Introspection for the creative mind

There is a time in one's life when we must reflect. However scary it might be, when we find ourselves confused by the person in the mirror, we reflect to understand the why. When I do this, I find myself to be quite insane, bonkers, Looney, coocoo in the coconut, off my rocker. The thoughts in my head seem ludacris although the conclusions seem (at least to me) to be logically sound.

It starts like this:
For most of my life, I have been able to avoid the god given talent of empathy and introspection with the escapist methods of drugs, sex, video, TV and computer games, TV (in general), writing, alcohol and all the other devices a creative person might accrue to escape reality. This may need some explanation.

When I was little, there were a number of things that went wrong with my childhood, numerous psychologists attempted to fix said problems, However the end result seemed to be the same, I would push all things that I found uncomfortable to deal with to the back of my mind while putting up a shoddy dam to block them from the rest of my brain. Unfortunately, I happen to be more aware than I would like to give myself credit for, maybe even intelligent if I choose to be.

The problem with this awareness is that I can recall the emotion of almost any given time in my life with an image and the thoughts connected to that moment. For instance, the glade plug in vanilla smell has the ability to take me back to the days of a college girlfriend and all of a sudden I will feel the romantic feelings I had for her while knowing that she's long gone. Overall, this will be painful and sucky for me.

While we're on the topic of emotion, however, we might as well go into the part two of my self diagnosis which happens to be the extroversion that came somewhere with this dam. If I had to guess, I would say that the plethora of emotions and memory recall, gave me the ability to identify said emotions in others and somehow jump started a part of my brain that could recognize the emotions of others whether I wanted to or not. My example of this would be the people I interact with daily. Sometimes I may not even seem like I'm reading them because I choose to ignore their emotions in order to interact how I want to and be free with it but I can see the boredom in their eyes, I notice contempt. I also notice the joys, frustration, anger, humor, feebleness and every other emotion permeating off them like cheap perfume. Whether I want to or not, I've trained my mind, somehow to recognize social ques. I see a slight eye twitch, a hesitation in their voice, the slight movement in a smile and it's like I can read their minds because my mind subconsciously recognizes the emotion and adopts it as if it were my own. Do this a few hundred times a day and you become quite exhausted.

The problem becomes when these two unique quirks overload. When I push just enough baggage past the dam in my head that keeps the pain back; right after I've collected so many emotions of others that I cannot distinguish my own anymore.  Bear in mind I did use the word, "subconsciously," to describe my empathic abilities, I don't have control over my emotions when my mind decides to pick up on others. In such a case, I push the empathy back in mg head just as I do the other stresses of life. At some point, however, the dam breaks.

In my case, I exhibit a very real step by step breakdown when the barrier collapses. I see it when it's happening but it feels almost as if I were holding a heated iron inside me that I wanted to put down but can't, inside of me.

Step 1: RAGE-
Rage for me comes on like a faucet being turned on. I get hurt by a trigger and it offends me minorly at first but my mind will cycle the thought. I will fixate on that trigger, cycling the intense pain and stress of it until it's all I can think of. At this point, the trigger, which is commonly an action of another person will become an object to be destroyed. My specialty is knowing psychological weak spots so I will usually attack that first.

Example of Rage:
A co-worker and friend of mine told me, "Don't talk to me," after I'd been an idiot and slacked off while working with him. In his mind, the reason I look mad is because he called me a poor worker but when he looked at me with disapproval and shame, it brings up memories fallen from the shattered dam in my head of my father telling me I could be doing more with myself. The feelings of helplessness, anger at myself, shame and anger at my father's shame in me, all create a rage that builds because my thinking immediately jumps to how dare somebody else look down on me?

Step 2: DEPRESSION AND TEARS -
This is usually after I've passed the point of no return whilst in the rage stage. My emotions have caused me to do/say/feel things I cannot take back. By this point, I've regained some of my control; however, regardless of my control over my temper, I am left with a literally dizzying amount of emotions (some of which aren't even mine), and memories innumerable that represent so many different personal feelings.

As it all spills out onto the floor like a smashed glass of Sprite, I am unable to distinguish what drink was there to begin with anymore. Am I upset about the time a girl read my, "do you like me?" Letter to the class in 5th grade? Or is it perhaps the look of disappointment and shame my father showed me when he caught me self mddicating with marijuana? Of course, this decision seems like it would be easy because I've simplified it but there are about a hundred other moments that cycle again and again like a hundred home movie film reels and all simultaneously. All of these thoughts and emotions, both good and bad; from myself and all those that I've picked up and retained from others, happen simultaneously to make the end result uncontrollable tears due to stress. True, at that moment, part of me is happy but I cannot call it elation; part of me is sad but I can't call it depression; part of me is aloof but part of me also realizes what's going on and is embarrassed so I cry because I feel helpless to do anything else and terrified at the multitude of things I do not want to be feeling.

