogamy is spoken of as the ultimate in companionship: it takes work, dedication, self-discipline, and commitment. It requires sacrifice and a beautiful dedication of one's self to one person. We quote scripture, that man is not to be alone, that a man and a woman are to be forged into one flesh, leaving all else to dedicate themselves to each other. There's something powerful in the psychology of knowingly giving up future lust or love for the one love you most want and are dedicating yourself to. Assuming it doesn't turn to resentment, there's an investment that encourages fidelity and is made the more sacred by the singular dedication. Among most Christians, monogamy is laudable while any form of open or plural marriage is condemnable as licentious and a mockery of a sacred institution.

You might think that LDS people, coming from a culture in which plural marriage was practiced in their history, would be more open to the idea of group marriages, at the very least polygyny. But most LDS people I know abhor the idea of plural marriage. Most find it repulsive and believe it would truly be a test of their faith if they were asked to practice it. Most I know also say they'd pray about it and at least consider complying if the prophet were to reinstate "the principle", but they admit they don't know if they could do it and hope and pray to never be asked to.

Cultural and societal ideas about relationships seem to be thoroughly convoluted, and perspectives from various groups seem contradictory of each other, sometimes even somewhat self-contradictory (such as those who insist marriage isn't about love but is about raising children, and then they say it's abhorrent that some cultures practice "arranged" marriages). It's no wonder there's so much debate about what "marriage" is, what it's for, and whether westerners have severely overly-romanticized notions about committed relationships and unions.

I've wondered why polygamy was ever outlawed in the first place. Because it was immoral? Because it was harmful to society? Because government and insurance companies didn't want the hassle of providing tax benefits and coverage to 8 wives and 53 children? Was it easier to just outlaw the practice than to deal with its ramifications? Is plural marriage bad for children? Can anyone prove that beyond occasional studies? Was it because polygyny treated women unequally? If so, why not open up polyandry instead of banning all forms of polygamy? Why is having more than one spouse illegal? What about it is against the Constitution or stomps on anyone else's rights? What about it damages society? We all know it can be practiced badly--forced marriages, young girls persuaded or compelled to marry older men, incestuous society in which nobody dares speak up against abuses and wrong-doing--but those are problems of execution and results of religious beliefs in practice, not evils of the practice of polygamy itself. But societies are fond of making things illegal rather than addressing the issues around them. It's much easier to just slap criminality on an unpopular practice than to deal with the consequences, nevermind whether the practice itself is actually a problem. That's understandable (though I'm not sure I can say it's "right") in emergency situations, but shouldn't the consequences be dealt with, then irrational laws repealed? How much time can go by before the people forget that it wasn't always that way, and possibly irrational laws are assumed to be "how things have always been"?

In exploring some of the questions around marriage in all its forms, I came across a couple of web sites and LDS scholarly forums which referenced quotes from early LDS Church leaders regarding the practice of plural marriage and the "system" of monogamy. I think such statements would give most members of the church pause (though bear in mind I haven't personally verified more than a couple of these by looking up the reference):

“It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome…was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her.”
- Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 202

“The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious.”
- The Prophet Brigham Young Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 128

“…the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people.”
- Prophet John Taylor, Millennial Star, Vol. 15, p. 227

“Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire….Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers…. Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord’s servants have always practiced it. ‘And is that religion popular in heaven?’ it is the only popular religion there,…”
- The Prophet Brigham Young, The Deseret News, August 6, 1862

“This law of monogamy, or the monogamic system, laid the foundation for prostitution and the evils and diseases of the most revolting nature and character under which modern Christendom groans,…”
- Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, page 195

“We breathe the free air, we have the best looking men and handsomest women, and if they (Non-Mormons) envy us our position, well they may, for they are a poor, narrow-minded, pinch-backed race of men, who chain themselves down to the law of monogamy, and live all their days under the dominion of one wife. They ought to be ashamed of such conduct, and the still fouler channel which flows from their practices; and it is not to be wondered at that they should envy those who so much better understand the social relations.”
- Apostle George A Smith, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, page 291

