My recent days I've been spending in Port Townsend regathering everything of myself again. Since that April Fools of '09, when I literally wandered out into the snow with a backpack, my external and internal understanding of the world has undergone some cataclysmic swings. Some of them have been horribly misguided, many others have been quite positively influential even if those new recognitions meant working on shifting key identities of myself, or weeding them out at long last. Its 16 months and 20 days later and now here I am finally sitting down for a few months to shuffle through these things, whether consciously or not.
On the face of it I've hit an all time low in finances since I allowed myself to go into debt for the first time since I left Denver last April. After the strange extremes of how money seems to ebb and flow around me I'm not so much worried as I am alert to new dramatic shifts coming. Because of these account lows I've taken this time to pick up some work again, back at Tyler St. once more as well as some new farm work at a place called Red Dog Farm. This farm work is where my thought process for today begins.
Failure is something of an intrigue to me lately. It has always been something that I have a hard time conceding to internally. That admission alone has been the past week's work, perhaps longer. I have far less hesitation admitting publicly I'm wrong, or have not done as I intended, or, in fact, let someone down by my inability or negligence, than I do accepting it in myself. Actually, I haven't been able to pick out a time in my memory in which I did honestly admit that to myself. My standard subconscious standby has always taken up crutches on being a little odd or eccentric, and therefore not being completely understood.
This side route to success, in my head, bypassing the crash of failure has allowed me long detoured scenic routes around genuine problems and cycles I struggle with in life. They may be long time patterns like the ones I illustrated in my last post with romantic relationships, or they could simply be fucking up at work for the day. I certainly don't think this is a problem unique to me either. On the contrary, I think everyone suffers from it to some degree or another. In the end, I definitely believe I've made headway on such issues in my life, but I definitely don't think I addressed them as quickly and efficiently as I could have had I the ability to admit my inability when reaching my borders.
This thought has struck me today because I was working for the farm at the market in town. I've always hated starting new jobs because I have always hated being "the new guy". I was quite pleased when I graduated into middle school and the fifth grade moved out of my elementary school to the middle school with me. In this way I didn't have to be in the bottom class of my new level of schooling, and this meant quite a bit to me then. Being that new guy equates to me as being that guy who doesn't know shit and is therefore useless.
When I first started working in coffee, ten years ago, I was notoriously awful at my job. I couldn't grasp any of the basics on how to steam milk, pull a shot, I couldn't remember prices, and I took forever to ring people through. For the first two months I jumped at opportunities to clean things, anything, because it meant not having to do anything I couldn't do, and there was little pressure to get it done. The only way I retained my position through those first two months was mainly due to having a manager who had a son who was a bit of a screw up and she thought if she kept giving me a chance it was like continuing to give her son a chance. Fortunately right around the time she was fired I suddenly became quite competent literally over night. That's another story though.
During those two months I hated going to work because it was a daily reminder that I could not do something, and not just something, but something that paid minimum wage and could be done by a 14 year old. I excused myself internally with reasons like not being a coffee drinker, not belonging to the snobbish latte culture, not caring to spend the effort to learn a minimum wage trade when I had just come from doing quite well in the harder to break into film world. Absolutely none of these excuses had anything to do with my actual ability.
I am a slow learner, I know this about myself. I also want to be able to do everything, and want that knowledge in my head now rather than after practicing it a bit. Once I have acquired a new skill I, of course, take great pride in how much effort I put into learning it, but until then I simply want it done and to be the great hidden master of it through sheer intuitive talent. I'm speaking, of course, about the grand world in my head, not my actual external behavior, though it does seep out from time to time.
Today I was learning something new again. I've never done much in the way of farming, and I, of course, don't know much about how Red Dog does things when at the market in town. Things are rushed and teaching someone how to stack beets and carrots is not priority to simply getting the stand up and going. What I recognized this time around in being put in a position I didn't know much about I felt my usual excuses of why I was doing things slowly rise, but this time I saw myself bat them down as stupid excuses.
All of this happened internally, but I watched my ego grumble in the early morning of not being properly trained, not having done this sort of thing much, being used to my freedom of not working on the road rather than slaving day to day for a penny. Then I saw something new come up where I said to myself for the first time probably "I just don't know how to do this, but I'm learning". Its such a simple, stupid concept, but for some reason before I'd always had trouble seeing myself as a student of anything.