It's like having a bad trip and you just can't wait for the drug to wear off...

Ultimately though, this leads us into a final stage: ACCEPTANCE AND DENOUMENT -
 In these moments, I feel nothing but the quiet and stillness of complete surrender.  The thoughts of all those around me grow gray and numb like death. Sometimes, I can even see the gray and black and gold dots like one about to pass out. Ironically, it's the same dim-witted and satiated verisimilitude I feel after the gratuitous sex that I would have, at a different point in my life, used to prevent this exact situation.

With drugs, sex and alcohol gone from my life, I suppose I'm going to have to go through some method of release but such fanfare is less easy to experience than the loaded feeling I had while running from this type of implosion. All I really want is that quiet and mindless satisfaction to begin with but also ironically, the silence never lasts long.

The ultimate conclusion to these episodes is that I still struggle with all these thoughts, I just deal with them one at a time and push them back into the back of my mind to try and pick up the pieces like so many scattered jenga blocks until the next eruption. I've been getting better at rebuilding the tower and dealing with the stress of it all but the real danger of an episode like this one is inevitable until I've gotten my life collected into a well oiled machine that runs its self. Sometimes I still smoke a cigarette to bandaid a bad situation and sometimes it works but it's not a permenant solution to the stress of a fractured mind. I wonder if sometimes, I might be better off with a drink to hold me over in sweet obliteration while I use the bit of semblance that I have in said stupor to get things done? What's the next step? Well for all the self diagnosing and psychology I've studied to try and repair myself, maybe I need a second brain to analyze the data for me but to find such a mind would be as easy as finding a soul mate. There's a reason I never stayed with any psychologist for too long: it's because they work slow and they don't understand how quickly I need results to problems that span years. As of now, I'll only be well when I learn to fix some of these difficult issues on mg own or learn a cleaver way to deal with them.

Nature vs. Nurture

It's the time old question of the nature of good and evil. Is one born bad (or good for that matter) or do we become who we are through a series of life trials? We can trace this debate back as early as man questioned his existence, however, the first person to discuss it (in reference to hereditary and environment on social advancement) was a cousin of Charles Darwin, named Francis Galton.

Galton was an English student of polymath and anthropology. For those who don't know, these are the studies of multiple sciences and studies to come to a concise conclusion and the study of human beings, past and present, drawing from social, biological, natural sciences and the humanities, respectively. Galton was at heart a statistician and as if to prove himself thus, he was the first to apply statistics to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence. He also was the first to introduce surveys and questionnaires in comunities in order to aid him in his research into anthropometry, which is the study of the measurement of the human individual. In anthropometry, he could literally study why one person sits in their chair at a 45° angle and why another chooses an angle closer to 90°. In these collective ways, Galton may have been the ideal candidate to study the question of nature vs. Nurture when he first asked it in the 1800's.

As I have previously stated, he wasn't the first to ponder the question but rather the first to construct such a concept concisely. The question of why are we the way we are has been going on for centuries and spans the interests of scientists, right up to Madison Avenue. One may recall, "Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybe line." Although it may be a bit of a stretch, the question of make up executives is how do we stray from the idea of natural beauty to convince the populace that human beings are far better off since they learned to put on make up.

Ultimately, the argument's good on both sides and god knows advertisers are great at setting fashion trends that we were definitely not born with but when it comes down to it, sociopathy and psychopathy both can be inherited genetically as well as being a developmental phenomenon. It's due to this realization that I say people are not as simple as an "either/or." We are a compilation of all things that include both genetics and how we were raised. Without the sum of our parts, we'd be no better than animals. In this way, Darwin was right: we evolved. We are not just nature or nurture but nature and nurture. More importantly, we are human and because of this, we will always be a product of chance beyond what we can comprehend.

Love

I have often pondered the meaning of romance and come to similar conclusions. I always sought out the over-the-top, highfalutin, Shakespear kind of love but real love, i never got to know until marriage.

A girlfriend can be let go or even leave you at the drop of a hat but once you're married, you begin to relax a little about the wooing of your companion  and are able to enjoy them in a kind of way you could never do with a date or anybody else. In this kind of relationship, you can really love someone.

Now what does that mean? What is love? From looking back on my past, i might have told you that it's a powerful motivator, an overwhelming feeling in your soul or even a death without them, life has no meaning otherwise, sort of thing. In earnest, I would say that there are many different kinds of love, the most powerful being the relationship between a parent and child because let's face it, you aren't getting sex, money, status or a lot of the time, even a thank you from your kid.

The relationship there is so awkward for grown kids that sometimes parents and kids don't even talk for long periods of time but from the moment you hold that baby in your arms and know that you're his/her whole world for the rest of their lives and yours, you're hooked. It's hard to even think about without tears because a parent will struggle with this mutated copy of themselves for the remainder of their time on earth. Have two or three or 14, which was the highest number of kids in a family I've ever met, and you can forget about it. Your heart will break and mend so many times that you will eventually transcend anything that resembles something as primitive as arm in arm, smitten love.

