- TED talks: Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception: http://www.ted.com/talks/michaelshermerthepatternbehindselfdeception
- I am Joe's Body by J.D. Radcliffe: http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/joebody.pdf
This was the title of a proposed essay in a mock exam paper that a teacher assigned us for homework one weekend in my mid to late teens. I remember looking at the titles and feeling excited and curious and primed about picking one. I'd doodle notes to roughly sketch out what each one might look like. Eventually, I'd settle on one or two and the others would dissipate and resolve into the Universe, never to see the light of the page.
I don't think I wrote this story back then. Even then, I think I had a glimpse of what I might write though. The games people play in their own minds has always seemed to me to be the toughest, saddest and most disappointing games of all. I seem to recall to possible essays in my decision tree under that title. One branched into the deception of others and the other one, the deception of oneself. On the one side, the Game of Thrones that was my family, and especially my mother's view of my father's family. On the other, the games that view made me play with my own mind maybe? I wasn't especially obsessive at the time. That came later.
Sometimes, for these essays, in order to set a bar as it were, I would blatantly and without conscience plagiarise from magazines and stories lying around the house. The Reader's Digest provided a series of science writings under " I am Joe's body". I found it ironic, a coincidence, and a quirk of life that this series was referenced in "Fight Club." Coincidence is a game where you take random events and line them up in a row in your mind and look for a pattern or common theme. Gathering up the Reader's Digest articles about Joe's body was another game. Today, I'd go look for articles in Wikipedia or the books available to add to my Wish List on Amazon. Collection is the first key element.
Over the last week, a distant friend approached me online to tell me about what he initially described as a mid-life crisis or existential crisis. I am wary of distant friends bringing me issues. Personal information is a gift when it comes from close friends I guess. But after some exchanges and my own feelings entering the discussion, I think he is unhappy and depressed. One should not ignore that they can be independent or together. You can have depression and feel moments of happiness. You can be unhappy and yet, not clinically depressed. There were moments when I was depressed when I felt alive and happy or at least the memory is alive and happy. And moments like that were sometimes captured when I wrote in my diary. Record and collect.
My new friend has broken his own heart. He has had feelings for someone outside of his marriage. He has told his wife and they have been together very hurt. He now feels isolated and lost. He feels "in a bad way... emotionally." He is suffering from stress. I judged him, of course. And this friend's words were ringing as I read them. What a coincidence. I have just crossed the apex of what was described as an existential crisis. I had just admitted having feelings about someone. I was reading the after story of one such journey into those feelings. And that is all I'm prepared for at the moment - the exploration of feelings rather than bottling of them.
You see, the main lesson I learned from my own crisis was about honesty and owning my feelings. Up to that time, the phrase "owning my own feelings" signified taking responsibility for negative assumptions or feelings. It involved a form of inner self-chastisement. But I learned to be gentler with myself and forgive myself for negative and critical thoughts. By doing that, I can explore the feelings better and feel more human. I shouldn't be so analytically though - exploration is not really the goal. And even this friend of mine recognized that he thinks too much. Stop thinking. Feel it. Move on. I must also understand my own responsibilities. But I am happy to own human feelings that are also positive or could be positive. By not suppressing them, perhaps I am relieving myself of burdens that lead to obsessive and repetitive thoughts. But I have to record them. It is as though life is not real to me unless I write the thing down. Play. Stop. Repeat.
My inner jury found him human and frankly, I think he and his wife are very different people. But I told myself, that other part of my heart and mind told my colder side, that love finds people and connects all kinds of people. Only the people in the relationship ever really understand that love. Maybe I feel a type of love that I just don't understand. Maybe I have a connection that I'm confusing with sexual relationships. I just need to let the obsessive and repetitive cloud pass. I just need to feel and not think. I told him none of this. I told him to be kinder to himself. I told him things would get better. I agreed with him - Stop the play button. Stop analyzing. Feel. Wallow in feeling. Then hit stop and move on.
I once could not write about love at all. Now I want to talk about it and write about it as though it is an old friend who has always lived on my shoulder. I want it here. I want there to be different types of love. I want to affect and be affected by love with others. I don't want to fear it like because it leaves me open and vulnerable. I see it as though it was some power and not the elusive nuisance of my twenties. Again, I just stuck it in a cupboard and lay awake at night listening to moving around in there - obsessively playing some game.
His heart will get fixed. One way or another. I hope so anyway.
I don't want to break my own heart. I think I made progress in that way. I try very hard not to "read-into" messages and words. But the game attracts me. People interpret things how they want to. Sometimes, an unconscious need or desire, or perhaps one that is semi-conscious, means they can see other meanings in a message or a word. It alarms my mature 36 year old self that I might be doing that. And…all right. I know this is out of nowhere, but…at what point in a relationship is it normal to think about living together? Is…let’s say…buying a condo a sign that you want to move to that stage? Is that what an action like that might hypothetically be indicating? --- Cecil Baldwin (Welcome to Night Vale ep: Condos)
Kamikaze.
Why pick that picture? Why use those words. Why leave me out of this e-mail. All can be explained of course. New friendships mean new themes. New things to attract interest. Old topics are brought out of cupboards and dusted off. There! "That is a bit of me and if you go look in the cupboard, there's a bit of you that's just like me." This is a game. But surely it has a purpose.
This lining up of events, and messages and words feeds my addictive/obsessive personality which I say with semi-conviction and tongue in cheek. I know there is something obsessive about me. I know that I have some issues around repetitive thoughts and compulsions. They are not the ones you see outlined under OCD if you look it up online. In fact, they sometimes are more like pure-O. The thoughts that come unbidden. The superstitions. And the satisfaction if not glee of finding hoarded items or finding new things to collect. Winning a prize.
In a perfect world, I'd have written all the essays. I have done all the sketching. I would have had the time to work on everything I wanted to and read all the articles and stories. And one day write all the stories myself. And sometimes, looking back on it, maybe that is what I thought growing up would be like.
The games people play in their own minds seem to me to be the toughest, saddest and most disappointing games of all. Press Play. Press Stop. Then stop thinking about it. In a new light, with my new friends, I know that the human brain looks for patterns naturally. It is something that we do and that I can research if I like. The game is just like the hunt. The old bits of our human mind are still looking for things to line up and to find meaning from them. This bit of my brain adores fantasy and attributing meaning to what may just be random. The presence of the pattern doesn't definitely indicate any particular meaning. It might mean something. The time will come though when the game will be over.
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