Lately I've been reading somethings about maturity and maturing. What it is to be a child in comparison to an adult. What I'm getting out of it is that the separation is mainly that a child knows no boundaries or limits to themselves, an adult does. A child believes they can do absolutely everything and anything, an adult knows they need to work within the limits of their capabilities. This isn't to say one can't do anything, the difference seems to be that the adult knows one has to do the little things along the way to achieve it. Getting to the moon isn't impossible, it just takes understanding all the complexities of reality in the way.
My first real lesson toward understanding this came back in 2003 when I started my walk across the US. I had been talking about doing that since I was 11, but it took Ingrid being interested in joining me before I started even considering the necessary steps to be taken. What seemed like such an out of proportion behemoth project for those 15 years in between dreaming it up and doing it now seems like something obviously possible and achievable, just as its obvious we as a people can get to the moon where as it was a joke before the 1950s. What the hardest part of the journey was just taking that first step. This was taken in the summer of '02, not the spring of '03, with the assessing of what small steps needed to be taken.
None of this is a new concept to the world, but I also feel like it doesn't hurt to paraphrase it once again in yet another forum. I believe finding ones limitations is essential in finding out the extremes of ones abilities. To know ones borders is to know where to push. Think of how absurd it seems to expand ones territory within boundaries of what's already there. The old instruction from the art world seems to apply. Master the known before pushing into the unknown. Most of us simply like the sensation that we're breaking new ground when we push against ethereal walls, but in reality we're just going in circles.
These days, this is my experiment. As can be seen in my last few posts, discovering my limitations is my current fascination. People have been asking me if I'm okay these days I think because its not hard to see I'm in a bit of a dark space right now. The truth of it, however, is that I feel incredibly good as I go through this process. Its going to take me a very long time before I can admit to all of my limitations. Identifying my failures on the spot as they come is key to that. That identification separates the identities my ego relates to from what I really am and where my real boundaries are. Through that I can then learn how to expand beyond them.
I've always been one not only to want to rebuild the world, but rebuild it from ashes. I'm beginning to see that I will never be able to even be close to doing that unless I give up the impossibility of that dream and start to see what I'm really capable and not capable of.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Aggression
A few days ago I wandered out to the beach close to midnight in search of a good chat with the ocean. I have been feeling a bit down about things and I thought I'd experiment with seeing if I could get my tear ducts working at all. I've been trying to do this every now and again since some folks have told me how unhealthy it is that I cry as little as I do. Never-the-less I sat on a log and tried to break through those old guards I bypassed in the beginning of April at the Wailing Ritual but got nothing.
I felt a stone in my heart sitting there and knew I was going about releasing whatever need releasing the wrong way. As was my experience in the Mankind Project weekend I didn't need "a good cry" at all, I needed to fucking scream my lungs out. Take note that this recognition was a secondary realization to a passive expulsion method.
The log I was sitting on was in front of a row of homes. Surely I couldn't go yelling at midnight in front of these sleeping houses, so I moved on down the beach closer to the bluffs that would block the sound. This stone in me was pushing its way up now and anxious to get out now that it had been realized. It took a few minutes for me to get to a spot in which I felt I wouldn't disturb anyone with my beastial shouts and screams before I felt I could appropriately conduct such behavior. My first scream was pathetic.
I was self conscious, concerned by the reactions of others, concerned about disturbing anyone in their slumber. This isn't nice time, this is fucking yelling time. This is the time to say who gives a fuck if I wake everyone and their mother in the middle of the night with cries of bloody murder... and soon I was screaming with gusto. I shouted gutturally, I growled, jumped flailing my arms and legs, swung at the air and beat the beach with my fist. I screamed until I was hoarse in my throat and kept on as I felt layers of my esophagus strip away.
After a good ten or fifteen minutes of this I climbed the towering roots of a fallen tree by the bluffs and sat on a prong over looking the sea. I felt immensely better as I sat there still literally growling in my throat. I realized what I need most in my life at this moment is to make noise, to make my presence known, heard, and felt. This is not at all my normal state of being.
Over the years it has often been noted and questioned how little I show anger. Todd in particular often questioned it, and I think was part of a great frustration with me when we finally stopped traveling together last summer. On a road trip back from Eugene last week Allie also grew frustrated with my lack of angry reaction to her advances to start a fight with me. These are just recent examples of how my lack of showing anger have been harmful rather than helpful.
While I sat on my tree root I started really addressing this. I had never seen it as a problem before. I had always felt a great pride at my sense of tolerance and patience with others. I thought that maybe I excelled at being patient in the face of aggression towards me, and that tolerance would help bring about more understanding between those I relate to. Looking at my most recent interaction with Allie and how my lack of reaction worsened things deeply rather than allowing her to vent frustrations without repercussion had me giving this life long view another visit.