“I have noticed that a man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality [of wives] looks fresh, young, and sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because he honors his word. Some of you may not believe this, but I not only believe it but I also know it. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business. I do not know what we would do if we had only one wife apiece.”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses Vol 5, page 22

“Just ask yourselves, historians, when was monogamy introduced on to the face of the earth? When those buccaneers, who settled on the peninsula where Rome now stands, could not steal women enough to have two or three apiece, they passed a law that a man should have but one woman. And this started monogamy and the downfall of the plurality system. In the days of Jesus, Rome, having dominion over Jerusalem, they carried out the doctrine more or less. This was the rise, start and foundation of the doctrine of monogamy; and never till then was there a law passed, that we have any knowledge of, that a man should have but one wife. ”
- The Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses Vol. 12, page 262

A couple of these statements are not, in fact, declarations over the pulpit, but writings or speeches given in other contexts. It's easy, today, to take a fairly black-and-white approach to these statements, such as, "It was correct to practice it then because the Lord said so, but circumstances changed, and the practice is forbidden now," or, "that was clearly a matter of policy, not doctrine, and the brethren did their best to explain the principle with what had been revealed to them."

I believe many LDS scholars still insist those prophetic statements still stand, within their own context, and are maybe even doctrinal, and that we all must be willing, even today, to engage in plural marriage if the law of the land and church were changed, and we were asked to, or we would be defying God's will. As far as I can tell, some believe it's true that monogamy is only a shade of the true order of heaven, but that we're compelled into it by the laws of the land, and the true order of heaven includes polygyny. Assuming there is a God who creates numberless spirit children who will exist in their current relationships into eternity, I wonder: what don't we know about that yet? Does God create more "female" spirits than "male" to preserve the practice of polygyny? Do fewer males achieve exaltation, leaving more females to be partnered? What if there are more Celestial males than females at some point? Will there be polyandry, too, and we're just not ready to face that? Of course, there are so many assumptions underlying all of this...

To those of you who cherish your monogamous marriages and disdain the idea of a plural marriage, imagine yourself in the days of Brigham Young or John Taylor: how do you respond to the prophetic declarations that your perspective on marriage is small-minded, damning, and associated with whoredom and the downfall of society? How do you distinguish doctrine from policy without your current hindsight? How do you defend your current notion that monogamy is best? Do you insist you're right for yourself, and they were just speaking the best they knew how from their cultural perspective? Do you shrug and say it's your own weakness that makes you too jealous to share your spouse with someone else or too frail to invest energy sufficient for more than one spouse? Do you bow to the notion that monogamy is a sign that we live in a fallen society? Do you praise certain Muslim or LDS-offshoot communities for their willingness and self-discipline to practice plural marriages and acknowledge your inferiority next to them in at least that respect? Do you believe you should be willing to practice plural marriage if asked but hope never to be asked?

I'm just not convinced I'm a selfish, fallen, small-minded, downfall-of-society-promoting guy for wanting a monogamous relationship, nor am I convinced that cultures which accept and embrace monogamy are engaging in a "system" which will lead to the fall of empires. Call me a heathen. I can take it.

You Deserve Better

Another note to self because I think you've forgotten at times and have recently been reminded: you deserve someone willing to talk openly and deal sensitively and patiently with you the way you try to with others. You deserve someone who's willing to weather the hard times and the rainy days of the relationship because they understand there's value in it even when it's not easy and fun. You deserve someone who loves and appreciates you because of who you are, how you treat people, and what you bring to a relationship, not just because of appearances or what kind of fun they can have with your body and/or resources. You deserve someone whose life is generally in harmony with what they claim to believe, who doesn't hide behind compartmentalization but strives for integrity. You deserve someone who cares about you as much as or more than they do themselves. You deserve someone who is honest with you and ultimately willing to tell you anything you might ask. You deserve someone who sees in you, with all your flaws, a beautiful and attractive person. You deserve someone who wants a synergistic wholeness of intimacy but is happy to hold out on sexual intimacy because having you in their life matters more than getting themselves off.