This, coincidentally, brings me to my purpose for this essay, of sorts, which is the discussion of real love versus being "in love." Being, "in love," requires very little commitment and it's as easily shattered as forgetting to duck in a boxing match.  It hits you in the face, when it shatters, with about the same amount of speed and force too. What I've realized about true love, however, is that the common denominator crosses different kinds of love.  You may not always like the other person. In fact, there may be times where you sincerely feel that you downright hate them; sometimes you won't show affection and sometimes you won't talk and/or show affection for a very long time but the bottom line is that true love comes back. A parent could get into a fight with their kid for years but if that kid comes back to their parent and says, "I love you, mom/dad," garentee they'll say it back at least 90% of the time. This is because, you can't say, "no he/she was never my mom or dad" you can't say there was never anything there because it's biological, that never changes. Husbands and wives can get divorced but a child ties them together forever. In real love, there's not as much fanfare and more being at the table after all the bombs have dropped.

My wife and i don't always cuddle like boyfriends and girlfriends do. In fact, she has problems with claustrophobia but that's ok because our legs touching or her foot on mine is a representation of that intimacy that is more powerful than the boyfriend/girlfriend crush. In real love, a fight can be had that dwarfs WWII and still you will be kissing them again and not be worried that it's your last time.  This is not to say that you shouldn't live every day as if it's your last or give up on wooing your spouse but real love needs no constant stream of fireworks, it simply works. As water will always flow in the streams and rain will always fall; As the sun will always rise and that guy who steals your parking spot when your having a flawless day will always come screeching in, engine running, love lives and breaths as life does. That's why real love can suck or be great but it's more than a kiss or a cuddle, it's the stubborn power of timelessness but don't take my word for it...

Gonzo sleep routine

After midnight and severe sleep deprivation sets it. I turned on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which, just simply watching it, is like being hopped up on a cocktail of different psychadelic drugs but mixed with the lack of sleep and anxiety attack; it's like slipping into a dream going  unfathomably fast in a helicopter.

All concept of gravity and direction goes awry while the concept of reality melts away in front of you like an ice block in front of a portable heater.

All of a sudden, you wish you had drugs because they'd be a reprieve from the psychosis of sobriety and reality.

I need to write. Escape into a reality that's not this waking nightmare but at the moment writer's block hits like a jealous ex.

I need a different hit to induce lethargy and unconsciousness. Donnie Darko for the death sleep? That dreamless sleep or lively sleep full of such dreams that explode nonsensically without order or reason and cannot be disturbed by the noise from reality that makes the stir of an unabashed neutron bomb? Wake up wifette? Go upstairs? Get out! Sleep. Nothingness. I'll wake up when the world makes sense again.

Glasgow's deadly contribution

Tommy Flanagan, better known as Chibs on the FX hit series, Sons of Anarchy, has acted in over 42 titles including but not limited to Gladiator, Sin City, and the Smokin' Aces movies. He is most easily recognizable from other Scotch players by the marks on his face that seem to extend out from the corners of his face. The reason I mention his facial marks is because I wonder how and why he got them?
 In my recent study of torture, I learned of something called The Glasgow Smile and all of a sudden, I was able to put two and two together.

The Glasgow Smile also known as a Glasgow grin, Chelsea grin, Cheshire grin or Chelsea smile is a form of torture usually administered with a utility knife or a piece of broken glass. In Flanagan's case, it was administered with a knife while he was walking home from the nightclub where he worked as a DJ but at a nightclub: A fight breaks out, someone breaks a bottle and boom you have Heath Ledger as The Joker born in hatred.


In Flanagan's case, he lived through the experience and with the help of actor, theater owner and soccer pal, Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, Trainspotting) He used this distinctive look to his advantage and became a very famous actor because of it. However, for most who receive the Glasgow smile, they die from exsanguination or bleeding out if they leave it untreated.  Even Flanagan admits in an article written about him called, "Where the ride takes you," "it was a wrong place at the wrong time sort of thing. I was D.O.A. when I arrived at the hospital, but somehow I was given a second chance, and that second chance gave me a new outlook on life, and is what really got me into acting.”

The face has numerous veins and blood vessels and slicing the ones in the cheek cuts open a main artery and a main vein causing blood to leave the body at a potentially exponential rate.  If you look at the example below, you'll see branches off the jugular veins and arteries that lead back directly to the heart.

Flanagan was born in the town where it originated which, although it does not guarantee him seeing it done to him, it does put him smack dab in the middle of a town sick enough to come up with the idea of cutting a person from the corners of their mouth to the bottoms of their ears in an attempt to kill or cause them extreme pain...

