i finished margaret atwood's masterclass. i find her extremely insightful and funny. i hope i have that sort of frank sense of humor (some would say dark, but i call it realistic) when i grow up. for that matter, i'm already grown up; i hope i can cultivate something like that at my advanced age... that sort of humor is not for everyone. it's not gentle. and it assumes a certain level of intelligence, i suppose...
now, i'm listening to billy collins, a poet. i like his take on how poetry is the history of the heart, and how it is basically passionate about (diminishing) time, and how most poetry is a call to action, to "live a little." i wish i could live a little. i feel, after my earlier dream, that i have always been constrained by things. constrained by this need to prepare for something. but never quite to enact, or spend. why?
i've always wondered at that. where did that come from? the moralistic sensibilities? was it something innate in me, from the start? or did it come from somewhere? i suppose we wrestled with the idea of an implicit (dis)order in religion class. that's why i wrote about the image of crystallization, and how one could initiate a crystal "wave" as it were by either adding a seed crystal (i.e., introduction of an order from the outside), or by scratching the surface of the container (i.e., the "deed" or original act of creation). but these debates led me no closer to extricating myself from my prison.
i often wonder what things would have been like had i been- i don't know- more open and sharing of myself. but i'm not sure what that would have meant. i mean, i do struggle to share in my own way. most of what i do is FOR something or someone. it is all preparation for some invisible guest. like putting on some tremendous production or something. so in that sense, i suppose i am trying to be generous of myself. in fact, i often feel that i am compelled to be so... but i suppose that's not what it really means. i suppose that's not quite way the advice (for it always was advice) was intended. i think people wanted to see the "real" me. whatever that meant. but all i could give was the prepared me. the produced me. the edited for television me.
deep down, there is incredible anger, and incredible lust. i wrestle with it all the time. but i can never bring it to the surface. it is so buried within me. so there is this inevitable lag, always this inevitable lag. there are times when people slight me, and i don't feel it. at least, not in the moment. maybe that's good, or i would be reacting to everything; and maybe it makes it seem like i'm super mellow, that nothing can get to me. but it's not really that; it's more that it takes a while for the lash to be felt, and by the time i'm ready to scream out, the moment has passed. it's sort of like a punchline... and i get the joke way too late.
and there have been a few moments when- well, i guess, i was being seduced... but i didn't feel it. not until it was too late. and now, i have all of these regrets, and nothing to do with it. i can't process any of it. it is like energy that curls in on itself in frustration. released too late... i don't know how to peel away the layers of skin between myself and the world. don't know if it would be wise to, anyway.
is meditation, poetry, etc. a form of control? or release? would they still say that if they knew what monsters would be let loose upon the world?
... as it is, maybe i already am a monster. not the wild sort. but the unfeeling, insensitive sort. i used to pride myself upon being sort of empathic. but now, i can hardly feel sympathy for most people. teachers, for example. i am one. and there are teachers leaving my school, but i could care less. or i couldn't care less. all i think about are the many moments when a certain teacher betrayed her oaths... put her own interests in front of those of her students. and i think that i'm not going to miss her very much. and i'm being truthful too. maybe it was because i felt betrayed by some of her antics... by some of her partiality. and if there's one thing i realize, i can't forgive people. there's a switch that is hard to reach, but perhaps because of that, once it flips, i can't flip it back...
*****
i suppose dreams are compelling because it feels like it is a truth, a felt truth. nowadays, i realize, i don't feel much of anything any more. i say i care about things, like my children, or my sister, but when push comes to shove, i don't do enough for them. i don't go out of my way for them. why is that? it's kind of a weariness, i suppose. it's also a kind of fatalism.
i'm also not gentle. i don't say things in cheery or encouraging ways. why am i so cruel? i just talked to my daughter about college, and made her cry. why did i do that? why do i do that? why do i feel that is necessary? is it really the truth, or is it that i feel she needs to be scared? does it even work, anyway? i don't know. i did mean what i said, about attention. you need to devote your full attention to each thing you do. (even i don't live up to that standard) maybe i'm being a hypocrit, because i don't do that. i don't talk to my son, or my daughter, or my wife, in a meaningful way. only to scold, i suppose. and i get into this mode where i- where it seems as though i am adrift in some current, and i can't swim against it. we are being pulled in different directions, being pulled apart. and maybe i'll claim i love them, when it's all too late- when i didn't do something about things when i could.
i don't know. i MEAN well. i always MEAN well. but maybe it's like all my teachers told me. i need to share of myself. if only i could figure out how. if only i could get myself to come out from beneath all of these cogitations and moralistic imprisonment. but as a child, i never got to play. i never relaxed enough to play, and be happy...
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