It may seem arrogant or self-serving to say "you deserve", but you deserve everything you're willing and/or able to offer, nothing less. You may not be the easiest person for most people to have a relationship with, but you're not most people, and you deserve to be with someone who brings out the best in you. You're sincere, and you're concerned for others, and you're committed. No more selling yourself short or convincing yourself there's more to what they're feeling than there is to satisfy your fantasy. Read the signs. Talk about it. Don't waste time flirting with consolation prizes and fillers. They just distract you from not only finding the real thing but from deepening your more valuable friendships while piddling away your emotional investment on those who will squander it. You won't always know, immediately, but walk away without regret when the blinders come off, and you realize you were wrong about the relationship.

These traits are not just personality differences: they're essential components of the kind of relationship you want and need. Walk away if they're not there. Some might say, referring to romantic companionship, that any relationship is better than no relationship, but you know very well that quality, intimate friendships and family bonds without romantic companionship are much better than a distrustful or otherwise non-intimate convenience-based or sexually-motivated companionship. It's about time to put away childish things...

Hunches

...I sometimes wish they were wrong more often. But unfortunately, those wary hunches...they're usually confirmed.

When something seems rather awry with a person or in a relationship, it is. It's not me being crazy or overly suspicious or imagining things. I try to offer some benefit of doubt, remain open to the possibility that I'm just not understanding something or being too critical. But I'm learning to start trusting my red flag hunches more. When the puzzle doesn't seem to fit, some pieces are probably missing. Give it time: they'll come together slowly, and the pieces are often hidden away for a reason.

I always tell myself not to judge too hastily. You never know the full story, and sometimes people just are different and view life differently from me, and I can't necessarily understand their motives, nor do I know what else is behind the scenes that I don't know about. And that's true. But it's a little disconcerting how often I've said, "I don't know...there's something about him/her that I can't put my finger on but just doesn't sit right," and found out later that there was definitely a reason for that. Past hunches have consistently been confirmed by information incidentally uncovered weeks, months, or years later. I'm not an overly suspicious guy in general, so why should it be surprising that I wasn't making up the suspicions?

Note to self: trust your hunches more often. Still learn to communicate better and deal with emotions better, then give people a chance to respond, see how they'll communicate, what information they'll volunteer, what remains unsaid or defended against. Don't settle for a relationship full of hunches. You deserve better. If clearing the hunches is like pulling teeth, get out.

Smitten And Stifled

I'm not often smitten. I may notice hotties, I may feel flirty, and I may admire people, but I'm rarely "into" someone enough to feel that dancing, all-is-well feeling, feel totally at ease doing anything, comfortable talking about anything or enjoying silence together. It's not often I'm wholly attracted to someone who seems a possibly great complement to myself with the most important things in common. Someone who makes me want to step carefully so as to not mess up my chances of developing a healthy relationship with them to see what might be there beyond giddy feelings and the hope that they're every bit as great as they seem to be. Someone to whom I'm very much attracted and with whom I'd like to be closer. Someone with whom I'd be more physically expressive but also want to pace physical affection to develop a quality relationship. Someone I think about all day after a great day together. Someone who has similar values to mine and whose opinions, desires, and principles I respect and learn from. Someone who communicates openly without all the games so many people play. Someone who not only makes me smile to myself just thinking about them and excited about getting to know each other but who reminds me what it's like to feel like there's very possibly someone out there for me with whom I'd be a natural fit in the most important ways.

Feeling that way for someone is refreshing. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever feel that way again, at my ripe old age. And then I do, and I find they feel the same way, even if it seems a bit premature for us to be so interested. And it confirms that I'm not completely jaded, that I'm not too skeptical to hope with an almost childlike brightness. With lessons learned, I know not to place excessive stock in those feelings, but I love it when they return. I love it when someone enters my life who brings that out of me while renewing my hope in quality, romantic prospects for my unusual self. I love getting to know each other and starting to bring out the best in each other. The idea of pursuing that, with a clearly mutual attraction to boot, to see what we can make of it is both scary and joyful.