Glasgow, in its humble beginnings was nothing but "a small rural settlement" but in its haste, it became not only one of the largest cities in Scotland, one of the largest seaports in the world but also a major center for Scottish enlightenment. With the enlightenment, both the good and the bad become more creative. Good people paint pictures, write books, and create centers of industry and trade while bad people make gangs that try to literally emblazon joy onto your face like a Cheshire cat.

Although the enlightened Scottish invented the monstrosity, the English street gangs liked the creativity and adopted it as their own; most notably the Chelsea Headhunters, a London based soccer fan club that resorted to violence earning their title of fanatic.


So every time you see, Tommy Flanagan in Sons..., see his scar and know somebody tried to make him smile and that's why he and other victims of this cruel and unusual punishment end up either scarred for life or smiling to death.

Literary Analysis and discussion: Nothing Gold Can Stay

I like this poem because it is humbling to those who don't see things in terms of eternity. In the eternity, nothing we do really matters but in the right here and now, cockyness runs rampant. Here are your "mighty works" if you don't believe me:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Ozymandias 
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mr. G:

Love this poem! Especially the last line -- "the lone and level sands stretch far away." So what is worth doing? Great works? Maintenance? Whatever makes you happy? If all is impermanence, I still wonder, what is worth doing?

By the way, this poem is often copied with "upon" instead of the original "on": "Look on my works ye mighty..."

Me:
 
You're right. Upon screws up the pentameter. I think I'll change it.

I think if all is impermanent, the stress of doing everything perfect is gone. Eternity makes each moment into something not so stressful.

Literary Analysis: Pondering Eliot

The poem, "The Hollow Men" speaks to me because of its intense analysis of all the emptyness in various pastures of reality.  The ending lines are truly some of the most powerful in literature altogether, in my opinion.  To claim that with all the noise of all these different walks of life, none of them make a loud enough noise to mean anything to eternity is truly powerful:
"This is the way the world ends:
Not with a bang but a whimper."
As if at the end of it all, there's naught but a whimper that speaks to the legacy of man.  Don't let me interpret for you, though.  Enjoy T.S. Eliot's, The Hollow Men, A penny for the Old Guy:



I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Literary Analysis: Roald Dhal Vs. William Allingham

In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dhal quotes "round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way!" in his poem/song: The Rowing Song.  I thought this sounded too classical for a Roald Dahl book so I looked into it and found this great little poem that gave me the heart of a pirate.  I thought I'd share.

HOMEWARD BOUND

Head the ship for England!
Shake out every sail!
Blithe leap the billows,
Merry sings the gale.
Captain, work the reckoning;
How many knots a day? -
Round the world and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

We've traded with the Yankees,
Brazilians and Chinese;
We've laughed with dusky beauties
In shade of tall palm-trees;
Across the line and Gulf-Stream -
Round by Table Bay -
Everywhere and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

Nightly stands the North Star
Higher on our bow;
Straight we run for England;
Our thoughts are in it now.
Jolly times with friends ashore,
When we've drawn our pay! -
All about and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

Tom will to his parents,
Jack will to his dear,
Joe to wife and children,
Bob to pipes and beer;
Dicky to the dancing-room,
To hear the fiddles play; -
Round the world and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

William Allingham [1824-1889]

The Rowing Song

Round the world and home again
That's the sailor's way
Faster faster, faster faster

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a–blowing

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a–glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

Roald Dhal
Charley and The Chocolate Factory

Motivational Speech

The beauty of a sunrise  on forever is a romantic notion to many people.  The sunrise over planet earth makes for the introduction to such legends as superman and the anthroplomorphosism of space its self.  It serves as a reminder that we are part of a bigger plan and that everybody takes part in that plan, no matter how small.
We are the voyagers, traversing personal thought, emotion, scholastic achievement, power, honor, a future and even the extent of our own capabilities.  The thing we so soon forget and are reminded of by, when it comes to this imagry, is that we are doing this not alone but as one of an ocean of others trying to do the same thing or at least earn the right to call their life water rather than a single molecule of H2O.
Sitting on our beaches or our starships or even out in the middle of the ocean, we look out on forever and can be humbled that we are one so small in the existence of life on earth.  When we come back to reality, however, we stand outside the water; we stand outside of space.  As people, we have the ability to percieve these feelings and experience them all in a different way.
That is why we are the ocean.  Not a single molecule of H2O or water but that great body made up of many of different parts despite the vast quantity of things that surround it.  Pain and death are inevitable but so is forever.  Our strength to know that anything that leaves here will indeed make an impact that will never be forgotten; most notably ourselves.
This is the reason why we should not look out onto the dawn or the dusk, but to the achievement of a new day and new structures to observe and feel.
Just like the ocean, the eternity of space, we are explorers and we are given ourselves.