Growing up, I've said on here before, my bedroom was directly above a very active night time kitchen. The kitchen was generally active with my parents yelling at one another, mostly my Dad yelling at my Mom. My Dad showed a lot of tantrum-like, unfocused anger when his frustrations popped. My Mom in response was generally intolerantly silent in response. Seething with frustrated anger that went unchanneled. She and I have always been quite alike in personality.
My Mom and I have generally been the diplomatists among people. We both have a genuine patience and tolerance for acting out behavior, even when its against us. We tend to let it pass over us, then later revisit that issue when everything has calmed down and hash out whatever that issue was. Contrary to most accusations against my lack of anger, I don't let things go unheeded. I do address them, I simply don't address them in the heat of an argument because its always been my feeling that nothing can be resolved while basking in anger because neither side seems to really listen to what's said at that point.
My Dad, for all his tantrums, never seemed to get anything resolved. All I saw was that with every yelling match the fabric of our family just tore and tore a little more until it ripped itself to pieces. Eventually everyone ended up scattered to their corner of the country with no one talking to the other for years on end, and only now, 20 years after the initial split, are we starting to regroup.
Sitting on my elevated root thinking about all this I remembered something my Mom had said to me during one of her frustrating bouts with men on a whole. She told me she wanted to get fat. She wanted to take up space, be a presence that couldn't be ignored. She said she didn't want to be the skinny little thing men want that is tiny and unobstructing. I thought that was an interesting way to look at why thin women are appealing to men.
I find myself these days feeling similarly. I have always been an amicable personality with most everyone I meet. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a push over. I've definitely stood up for myself when directly attacked, but I have always stood up for myself in my own way. My aggression for holding on to my space has always been through action rather than speaking up. Pissy behavior that says don't fuck with me, rather than simply saying, don't fuck with me.
When Allie was yelling at me the other day she was literally telling me she wanted to see me angry, she wanted to start a fight with me. I noticed my reaction was that I wanted to get angry with her back because that was what she wanted, but I couldn't find any genuine anger with her to give. I was frustrated with her, and I told her that directly, but I felt like I could see what was going on with her and felt no anger about it. My problem in fights and arguments is usually that; I empathize too quickly to the other side as well as my own. I'm left with no solution for the disagreement but no will do to anything other than defend my own space while under attack.
Todd is convinced there is a deep well of anger inside me that has yet to be tapped. He has told me straight out that he is waiting for the day for my top to blow, a scene in which he expects to see an explosion rivaling the eruption of Krakatoa. A few others along the way have said similar things, but as I've searched in myself at length I genuinely don't find an unexpressed repressed anger that's just gathering steam before a blow. I have tried to find this lost anger, but I just don't think its there.
There is, however, a need in me for aggression which these bouts with screaming into the air are attached to. I'm only now starting to see these strings and follow where they are connected to me. I have a bad habit of allowing people more space than I should. As Todd notes, I have a bit of a martyrdom complex. Cede my own territory in whatever form to allow others the space for them to breathe and heal. This seems to be most visible in my romantic relationships which generally last a few months.
Allie and I have been dating about three months now, and that seems to be the thresh hold of when the heavy metals of my self imposed resentments need to be dumped. Outside of Ingrid and Stu my relationships tend to last anywhere between two and a half to four months. My relationship with Ingrid survived a year from my sabotage because I was daring myself to be in a long term committed relationship, and we were open which allowed a pressure valve to my need to martyr. Stu, on the other hand, found a psychological hold on me that had me attacking myself for seven months daring me to continue on as a challenge.
Looking at my relationship behavior I can easily see that within a month or so of being involved with someone I tend to cede most of my priorities, without recognizing it, to their needs, not only without them asking, but without them wanting me to. One more month or two seems to go by before I recognize anything of this, then the last month is spent forming an argument to myself that the relationship will not work in the end so I should just let them go now. All of this remains internal, with only little conversations here and there to provide hints.
I say all this because it illustrates how internal I am and speaks loudly to the need for me to finally be external. Not only to be fair to others, but to be fair to myself at long last. This, I think, is that boxed anger that's being referred to. It only blows in relationships, and quietly at that, because that's when its most concentrated. With friendships things are generally not confined to such close quarters. Allie and I have talked at length about how we each love and value our own space, but for whatever reason I've gone ahead and ignored that anyway.
After an hour or so of sitting up on my seaside root throne thinking about these things, still gurgling in my throat and breathing loudly, I felt much more solid as I did after that last weekend in April. Todd had asked me, after hearing about my experience at the Mankind Project, if I could access what I'd tapped there. I said I could, but it was only this night that I realized how and had done so.