But it's mostly an idea so far. When such a person is again not an "option", it's hard to put all those feelings back on the shelf after having dusted them off cautiously, reluctantly eager to have them back. Life circumstances, social pressures, differences in maturity, geographic distance, or other issues make it clear that, though we might potentially be really right for each other and fit beautifully together, there may or may not ever be a place and time to find out, but what's decided is that the place and time is not here or now. I've been quite content with my life lately, so even after this rekindling of romantic feelings, I can accept letting go of it again for now, not that it's been especially easy or without tears and heartache. I just try to take the disappointment and heartache of quelling the attraction and turn it into hope that if I found one such person, maybe one of these days, when the time is right, the stars will align.

Until then, to the one who smote me so suddenly and unexpectedly, it's been beautiful feeling for you the way I have, and feeling your interest in me, however briefly, and I hope to find it again, whether with you when we're both ready or with someone else with whom circumstances allow it to be explored, and I wish the same for you. Thanks for the spark of light, for hope, for the connection, for being wise and mature enough to recognize now wasn't the time, for the start of a potentially great friendship when/if the more intense attraction wanes, for being you and coming into my life.

Unforgiving

I'm thinking I'm really patient with people in many ways but really slow to truly forgive and let go. When I lose trust in someone, I can't seem to get over it. I can interact with them. We may hang out casually in groups. I may wish I felt the affection for them I used to feel. I may respect many things about them. I may still feel fondly for the person I knew and loved before things went south. But I've never gone back to feeling "close" with such a person, able to fully trust them again.

I tend to think trustworthiness is a matter of character. A person may be sincere, goodhearted, intelligent, and even generally kind, but if I can't trust them, I can't feel close to them, and if I decide I trusted someone too much too fast, I struggle to backpedal to a more casual friendship and often am more comfortable walking away entirely. The trouble is that I then feel unforgiving and even petty because I have other friends I know would probably betray trust if I gave it to them, but I am still able to have casual and fun interaction with them, maybe because I've never given them the trust I've given others. I wonder if my attitudes and decisions are defense mechanisms against risking getting hurt or if they're a wise practice of "fool me once, shame on you: fool me twice, shame on me."

I have a couple of friends who were, at one point, somewhat "more than friends", and I got burned in different ways. We both made bad calls, but I was the one who ended up hurt. In other cases, we were just friends, and this or that happened, and I lost respect for them in some way, they did something deceptive or cruel (whether to me or to someone else), or in some cases, they just turned out to be more "human" than I wanted to believe (which of course is more about my perceptions and judgment than anything). When I see them, I wish I felt affection for them still. I wish I could embrace them again with the warmth I once felt. I wish changed circumstances and water under the bridge allowed for me to see them in as I once did, or at least without the baggage, focusing on the positive. I wish time and distance erased the bitter taste in my mouth. I wish I could trust the lingering desire to embrace all the good I saw in them and let go of the traits and behaviors which affected me so much. And yet, another part of me thinks it would be completely foolish to pretend things were the same. They can't be. What happened happened and can't be erased. So the trick is moving forward with the changes.

To some extent, time does heal. For me, we're talking at least a year in many cases. But even when I no longer have a visceral or emotional reaction to seeing or interacting with someone, the warmth is banished. I remember the things I love about them, and I remember the affection I used to feel, but I won't allow myself to be vulnerable to them again, and I therefore feel detached, somewhat cold towards people I thought, in some cases, would be lifelong friends.

With some of these, most of them, I want badly to love them again as friends and good people, I want to tell them I would like to trust them again but don't know how, I want to explain that I don't hate or dislike them but don't know what to do with them anymore, where to fit them in my life, how to get over my detachment, or whether I even should. I want to talk it through with them, but in most cases, the time for that kind of talking has past.

In some cases, I walk away and don't look back. I don't need to. I'm finished, and the friendship's usefulness and meaning is in the past. Sure, we can keep in touch here and there in a civil way, but I don't need or want more. In other cases, they probably don't know how fondly I felt for them, how much I appreciated them, or what potential I saw in them. In some cases, they don't know how much respect I've lost for them, or why I can see they're sincere now but can't forget that they seemed sincere before, too.

