Laughter As A Way Of Life

I used to be afraid. I felt rage and indignation, mixed with regret and despair.  I felt so out of touch, and I was worried that I would never feel at ease.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I feel so much useless energy coursing through me. I feel anxious, and feel so many thoughts rushing through my mind simultaneously that I hardly know which way is which.

I am constantly reminded of my insecurities. Usually, I suppress these feelings, for lack of a better way to cope. I felt like I had to choose between suppression - ignoring the feelings entirely, or depression - blaming myself, or anger - venting at situations over which I had no control.

I didn't know that there was another option.

I'm trying. Sometimes I still feel like I'm in denial. My laughter is not a way to separate myself from my feelings - it is a knowing acknowledgement of the absurdity of my life - but is not a hollow, hopeless, or self-defeating absurdity. This is an affirmation.

I have tried, hard, to find another place - a better place - to go, mentally. I end up so often in my thoughts, that I need some kind of refuge. I have tried to appreciate things in my life for the way they are.

So I laugh. And why do I laugh, and what do I find funny?

I giggle about what I don't know - what I once didn't know but have now learned - what other people deeply feel to be true but don't actually know - about patterns others miss that I understand - when I finally learn something that it seems like other people understand easily.

One of my closest friends recently told me that I am one of the most optimistic people she knows. This shocked me. I have never thought of myself as an optimistic person. Now, I am trying to be more like the version of myself that she has apparently seen.

I'm not saying that I am changing to satisfy other people. I'm doing as much as I can to be true to myself, it's just that there are things about myself that I don't like. Besides, the idea of being "true to myself" has always seemed somewhat contradictory and problematic for me, both in theory and practice.

Theoretically, how can I be true to myself when I barely know what I want? Aren't I just privileging the things I already know? What's the fun in that? I want to keep expanding my horizons - I don't know where I will be in the future, and how I can be true to what I do not yet know?

Practically, I've always felt insecure about some of the ways I act. I feel very uncomfortable in many different situations, and yet I can be extremely engaging and gregarious with very close friends and when I'm talking about my passions. Still, I'm clumsy about how I express myself - I interrupt other people too much, and too often find myself waiting to speak again instead of listening to what people are saying. I'm genuinely trying not to be inconsiderate - I really am - I just find it so difficult to relate to people sometimes, that when I feel like I have something valuable to contribute, it's hard for me to hold back...so this is a way that insecurity feeds upon itself.

I'm constantly struggling to live up to my own expectations of who I can be, of what I can do, and what I can accomplish. I put a lot of pressure on myself. All this laughter is a way for me to deflate the tension.

Sometimes, I just look in the mirror, and I start laughing. Then, like the world's unsexiest vampire, I disappear for a little while.

Poetry Digest: #4

From time to time, I hope to publish a collection of a few of my recent poems. I will refer to this series of posts as my "Poetry Digest". This is Poetry Digest #4.



No Apology

there's something to say
to credit Winslow Homer
or Edward Hopper

for longing for clouds
Socrates drank his hemlock
no more Socrates

yet, you know better:
the clouds are, in fact, still there,
Aristophanes

even more than books
even more than life itself
I prefer the clouds

artists may capture
a brief moment of rapture --
that is all there is


The Fog Cycle

before rain arrives
my breath joins the clouds above
we are fog machines

slip into the night
filter your own outpouring
water the cycle

condensation drips
and travels through all of us
so I relinquish

the trees fill my lungs
their shadows overcome doubt
sustaining my life

I pine for a hush
that will return my silence
better than I found


advance

sprint
forward
do not stop
nor halt progress
keep running apace
if you sputter
company
will bring
you


exile

last
winter
gaping wounds
exposed my fears
I walked silently
no companion
averted
trials
fought


rationale

sleep
is not
an excuse
it is my foil
to suspend my doubts
moving deadlines
encourage
undue
haste


paradox

change
I am
change itself
to be the change
I remain the change
that is no change
I must change
the same
change


Into The Void

if I am not long for the world of dreams
I can consider anything
all possibilities
stir together
endless

formless
yet to take shape
a place where time ceases
between everywhere and nowhere
I am on the shoals of consciousness

tell me which direction I am heading
my only guarantee is fear
I must wait until dawn
when I wake up
to know

before
I can relax
I will pay my respects
to the memory of each day
to a story with a life of its own


Rush

I could be the Vice President,
Since I'm great at undoing ties.
I am careful how I present.
As each one of my fingers flies,
Why do I have all these buttons?
Clocks race, adrenaline heightens:
Who is that stranger in the suit?
I forget during the pursuit.
Zipping alongside the platform,
I look for the right car to catch -
Or wait, sit down, and start to kvetch.
As a queue begins to reform,
I find a window -- look within --
To find the place where I come in.


