Mundane Turbulence

And here I am: a second cross-country road trip in as many years. This time I’m helping deliver my sister into the clutches of the west coast, to that most reviled of places: Los Angeles. I’ve never been, but…c’mon. (Yeah, that’s as substantive as my criticism of the place gets.) Sadly, it’s either NYC or LA for artists, and my sis wants to be one of those, so…I guess the latter is cheaper. Or something.

It’s just around 1:00am EST, and my sister and I are in one shady-ass part of Philadelphia. I don’t know what this area is called, but we were definitely offered Percocets within the 3-minute walk from where we parked the car to the steps of the apartment in which we’re crashing. Mom: next time you offer to put us up in a motel, I promise I won’t call it “stupid.” Oh, karma…are you really this intent on proving your existence?

Anyhoo, we left from Cambridge in the mid-evening.  Those were simpler times:

Road warriors.

And here’s how far we have come today:

And by “we,” I mean that Ariel is an awesome and patient driver.

So we’re definitely hitting up the Mütter Museum tomorrow morning, because…well, who wouldn’t want a piece of that prior to attending a wedding on a fancy estate?

P.S. New Jersey: you smell like shit.

P.P.S. I’m just playin’, NJ…you know I loves you.

P.P.P.S. Take a shower, though.

Long time, no post, Christian.

I know. Sorry about that.

Graduate school: I love it. It’s tons of work, but it’s satisfying work, and if you do it right, you’ll find that you’re working on yourself more than any particular project. Or that’s been my experience, at least, and it all adds up for me. Fundamentally, psychology asserts that all individuals are changeable. And the discipline’s therapists are, I would think, the facilitators of that change. The task of training these facilitators, however, simply cannot only be a matter of teaching skills.

In order to be effective therapists, we need to remain present with our clients, empathetically acknowledging what they feel, and remaining aware of what we feel in response. We must choose our words wisely, because the power differential within the therapeutic relationship is such that those words may have a lasting impact on how clients feel about themselves, and about us. We cannot merely attune to the content of clients’ speech, but also its quality, as well as how clients appear and move when they speak. We have to organize our thoughts in a way that creates meaningful connections between superficially discrete pieces of information. It is essential that we admit our mistakes to clients, because if we fail to do so, we risk losing their trust; and if clients do not trust us, then they will not trust our therapy. Ellipsis etcetera.

So how on Earth can these be just some techniques that we pick up? I dunno, maybe it’s possible; maybe some people can learn these things and then turn them off and on, but I’m skeptical. My experience of all this is: I’m changing. I’m not walking around, “psychoanalyzing” people (an outdated word, anyway) or anything assholic like that, but I think the way in which I interact with others has been fundamentally altered. As far as I can tell, this has manifested as an utter lack of desire to engage in a non-genuine way.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy small talk, or that every conversation I have needs to contain some deep and meaningful connection at its core – this is instead a reflection of my own personal development. One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in recent years has surrounded the realization that I need to allow myself to feel comfortable with my own emotional experience. Sadness and hurt and anxiety and anger and envy and every feeling that we call negative is painful to endure. It’s so enticing to avoid. It’s so appealing to deny. But if I can’t be present with my own pain, how can I be present with anyone else’s? The logical progression, therefore, extends a genuine approach from interactions with myself to interactions with others.

The application of these ideas is, of course, extremely difficult to navigate, particularly because of the ubiquitous nature of the change. That is to say, no domain of living is unaffected, including ones in which genuineness is entirely unexpected. After all, our language is saturated with common speech that, in spite of its literal meaning, assumes the absence of meaningful response. “What’s up,” “how’re you doing,” “how was your meal,” “how’s the family,” “how was work,” are some of the uncountable daily examples of this assumption (which isn’t to say that many people don’t mean them as genuine questions, but that is the exception). Genuinely answering these questions can, in fact, be off-putting to some, in particular if the answer does not conclude with an expression of the positive. Trickier still is when others have expectations of your behavior, as opposed to merely your affect. A boss asks if you’d like to pick up an additional shift, or a teacher asks if you’d be interested in completing an additional assignment. The genuine answer may not just be unexpected, but could indeed be detrimental.

Reality is that there’s no answer to these risks – only that the potential gains outweigh the potential losses. I want to strive for genuineness for myself, and for how I relate to others. I feel like…I’m becoming a wholer person. And that’s my experience of my training thus far.

P.S. Happy birthday, Mama.

Today’s got an interesting feeling. It makes me want to create, and since I still feel like I’m just going to draw or sculpt the same old things over and over again (my artistic rut, as ever, continues)…here I am.

I think this got sparked by an acquaintance’s posting on Facebook. Yeah, I feel pretty lame about deriving inspiration from such a mundane medium, but whatever. Her post: “our war is a spiritual war.” I know, it gets worse, right – a quotation from Fight Club? Boo. I loved that movie (didn’t bother with the book – Palahniuk’s an ass), but only as entertainment. I found its message of bourgeois ennui (two French words in a row??) to be…tiresome. I know, I know, suffering a middling station in the most affluent and privileged society the world has ever seen is so hard, white people.

But, okay, our spiritual war: no doubt that is powerful. Obviously our country is in the midst of two nasty wars, so the sentiment isn’t exclusively true, but I’m sure I don’t speak for only myself when I say that I feel entirely disconnected from who’s getting murdered on the other side of the planet. And if you’re not directly connected, or you don’t personally know someone who is, then you’re probably fooling yourself if you think you know anything about it. So, back on the western front, what is the report? Yeah, we’re taking heavy casualties.