I think the reason it's hard for me is that I did love them, probably still do, maybe always will, but don't feel "safe" entrusting them with much anymore. And I won't play the cavalier, chummy games so many seem to play once that is the case.

But I'm trying to work through this and recognize where it's my own perceptions getting in the way. I'm trying to remember friendships where I have betrayed trust in some way, or where I've unintentionally sent mixed signals, or where I've withheld part of myself out of fear or insecurity, or entertained someone's feelings for me unintentionally without returning those feelings. In the process of maturing--a process I'm obviously still working through--I've made mistakes, and forgiving friends have stuck by me, and we've built meaningful relationships. I wonder if I haven't done the same in forgiving and bearing with some. I fear if everyone responded to my foibles the way I've responded to those of others, I might have no friends left. So I'm trying to learn to let go, to move on. I think it's unnecessary and foolish to give the remote control of my emotions back to those who have used it poorly, but I'm looking for a way to move forward more quickly in forgiving and in wisely choosing which friendships are worth holding on to and which are best left in the past, and learning to move on without bitterness, without wishing it had been different.

Maybe these are universal concerns, or maybe I'm unusually distrustful or sensitive in certain ways. But something tells me I have a thing or two to learn in this arena. Does anyone have a handbook to refer me to? :-)

Near Death Experiences

I've always been fascinated by near-death experiences. I've listened to firesides and lectures about them, I've watched TV specials about them, and I've read articles about them. I've not read book after book. Few things interest me that intensely. But I've heard stories of medical workers who have talked to people who had just had near-death experiences, including one old woman who, upon reviving apparently spontaneously, said something like, "Well that was a hell of a thing!" That made me laugh. I've heard a couple of people relate their own experiences, poignant and deeply meaningful to them, something so real to them that they felt they'd be betraying God to deny its divinity. Those people don't all believe similarly, so their belief systems can't all be validated by it, but the common belief seems to be that there's a god of some sort, usually with messengers, and that god is infinite love and peace and power.

I used to believe they were clear, undeniable evidence of an afterlife, of a heaven. So many commonalities among them can't be ignored or denied offhand. And what of the things they "observed" and knew about what was happening to them while they were apparently dead, like being able to see the operating room from above? How could they know those things? And how could someone just revive on their own after several minutes (DNR) being clinically dead if there wasn't an intervening divine (or "transcendent") force? Scientists and doctors had no explanations once upon a time and even still struggle to fully explain the phenomena. Declaring near-death experiences, then, to be hogwash or hallucinations seemed intellectually dishonest.

As I've read about a few factors which come into play, cellular impulses still stored and firing even after clinical death (which isn't a complete death of all cells in the body but is a process, the beginning of which is indicated by a few key indicators), to loss of blood in the eye creating a tunnel of light, to a discovery that patients experiencing NDEs (as they're abbreviated) in cardiac arrest all showed elevated levels of CO2 in their systems, to the idea that certain receptors still may be functional even after breathing and the heart have stopped, and deeply intuitive and basic brain functions still working to piece together input from the room and creating a dream-state vision of it, to...well, there are many theories about it. As for everyone experiencing similar things, do they all experience similar things because they're all partaking of one great truth, or are our brains wired to produce certain common themes and elements in that state--life in review, guide figures, seeing and interacting with deceased loved ones, etc--and do the religious perceive the afterlife the way they do because something in our wiring creates these common elements in NDEs, or are they simply manifestations of a universal, divine truth? How much does one's own cultural paradigm affect their specific interpretation of their experience? We may be a diverse planet, but maybe we're more common than we believe in our fundamental ideas about the universe? Is the great love and peace a feeling given from a great source of all things good, or is it a very real, chemical response induced in the brain which is the natural outgrowth of suddenly losing feeling and conscious perception and becoming a consciousness without physical attachment, whether that be a spiritual thing or a mental process?

