After the Storm

In the third act of King Lear, Lear goes out into a storm and is blinded, physically and symbolically, by nature's power. He succumbs to it. It is here that he sees himself for who he really is, a bare, forked animal, without his accommodations to give him the status of king. After the storm, he experiences catharsis, and a new man is born.

I feel that now. The weather last night during two very difficult but necessary conversations picked up to blowing proportions. It is only fit that nature draw parallels between the different storms. This morning I woke up with the sky clear, the ground wet, my mother remarking that the wind around one a.m. woke her up, a wind I had heard as well, unable to sleep at that time, surrounded by a layer of peace in front of a layer of looming uncertainty. Now as I sit and write this, I feel the terror rise up in my chest, and my fate feels unwritten, given into your hands. I have faith.

I have faith that the outcome will be what you want. I have faith that there can be resolution. I have faith that we are about to talk and find peace. When you get off the bus. I want to wait for you with flowers. Are they to apologise for my blindness, for not seeing the preciousness of what you offered me? Are they to be grateful, that you will give me a chance to redeem myself, to show you that I care and that I am committed beyond what I was before. I am fragile at this point.

He told me not to hesitate.

Keepsake

When I was a boy, that boy was chubby and I imagine him waddling around in my mind. I recall him penguining down the grassy hill in some forgotten pair of shoes, holding outside of his throat one note that penguined down after him. I want to recall the way he ran around the park, signalling with horse morse before turning left or right. I have an uncertainly brazen fondness for this boy I used to use the first person pronoun for, even though he now but animates in memories, in photographs and even a video or two. The world was clean for him, crackless, or if there were cracks, they had been rubbed in by walnuts. He holds inspiration for me, in a more literal sense, because I've said many times he lives inside of me. Since puberty, my body has grown around him like a protective forest. I know now that he doesn't feel trapped or lost or lonely as I once probably thought, nor does he complain, because on a level beyond words, beyond his age yet precisely of it, he has understood that I had to grow up and my innocence had to be shattered so that I could fit into the world's decoupage. Now I figure he has understood the next part as well, that his remaining in there even after the hardening of the body around him means my innocence is yet intact. And when I have moments when I think about him, when I member again, I can hear his waddling sound, cheerful, smiling a smile that doesn't fit between his cheeks and so has to leak over in between mine.

I hope he'll run around joyfully until he no longer needs to remind me of how I used to be and still am.

Me of Little Faith

The colour pink says that love just needs a witness, and a little forgiveness, and then? and then?

I have been dreading my birthday ever since the prospect was coming. On one hand I really want the opportunity to thank people who have been active in my life, who have been willing participants in the test project of Crisperiences. I also want to have fun and hang out with people in one room whom I would not normally meet in the same situations. I am curious to see how they interact, and to participate in that interaction. I am also expecting some show of love from those invited. On the other 'dreading' hand, I have raised my expectations of what will be, from presents, to speeches, to level of fun and laughter, very high, and paired that expectation with the prophecy of failure. I have pretty furtively been sabotaging my own opportunity for happiness by mentally projecting my negativity, and therefore my victim mentality, upon what I envision it will turn out like. So that then I can turn around afterward and told-me-so myself, and use the failure as justification for keeping a hidden sense of unhappiness, one that I tell myself in whispered terms that I deserve.

I began to realise this on the bus, talking to you. I was trying to defend my egotistic stance by twisting what I was saying, complicating it. I felt like I was being hunted - not necessarily by you, but by the truth that what I was saying was bullshit and weak. It was an inner hunt, a temporary chase and takeover.

