I appreciated this most of my life because, until last year, autumn has always been a great time of year for me. It's not my favorite season, mind you, I much prefer the beach and a margarita to leaf-peeping and manhattans. But autumn was always a time when I felt good socially, I did well at work, and later in life I was neither sun-dried nor plump from months of being snow-bound. The association of autumn and sexual climax and the association of autumn with applying wisdom to one's life appealed to both my desires to be physically beautiful and consumately wise.
But 2008 was an anomaly; autumn was not what it has once been. The relationship that had escorted me through my late 20s and some of my 30s, which had been over for years, finally came to physical separation, and therefore less financial freedom. Things were not going well at work, I was socially isolated, and my physical appearance was, in a word, shot. To top it all off, as I learned later, I was pulling myself out of a two-year depression and away from associated habits and thought patterns. But I had begun briefly to take control of things and believed I was feeling better. I started a relationship with someone much better looking than I am, regained a little confidence and lost a few pounds, and by the time September rolled around, I was ready for the season that had always been my stride, where I could ride the cocky road to smaller size sweaters and somewhat regular sex.
But instead of hitting an upswing I plunged into a remission season of self-pity and hopelessness. The much-better-looking guy treated me like a schmuck, I put a few pounds back on, felt fat and ugly, and I lost interest in everyone around me. Worse, I was further crushed after expecting the momentum previous years had offered me and instead hit a cold, black impenetrable wall of fear, doubt, and anxiety, all of which I thought I had overcome.
Through the end of the year I developed theories about what was happening to me, and smoked weed daily to dull the effects of sharp lessons I was learning. For instance, I learned that I was not old enough to know all I was supposed to know and no longer young enough to get away with it. I learned I could not turn the heads I used to turn, and that if I were going to be attractive at all I had to do it with confidence and cleverness where I once used my hair and my ass. I was paunchy, making excuses for why I was unhappy, and looking for anything dazzling that would blot out the image of what I was becoming. They called it a mid-life crisis in the 70s. I called it my own version 4.0. Whatever it was, it was hard to do and it felt like hell doing it all alone.
Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was The Alchemist, but I'm thankful that somehow I knew it was necessary and possibly endurable. I knew I couldn't get on with my life if I hadn't yet learned the lessons I was supposed to learn. I knew I was carrying around a lot of hang ups, rules, and beliefs about myself and about the world that I needed to get rid of. I knew I was angry about bad memories I had, and yet I also knew I had a real problem expressing anger and even knowing the types of things that made me angry. I let people treat me like shit because I hated confrontation of any kind and didn't have the energy to stand up for myself even if I wanted to.
Then, in a fittingly dramatic moment in a London tube station just a few hours into 2009, I promised myself I'd live my life differently than I had in 2006, 7, and 8. I began to document what I was learning and tried to glean lessons from what was around me. Where in the past I would have naievely concluded that because I was feeling better I was done, this time I honeslty assessed what was keeping me unhappy and what I had to change to make life good again for the long term. It had been good, after all. In a flash came the old stand by promises (I would eat less, move more, work harder, and exhibit patience, confidence, and discipline) and revelations (I had no control over my age but I could approach life with more excitement, and I had no control over my hair but I could get my body back in shape, and so on).
This quickly became unsatisfying. They were valuable truths, yes, but they weren't the knowledge I was looking for. I didn't need to learn what I already knew.
And then I remembered the metaphor: after awakening and learning comes applying and sharing. It was frustrating because I had done that part already. Now, I knew, I would never evolve until I moved to the next season, not till I apply and share.
***
The end is the road and the road is the end. I have marks to hit -- a flat stomach, more money in the bank, and specific accomplishments. If I play my cards right I could even wind up with the kind of confidence that makes it feel like my hair is thicker and my dick is bigger. But these are milestones along the way, they are not goals, they are not end-games. What I have to learn is that I have to keep evolving.
Those of us who pay attention and live mindfully are very likely to go through periods like this in our lives. Because we are mindful we wish to learn about ourselves, yet because we are busy we leave very little time for reflection. Emotionally we develop a need to learn, and then suppress it for practical reasons. But when that desire for introspection gets strong enough, we take stock in a big way. The desire to look deeply at our lives overwhelms us and we crave what others have learned so that we too can evolve.
What I have to share are lessons we either already know or need to learn. (After all, there are no lessons that do not need to be learned.) I hope to share these lessons with you, since when I do, it's my permanent autumn, permanent climax, heh, and a step closer to evolution.
Tomorrow: A Short Theory of Evolution
Peace,
D.
No comments:
Post a Comment