It seems intellectually dishonest to say there's no possible explanation other than an afterlife. We know so little, still, about how energy works on a level we can't physically measure with our current knowledge and equipment, and we know so little about how the brain really works, and we know so little about more theoretical ideas like string theory, that to say, "we have no explanation; therefore, the only plausible explanation is divine experience," just seems...premature to me. The most honest response, I think, is to say it's a fascinating glimpse into what may happen to us after death, and it may also be fully explained by future understanding of neurology, physiology, physics, etc.

I figure this sounds like sacrilege to some, but I'm done clinging to faith in a closed-eyed, desperate way, as if it is threatened by understanding natural laws and the complexity of psychology, sociology, etc. I always prided myself on being open-minded and fairly scientifically minded, but I didn't realize how much I used to dismiss because I didn't think it confirmed my view of spirituality or the way the world is supposed to work, according to my religious or personal perspectives. I used to think scientists looking for explanations for things like NDEs were just atheists with an agenda. I truly thought I was open, but looking back, I don't think I was.

Why decry scientists for trying to understand a phenomenon we can't yet explain? Why proclaim it inexplicable and unknowable and scorn the faithlessness of those who seek explanations? We may not understand something for centuries to come, but if we declare it unknowable, we'll certainly never understand it. I don't believe possible medical knowledge should be unexplored, untapped, because some are threatened by the possibility of finding an explanation. The faithful will largely adapt and mold their faith around new understanding if such understanding is allowed to be disseminated: it's always been that way. If a clear explanation for NDEs is offered, will you reject it because you can't believe in what you want to anymore if science has an explanation? Will you be fascinated by the mechanisms God uses to induce the experiences with which he/she/it wants to teach us? Will you decry God and declare yourself a militant atheist because your faith has been completely undermined, since you placed all of its validity in there being no physiological explanation for near death experiences?

The way I see it, whether a NDE is a divine encounter, or a very natural, physiological process we're only beginning to understand, its significance depends, like everything else in life, on what you do with it, how you respond to it. You might shrug and say, "Well that was an incredible dream. I wish life were like that all the time." You might look heavenward and thank God for sharing his love with you and sending you on a mission, which you will then likely fulfill, and whether it was meant to be or you're bound and determined to make it be is almost irrelevant. You might think, "Wow, that was a grand hallucination. What if I could share that feeling of peace with other people and live my life with renewed value and determination?" I've never experienced it, and I have no doubt that, to the person experiencing it, it's "more real than can be described", but I suspect if I did have a NDE, I'd write about it, treasure the emotions and thoughts and motivation, and do something with it, whether it came from God or an as-of-yet unexplained process of cellular storms being quite secondary. But then, I guess I'd have something more to wrestle with if a messenger in a NDE told me I was to preach a message to the world...then, I think, it becomes important whether it's "real" or an intensely real dream, so until I experience it, I just leave it to each individual to make that call him- or herself and try to respect that. Interesting stuff...

Experimentation

While house-sitting for my bro, I'm also dog-sitting, and when you give the dog his dinner, you tell him to sit, then put the food in his kennel, then tell him, "OK," and he runs in to eat. He's a very obedient dog, so it's kind of comical sometimes when he's really eager to eat and you can tell he really doesn't want to wait for the "OK" but is patiently sitting anyway. It sparked an idea.

I wanted to see how he would respond to subtle variations on the usual routine, which takes place three times a day. So the second day, I said, "O-" and stopped before saying "K", just to see what he'd do. He started to get up but immediately caught himself and looked at me with eager anticipation. I said, "K" and he ran into the kennel. I laughed with hearty fascination. The next day, I just made a noise that sounded vaguely like, "OK". That seemed to be enough, and off he went. The next day, I just motioned with my hand and off he went. Next, I said, "OK" very monotonously and slowly. No response. I said, "OK" in the normal, fast way but being very careful not to give any nonverbal cues like nodding my head or motioning with my hand or even making eye contact. Off he went. Very interesting. I'd decided not to test him more than once a day (today's second test, which I'm about to mention, being unintentional) because I didn't want to disturb the routine too much or grey the cues for him. I was just intrigued as to what, exactly, he considered the green light. Was it the tone? The word? The nonverbal movements? All of the above?