I don’t know a damn thing about spirituality. I was raised areligiously – blessedly so – which means that I’ve been left to my own spiritual devices. Which really means that I’ve been left to a variety of devices greater than what only my family might have imparted: I’ve read bits and pieces of all sorts of things, and the more I read, the less I know. I get the sense, however, that no one else knows anything, either.

The best ideas I’ve read have always been the ones that suggested ways to approach living, rather than ways to prepare for dying; that’s something I’ve held onto as a guiding principle. If someone preaches on the metaphysical, then their estimations are lucky at best (least likely), probably delusional (that’s being kind), or they’re just plain lying (most likely, although not necessarily maliciously). But what is spirituality, if not an attempt to make sense of some presumed world beyond our own?

And maybe that’s the issue entirely: we’re far too concerned with being somewhere else. Our spiritual war isn’t about finding some greater or more pure spirituality, but is instead about the role of spirituality itself. Those content with their spirituality are either fanatics (i.e., total assholes), or they have subsumed their spirituality under a focus on living. A useful proverb comes from Buddhism (as recounted by Thich Nhat Hanh):

Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first.

The war, then, is one of reconciliation. It seems as though we’re conditioned to want to be somewhere else – and that isn’t just a spiritual thing, it’s an every-goddamn-day thing. At least, I notice myself feeling that way all the time (and one of the most awesome things about there being billions of people on this planet is that I can pretty much always count on some millions of people having experiences similar to my own). For instance, I’m sitting on a couch in my living room in front of my computer, but y’know what? I want to be outdoors in a hot tub (that’s almost always where I want to be, really – all y’all millions know what I’m sayin’).

Um…anyway: I think spirituality means that we’ve got to reconcile our desire to be not-here with the fact that we are, in reality, here – every second of every day. The war is finding those means. How do we do that? I don’t fucking know, but it seems like a shift in focus would be helpful.

I got a voicemail from my father a couple days ago:

“Hey. So, ah…give me a call, uh, as soon as you can. Not an emergency in that sense. Ya’know, give me a call, in any case. Love you, bye.”

I love it. Not-an-emergency emergency calls that sound sad. I didn’t really know what to think, so I skipped out on the episode of Mad Men that I was [re-]watching and gave him a buzz. It turned out that my third childhood cat, Sparks, had died.

He was 18.

Sparks was…a dumb cat. My second cat, Ike – the greatest cat who ever existed – was just the most friendly dude ever, and I have quite a few cherished memories of him. A girlfriend of mine even made a fake MSPCA ad starring him (he was just that awesome):

What a great little guy!

Anyway, Sparks. Do you know what the first thing I think of when he comes to mind? Farts. This cat smelled…just awful. Like hot garbage puke. And it wasn’t just the smell of cat-ass – it was also the sound. He actually produced audible farts, which, having grown up with 13 cats, I can tell you is a unique phenomenon. Other than that, and his seeming inability to understand that my toes, even under blankets, were still attached to my body and could feel pain, I really can’t recall much else noteworthy about the animal.

So why do I even bother mentioning Sparks? It’s something to do with childhood. My sister and I found Sparks here:

PJs. Da projects. Our backyard was beyond that wall.

Here’s a story that no one seems to remember but me: Ariel and I just got out back to play, when we saw these two other kids (assholes) throwing rocks at something in the bushes. We went over to check it out, and there was a tiny little kitten, mewing for help. We were sensitive little kids, so we ran over to him, and pretty much just cried until the assholes withdrew. We brought out a blanket, calmed the kitten down, and then, of course, brought him inside and begged our dad to let us keep him. We went all out: not just crying, but bawling, messy, sloppy tearing, screaming about how he’d be killed if we didn’t save him. Our dad, the softie! The kitten was ours within 15 minutes, and he had a name not too long after: our soon-to-be step-mom had a cat called Sparkles, who looked the same except bigger, so this little kitten would be Sparks. Children do come up with the most inspiring pet names.

Anyway, the moral of this story: I dunno! I just kinda feel bummed about that last living connection to my childhood home. I still have a couple friends from back then, but I don’t see them more than once a year or so. Sparks lived with my dad and step-mom, and he was ever-present. He was lame and boring and he never quite learned to fear a water bottle, but he was in my life since I was 10. So…that’s sad, right? I feel all gray about it.

Hmph.

I like to listen to the live stream at wbur.org as I start my day. There’s an NPR station in Missoula, and of course there’s the national station, but I prefer my home newscast…it helps me to feel connected (even if the weather report doesn’t match up). It’s summer, and I miss my people.

When I was home during the winter, some of the undertaking felt like a chore. I loved being around my friends, but there were occasions that I experienced as obligations (in part), or which were otherwise uncomfortable because of conflicting demands. My time didn’t feel like my own, and I experienced unfamiliar feelings towards my favorite people as a result. I didn’t like it. I don’t like feeling upset, and I like even less the disharmony that it elicits when associated with those who bring me comfort.

I adapted my summer plans accordingly. I’ll be back for ten days, instead of two weeks, and this visit is really only the result of my required attendance at a cousin’s wedding. But now all I think is: thank goodness for that wedding! I have learned that summer is easily the coldest season, absent the warmth of friends. I am so happy with the connections I’ve made here, but they necessarily lack the variety that comes with decades of establishment – a truth of which I was completely oblivious during the winter.

After all, I am spoiled! Not only have I been gifted with the most brilliant friends, but I have been gifted with an abundance of the most brilliant friends. Friends that inspire and entertain; friends that make me a better person for knowing them. They have been in my life for years – my best years – and they’ve been so consistently present that I’ve allowed petty logistical frustrations to dictate the terms of an entire future visit. How entirely preposterous!

I want to be stuck with balancing between different groups of friends. I’m looking forward to long and boring bus rides across town. I don’t care about meeting up with people at bars that I hate. I can’t wait to be home!