I am very scared that I will not be grateful enough for the people that turn up to the party and those who put something towards making my night wonderful. I am terrified. So terrified, that I am envious whenever other people can be grateful and I feel I cannot honestly be. I feel I should be grateful and loving, and I know these are not thoughts I can muster up to equate what they really mean, but still I feel a pressure to live up to that standard. When I am grateful naturally, it comes beautifully - but gratitude cannot be planned and I think it will not come naturally when it is pressured by a situation such as in a birthday. I know you and those others whom I love have put in effort and are continuing to do so... I am aware that it is your love or something akin to love that contains glimpses of it that you pour into this putting-together... and I feel I can't live up to it. That is what scares me. I know you are giving, but I feel unprepared to receive, as if there is a cork that blocks me from really receiving love to my heart. Instead, that love is relegated to my head and it twists and turns and soon turns into dust, and over this ash I mourn. I am worried that I will take this love and turn it into ash. And I don't want to. I don't want to. I have done it so many times. You don't deserve your gifts to be thrown into the fire, but to be cherished. I want to cherish them, I do, and for that to happen, I need to uncork my heart, to learn one thing.

Forgiveness.

To truly overlook the mistakes of others, and so also to overlook my own.

The colour pink says that I'm learning to be brave in my beautiful mistakes.

Tag

I am learning to be humble. Complication as a habit is the opposite of humility, because it pretends to blow things out of proportion, to claim they are heavier, harder than they are in truth. I am surrounded by many who live their lives simply. Pride prevented me from thinking I could live my life simply as well, as if I had several heavier responsibilities that they did not have which complicated my existence. That was a lie I told myself, one that I believed in.
I want to simplify my life.
Step one, simplifying my mind. Think only when needed. Don't try to find answers to complicated questions about love and where it is. Instead, live this moment. I'm it.

Non-Psychopath with Criminal Leanings

I've been exposed to a lot of distress these past couple of weeks. I started reading Stephen King's The Shining and stopped at 68%, before I went on to read a less tensioned book in French, though still very intriguing (La Biographie de la Faim). A few days ago I finished that, so I went back to finish the King book. And of course, it climaxed, and got bloody, violent, and through feat of imagination, audible. I don't want to be disgusting, but the terror holds a certain thrill. I don't know what it is.

During the reading of the French book and then the conclusion of King's, I watched the second season of Spartacus, which was thrilling not because of the hordes of battle and sex scenes but because of something else, an element of drama that I hadn't considered much before - reversals. In each of the ten episodes, several reversals of power occurred, and I was engrossed enough to gasp at several of them. Surprise is useful. Reversals lead to surprise. And although I hunched that the title protagonist would not have died even though the principal antagonist hunted him down at every turn and injured him over and over again over several episodes, I did not anticipate the ends of other characters and the throwing off a cliff of some of the other plotlines. The ending made me feel a loss, the kind of emotion held in watching a ship sail into the distance over a calm sea. I rarely have reactions to television series like this - I recall having a similar reaction to Charmed's final season in 2005-2006, and in hindsight, Charmed was not even near as reversal-filled or gripping as Spartacus.

I mention Spartacus because it had its share of horrors. Blood, guts... moments when I put my hands up to my mouth in disgust at the graphic nature of the deaths of some of these extras or non-pivotal characters. I shan't mention.

Now I'm onto my next series of visual gore. I'm watching Dexter, as per recommendation by my brother. I am halfway through the first season now, and it's thrilling as well. The plotlines and the twists are interesting to follow, and the characters feel... human. Even Dexter himself, who is a psychopath and who cannot feel. There is not as much graphic gore in this series as in the aforementioned or as in Game of Thrones but there is its share. Its terror, rather, is derived from how disturbed I feel as a viewer. Disturbed at this protagonist who is trying to blend into society while carrying out his own sense of justice, hoping distantly that he may one day be able to feel love or remorse of some sort. It's fascinating to watch. He is different, marginalised, but uncaring on some critical level, non-conscience-possessing. Psychopath on the inside, so he tries to blend in, to hide in the plain of sight.

I am also watching the fourth season of Nurse Jackie, a series rife with dark humour, and weird characters. I enjoy that. It's unpredictable, and the writing of the dialogue and the scenes feels unreal, yet very human. The characters that surround the title character are peculiar - they have personal particularities that identify them when they pop up on the screen and the dynamics between them is excellent to witness. I'm impressed by this show. It doesn't distress me as much as the aforementioned, but it contains some element of humanness that I enjoy witnessing.