So today, I started to wave him in, and he was so eager that as soon as I brought my hand up and said, "O-" he started running towards his kennel, but I said, "Stay!" and he stopped and sat. I think he realized I hadn't finished. I said, "OK," and off he went.

After that last incident, I thought to myself, "Good grief, he's probably getting really tired of being tested with variations on the command. The poor guy just wants to eat!" and I figured I should probably stop experimenting on the little (big) dude. It's just that when I get a question in my head, I want to explore the answers, and if it involves experimentation, better yet, so I examine and pinpoint, testing from different angles, experimenting with different stimuli and responses... Thinking about this, I realized: I do this, probably even on a subconscious level, with just about everything, including relationships with people.

I get bored, in a way. On one hand, it's enough to just be with people I care about and enjoy time together, but on the other hand, I always want to understand them on increasingly deeper levels, particularly if I find them interesting. So I act this way or that and test their responses, ask probing questions, challenge their statements to see what's behind them... It's a curse, but it's a curse I rather enjoy entertaining. Unfortunately, I probably wear some people out that way. They just want to "be", and I'm always subtly poking and prodding and testing and exploring because that's what makes life interesting to me. Sometimes I just want to be, not have to defend myself or debate, and even I get annoyed being on the other end of it, so certainly people who are less analytical get utterly fed up!

...I guess what I'm saying is I should probably learn to rein it in a bit and recognize when my poking and prodding is too steady and incessant, and I should deliberately force myself to stop testing people to give them a breather more often. And regardless of however well I learn to manage that tendency, I'll probably need to be with someone who enjoys being poked. ...You know what I mean.

Did I Do Thaaaaat?

Another dream (for some reason, I'm remembering them the last few nights, sleeping on a hide-a-bed at my bro's house): I had just left a get-together of some sort, and as I was leaving a parking lot, backing out of a space, I found that my brakes were weaker than I remembered, and as I checked my mirrors to make sure I wouldn't hit anything behind me, I just kept pressing harder on the brakes, with mushy results, and even shifting down or to neutral didn't help much.

Have you ever had a dream where you're trying to run down a long, narrow hallway, but your legs don't seem to work, and the hallway just seems to get longer? You know, like in Poltergeist. I think I had a dream like that when I was little. But my frustrating dreams were typically different. The one I most remember was me jumping across or over something and having sudden super-strength, flying into the air, then falling, bracing myself for impact, bouncing high into the air again, etc. Try as I might to either absorb the impact or find a bar to hold on to or something, I wouldn't be able to stop bouncing. I'd sometimes wake up from some reflex, feeling completely frustrated, and sometimes this played out in my head while I was actually awake: a thought cycle I couldn't stop but refused to let go of until I'd forced myself to stop "bouncing", which I don't think I ever did. I eventually learned to just let go of needing to stop myself or insisting I should be able to and instead directing my thoughts elsewhere until the cycle faded away, which (seemingly paradoxically) stopped me from bouncing. Is that symptomatic of obsessive thoughts? Am I revealing too much? ;-)

Anyway, this experience with the brakes was similar. The brakes wouldn't work, and I bumped my rear bumper into a wooden rail on the edge of the lot with a thud. Oddly enough, as it happened, a small green convertible on the other side of the barrier, slightly higher than where I was, jolted as if it had been hit, and though I was sure my bumper couldn't have reached 4 feet through the barrier to cause such damage, there was no other clear explanation, and as I sat there trying to figure out if I should find the owner and explain what happened, even though I couldn't be at fault, the convertible started rolling down the embankment, landing in a dented mess in the parking lot. This was nasty, certainly no cheap fix. I should at least find the owner and explain what I'd seen, even if it would seem like I was to blame. A resident of the complex came out and was apparently taking down my license plate number. Great. Now I definitely had to get out and clean this up.