Reference Point

I'm not the one to strike boldly.
Look elsewhere for the first to stride.
I would rather detach coldly;
Stress needs a place and time to bide.
I will change nothing, and needing
Nothing changed, I will do nothing.
Frequent madness is my advice,
But few exist to pay that price.
Above all, do not be passive.
Supply a beginning, and end -
Join them together as you bend
Timing, enormous and massive.
I warn all those who dare ignore:
There is no such thing as before.


In the Year of the Lighthouse

When I'm drifting and I'm falling,
I don't even know where to start.
I keep swimming, I keep searching -
I reach for something in my heart,
Catch that beacon, and I follow:
Not to let my love lie fallow.
I turn those pages, flip a switch --
My light and signal, perfect pitch.
Here's my harbor, here's my guidance.
Raging waters aren't what I seek,
But without waves there is no peak:
I cry out for deliverance!
Watching you, I unleash my sails,
Now I'm fearless - come tide or gales.

Resistance Is Strength

I first wrote the following thoughts in the weeks after I completed a course on Friedrich Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil". Most of the ideas below reflect but do not necessarily emulate Nietzsche's thinking - that would be impossible, because I am not Friedrich Nietzsche, and because I am hardly qualified or well-read enough to suppose that I could speak for him. Yet I can speak for myself, so here are some of my thoughts:

I have had an insight: resistance is strength. Neither acceptance nor denial of anything is enough to develop and build strength. Resistance is key.

Why resistance? Because children leave their parents and become adults. Because human beings form their own identity from the remains of their youth: the inspiration of their families and the influence of their peers. You tear down a muscle and you rebuild it – you nourish and flex and try your muscles until you're stronger. You test yourself against your fears. You prove yourself abler than you imagined. This resistance is how children become independent, compassionate, responsible adults. They resist!

Why resistance? Because intimacy is unspeakably powerful. Because people bring down their pride and their ego and share it with another person, or with an audience. Because our vulnerabilities can lead to our greatest passions and our greatest ambitions. When you feel lonely, you write. When you feel depressed, you tell jokes. When you feel isolated, you try new things. Limitations inspire creativity and fuel new horizons. Ask an author - (or a lover) - (or a comedian). They resist!

Why resistance? Because resistance is the catalyst of rebirth. Because gradual change accumulates to demolish old structures and creates a more astonishing order -- an order that is partly new, but entirely distinct and wondrous in its innovation. Because the entire process of biological evolution demonstrates the destruction and brutality and wastefulness of life itself: everything a challenge, a struggle, or a fight to the death. We emerge, we live, and we fight back...against astronomical odds. We resist!

Why resistance? Because the ability to incorporate novel ideas into existing beliefs is how knowledge advances. Because the abilities to accept nuance, to accept uncertainty, to reject uncertainty for something more powerful, to keep searching, and - most of all - to challenge your own biases, your own complacency, your own comfort...are all forms of resistance. Our world is not a black-and-white, always accept or always reject, kind of world. We inhabit a hazardous hypothesis, turbulent theory world. We resist!

Why resistance? Because it’s not wrong to make mistakes, but it’s wrong to keep making the same mistakes. Because evil isn't entirely your fault, but ignoring evil is your fault. Find the darkness in yourself and confront it. Recognize that you are its rightful owner: put it in its rightful place. Don’t blame someone else, a god, or a demon. Take responsibility for your vulnerabilities, anxieties, and fears. Realize that good intentions or inexperience, by you or by authority figures, may lead to evil. You must think for yourself. So, resist!

Resistance is strength: Because it's as profound an insight as anything in scriptures. Avoiding temptation isn't enough: temptation must be dared, lured, and faced. Evil isn't the opposite of the good: evil is a lack of the good. (Thomas Aquinas and I agree.) Evil is dishonesty - not enough honesty. Evil is ignorance - not enough knowledge. Evil is weakness - not enough patience or discipline. Evil is miscalculation - not enough empathy or foresight. You can't eliminate evil: you can only change it until it’s good. So, resist!

Resistance is strength: Because there has never been a world without temptation. Temptation is in the competition, the arms race, the nonstop grudge matches of nature. Our world's built on temptation, made in the image of temptation, dedicated to temptation. We can't create a more just world by merely overcoming that temptation: we must alter that temptation for our own purposes. We must incorporate that temptation into new ethics and new ways of living. We will neither accept nor deny temptation: we shall resist!