I can recognise myself in all of these television shows. Spartacus is full of horrible people doing horrible things to each other for power, yet their struggles and triumphs connect to some deeper nerve endings in me. Dexter continues to fascinate me, also on some human level. Nurse Jackie likewise. Charmed very much did. Even The Shining did on some everyday level. All of these fictions putty up truth in them. And although I haven't been able to describe what truths they speak to me very clearly, because I am not in the mood to analyse them, something in them makes me feel a sense of connection. I enjoy things that I can connect to, even if I cannot outright putty words together to say how.

Flux-Reflux and Coming Out

When I was in high school, teachers rewarded good behavior and academic success with praise. I sought out that praise, and so learned to achieve with the expectation of said reward at the culmination of my behavior or doings. I don't think it's considered proper to say I did well in high school because I was after adults' approval, but to an extent it is true. I like to be liked. I liked it when my fellow peers liked me, too, when my piece of creative writing was more descriptive and used metaphors and similes more than theirs'. I liked it when the teacher asked me specifically in Year 12 English what the difference between 'affect' and 'effect' was and I said one is a verb and the other is a noun. I felt a watering of the seeds of pride when a student to my right said they don't know what a noun or verb is. In hindsight, I realise that my answer was not correct, and that both 'affect' and 'effect' can be used as nouns as well as verbs, except one grammatical function has a more common usage than the other. But I believed me right, and was praised for being so.

I was praised enough that I believed myself better, smarter. Even students - I remember in year 6, I used to be called a 'brain box', and over years of reinforcement, I came to believe I was simply smarter. Of course, I could never outwardly admit that. I would have to say that everyone can do well - something I believe - and that I am not special. But everyone does not do well, and that hidden, secretive knowing keeps me feeling like I do have something special that propels me.

I can talk my way out of that belief, but I think beyond words, it is still ingrained. I still believe I am special. That is why, when I consciously try to not be boastful of how well I have done in university, I tend to be bitter, because I feel inside me that the seeds of pride, by now a plant with roots, are thirsty for approval. I feel proud, that I have done something better than someone else. And as it stands, when I unconsciously let slip my superiority, it is brought down, seen as an illusion. In other words, when I exalt myself, I am humbled.

Although the weeds are culled above the surface, the roots still spring and yearn to grow again. I feel diminished until I feel the pride again swell. Except, I don't feel it as pride growing, which would alarm me because I consider pride 'bad'; rather, it is justice. I am being praised because I am being reminded of the exalted place I should occupy.

Interestingly, I noticed while thinking today around 1 a.m. while brushing my teeth, that those things I have consciously learned to avoid because they are seen as 'bad', such as being proud and boasting, I unconsciously exhibited as outward behavior. I only seem to catch myself being proud when I feel diminished - that is, when I feel hurt, brought down, it is because I thought myself higher before that.

I noticed it with other things as well. When I see others boast, I am quick to identify in my mind that it is their ego talking and that I should not be like them and therefore be superior because I do not do that. Then in conversation later, I unconsciously boast about something I have done - I cannot resist it - and then the superiority I had just built up is deconstructed.

This flux-reflux of exalting-humbling is the source of much of my pain and pleasure. I enjoy it when someone says something good about something that I did. I don't when they make a caustic remark and diminish me via discrediting the value of what I have done.

I want to develop the habit of humility. In order for this to take place, I must lose my belief that I am special, or help it evolve. Whether I like it or not, it is a belief strengthened each time someone compliments me. This is why I do not like receiving compliments, because I was aware to some extent before that it will circle and lead me to feeling diminished. I like the feeling of being praised, yes, but then I also know now that it will lead me to feeling diminished later on. It is not the praise that is sitting uneasy with me, but rather my not knowing how to deal with it. Because I believed my teachers when they told me I was good, because I thought the other students were jealous of me because I was doing better than them in some activities and in grades, I grew up with the belief that I had something they did not. A pride plant secretly grew in me. I appeared humble on the outside for the most part, but inside I always held on to the belief that I was better.