That resident was nice but was convinced the damage was my fault because it happened when I hit the barrier, and clearly there was no other explanation, he'd said. I patiently spoke with him, not trying to explain how unlikely it was that my bump could've caused such a chain reaction lest I should appear to be only exonerating myself, and he seemed nice and sincere but quietly convinced it was my fault. Long story not-as-long, I ended up running into the convertible owner, who was some scrappy, pothead dude roaming around in his underwear. He put on some clothes and came out to talk to me, casually and almost jovially asking when he could expect payment for damages. I thought it was weird he could be so cavalier and seemingly not surprised, but I pushed away thoughts that he'd somehow orchestrated the whole scene as a way to get insurance money or something. Maybe part of me did fear my barrier bump had caused the convertible to be all bashed up, even though that didn't really make sense. Stranger things have happened, right? I was trying to acknowledge how it must appear and admit it might have been my barrier collision but also explain that this damage was not likely to have been caused by my bumping the barrier, and saying I'd work with him to find a solution. As I was hoping he'd at the very least see that I had truly done all I could to stop my car when my brakes seemingly went out and have some mercy because of it, I woke up, thankful I didn't have that mess to clean up.

Sometimes, it's "just a dream", but I think much of the time, our dreams do have some connection with what's going on inside our minds. And this one I hadn't suspected as such until I wrote it out and thought, "Oh wow...yeah...I think I know where that's coming from." There may be a parallel between this situation and the thoughts which were racing through my head and keeping me up last night in relation to not having all the answers but having seen what doesn't make sense, yet not being able to convince anyone of that even if I wanted to because they'd rather have a scapegoat and a story that doesn't fit together--and the ability to dismiss as guilty someone who challenges that perception--than accept that there's no known explanation yet and not have a sense of justice or someone to blame. Yeah, I know that may seem abstract to many of you, but those of you familiar with the last year of my life can probably grasp what I mean, though very few of you truly sympathize. Maybe I'm feeling a little vulnerable and understandably but (in my opinion) unfairly scrutinized lately.

It's not a huge deal. I'm not bent out of shape over it. I feel quietly confident and reassured. But the tension is surely a source of some stress in my life. We all have them and deal with them.

Funky-Mood Weekend

I know better than to give too much importance to a mood slump when I'm severely sleep-deprived, which I am. I've been gallivanting around this weekend and stayed at two different friends' places, on their couches, which would've been OK, but we also stayed up really late talking, watching movies, playing Wii. I didn't get to sleep until 5:30 this morning. Woke up around noon. Bleh. So yes, my sleep has been really erratic, and I tend to get into "down" moods or mildly depressed when I'm sleep-deprived or sleeping extremely irregularly. I'm hoping a good night's rest at home will help tonight.

I don't know if I'll post all of my thoughts today, but they are not happy-bubbly, so if I do, I'm just explaining that I know it's not the end of the world, and I don't mean to whine. I just sometimes think it's productive to let each other know when we're down and struggling, or to express troublesome thoughts to open them up to feedback or understanding from others. Expressing one's struggles is not paramount to whining or being a wuss. Anyone who thinks differently is probably emotionally constipated in certain ways or, quite simply, a total ass.

I'm pretty sure I'll feel better later, and I may have happy or silly things to say later tonight or tomorrow after some rest or after shaking it off. I'll probably look back on today as a mood blip brought on by being completely worn out and getting far too little sleep. But what I can't shake is the notion that the things that bother me when I'm in this weakened emotional state, the issues that surface: the feelings of loneliness, misunderstanding, uselessness, lack of talent, being unlovable, hopelessly single and solitary, etc, are coming from somewhere. It's not like they're just figments of my imagination that will go away when I've caught up on sleep. They're here for a reason: there are triggers and concerns and insecurities which I'm apparently normally able to cope with and deal with but which, when I am worn out, surface and affect me profoundly, and I want to deal with those. I want to identify them and confront them.

So, in an odd way, I'm thankful for these depressive days where I realize, "Hey, you have some weaknesses you need to figure out and learn to exercise or change to improve your relationships and your productivity." I'll have the energy to tackle that soon. I just don't know if I have it now. Right now, I just want to be alone...or hold and be held by someone...if there were anyone nearby whose embrace I thought would help...I guess today's one of those days I wish I had someone "special" to fill that role.

Well, enough of that for now. I have a 3-year-old's backyard Easter egg hunt to photograph. That's always good for the soul. :-)