Perhaps this specialness is a shield, serving as protection from bullies. Yet does this specialness seek its own destruction, its existence being the reason why others would seek to diminish it.

I come to the question that feels familiar, as if I had seen it before. If I am not special, then what am I? If this flux-reflux of exaltation-humility is just an ouroboros, built for its own demolition, where come I? Who is praise for? Is it guidance? If so, who is being guided?

I would redefine special to being particular, but I venture I would encounter the same difficulties with that word due to its similarity. If I did not feel special, I would have no place for pride. Having used logic and trailed my thoughts in this blog post, I come to the area of the unsure. I've felt the spin cycle of my thoughts and they have arrived back at the initial thought I had in the bathroom. What has been avoided consciously, has manifested itself unconsciously. Dreams are an excellent indicator. I have mornings and wake up feeling things I do not openly admit to feeling on the surface. So maybe this says I should not have secrets, I should not hide, because I cannot, because the mind simply cannot. I try conceal my pride and it slips through my fingers. I try conceal feelings I cannot explain or justify, and they surface through other orifices.

Everything moves towards light - even the ego, who although thrives in darkness, needs assert itself and thus diminish in the light. Everything is trying to come out.

Waking from a Dream

He who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who is humble shall be exalted.

That is a paraphrased quote from memory from the book of Matthew. 

I think myself mature, wise,
yet I appear small and diminished.

This is what happens when one sleeps with their pride - they get wake up small. They dream of being big, important, yet they wake up not so.


Thank you God.

Clown

I'll be your clown. 

I asked myself whether being laughed at was bullying. The feeling of being diminished, lesser, wrong, would support that theory. I talked to you tonight and you made me feel some peace, as if inevitably I had to accept sooner or later that it was easy to laugh at my awkwardness, that it was there and it was not going away because it is part of my wiring. And if the wiring changes I'd probably become someone else.

I think from my happenings while growing up and what I saw on TV, I learned that being different is bad to some extent, because you are going to get flack for it. I learned this the hard way in P.E. in year 9 and 10 where I was bullied most out of any other classes at high school, because I wasn't very fit and had circumstantially inappropriate (gay comes to mind) mannerisms. I just felt bad back then, and I remember trying to change the way I acted, trying to, for example, lessen the emotionality of my voice and gestures (if that is such a thing) and to degay my hand movements. I don't know how far it worked because I stopped consciously doing it after feeling it was too hard. After a few years, I stopped bothering much to change.

I've always been conscious that I was different, just not to what extent. But more and more I have been recently becoming aware that I'm different in a large amount of outward ways, in addition to those partially-concealable inner ways. My difference is visible in the way I move and talk. And I don't mind that so much, except it is often emphasised. I think I perhaps hold 'special' (not necessarily in an egotistic way) places in the lives of those who know me because I am different, because I offer to them something that they do not get from other people. Which is cool. Celebrate difference, yo.

I feel like the clown. The clown is aware he's making a fool of himself in order to make others laugh. I'm a different clown then because I'm not always aware of it, but people still laugh. You said it was easier to laugh at how I act because it's more noticeable. And it's not bad that it is so. I get a guaranteed reaction, in some way. And I will perhaps be more memorable because of my outward awkwardness.

It's tempting to think I'm helping them in some way, like it's good to make others laugh through my actions. Perhaps it takes their mind off of things. After all, I'm not losing anything by acting the way I do. It's just my ego that's bruised, and that's nothing. It is only my image of 'normal' that I think I represent that is diminished. I'm not 'normal'. I don't know what normal is, but different is how I feel. And perhaps belonging to the crowd just never was for me. Clowns are never part of the crowd, though they do find themselves among them. Some people are scared of clowns. Some imagine clowns will come kill them. I could fulfill any of those roles to varying degrees, in someone's mind. Offtopic.

I can't change it. I have to learn what I did not learn during P.E. Might as well make someone else smile in the doing. I hope soon to join in.