Its become clear to me that I need to, as my Mom says, take up and own more of my own space. Aggression is something I am weakest on, and I need to focus my energies on strengthening that now. Healthy aggression to establish my space illustrates I know what the hell it is I'm pursuing and have a clear understanding of who I am. The more I work on establishing my boundaries I realize the more I'll know where those boundaries are.
I felt a stone in my heart sitting there and knew I was going about releasing whatever need releasing the wrong way. As was my experience in the Mankind Project weekend I didn't need "a good cry" at all, I needed to fucking scream my lungs out. Take note that this recognition was a secondary realization to a passive expulsion method.
The log I was sitting on was in front of a row of homes. Surely I couldn't go yelling at midnight in front of these sleeping houses, so I moved on down the beach closer to the bluffs that would block the sound. This stone in me was pushing its way up now and anxious to get out now that it had been realized. It took a few minutes for me to get to a spot in which I felt I wouldn't disturb anyone with my beastial shouts and screams before I felt I could appropriately conduct such behavior. My first scream was pathetic.
I was self conscious, concerned by the reactions of others, concerned about disturbing anyone in their slumber. This isn't nice time, this is fucking yelling time. This is the time to say who gives a fuck if I wake everyone and their mother in the middle of the night with cries of bloody murder... and soon I was screaming with gusto. I shouted gutturally, I growled, jumped flailing my arms and legs, swung at the air and beat the beach with my fist. I screamed until I was hoarse in my throat and kept on as I felt layers of my esophagus strip away.
After a good ten or fifteen minutes of this I climbed the towering roots of a fallen tree by the bluffs and sat on a prong over looking the sea. I felt immensely better as I sat there still literally growling in my throat. I realized what I need most in my life at this moment is to make noise, to make my presence known, heard, and felt. This is not at all my normal state of being.
Over the years it has often been noted and questioned how little I show anger. Todd in particular often questioned it, and I think was part of a great frustration with me when we finally stopped traveling together last summer. On a road trip back from Eugene last week Allie also grew frustrated with my lack of angry reaction to her advances to start a fight with me. These are just recent examples of how my lack of showing anger have been harmful rather than helpful.
While I sat on my tree root I started really addressing this. I had never seen it as a problem before. I had always felt a great pride at my sense of tolerance and patience with others. I thought that maybe I excelled at being patient in the face of aggression towards me, and that tolerance would help bring about more understanding between those I relate to. Looking at my most recent interaction with Allie and how my lack of reaction worsened things deeply rather than allowing her to vent frustrations without repercussion had me giving this life long view another visit.
Growing up, I've said on here before, my bedroom was directly above a very active night time kitchen. The kitchen was generally active with my parents yelling at one another, mostly my Dad yelling at my Mom. My Dad showed a lot of tantrum-like, unfocused anger when his frustrations popped. My Mom in response was generally intolerantly silent in response. Seething with frustrated anger that went unchanneled. She and I have always been quite alike in personality.
My Mom and I have generally been the diplomatists among people. We both have a genuine patience and tolerance for acting out behavior, even when its against us. We tend to let it pass over us, then later revisit that issue when everything has calmed down and hash out whatever that issue was. Contrary to most accusations against my lack of anger, I don't let things go unheeded. I do address them, I simply don't address them in the heat of an argument because its always been my feeling that nothing can be resolved while basking in anger because neither side seems to really listen to what's said at that point.
My Dad, for all his tantrums, never seemed to get anything resolved. All I saw was that with every yelling match the fabric of our family just tore and tore a little more until it ripped itself to pieces. Eventually everyone ended up scattered to their corner of the country with no one talking to the other for years on end, and only now, 20 years after the initial split, are we starting to regroup.
Sitting on my elevated root thinking about all this I remembered something my Mom had said to me during one of her frustrating bouts with men on a whole. She told me she wanted to get fat. She wanted to take up space, be a presence that couldn't be ignored. She said she didn't want to be the skinny little thing men want that is tiny and unobstructing. I thought that was an interesting way to look at why thin women are appealing to men.
I find myself these days feeling similarly. I have always been an amicable personality with most everyone I meet. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a push over. I've definitely stood up for myself when directly attacked, but I have always stood up for myself in my own way. My aggression for holding on to my space has always been through action rather than speaking up. Pissy behavior that says don't fuck with me, rather than simply saying, don't fuck with me.
When Allie was yelling at me the other day she was literally telling me she wanted to see me angry, she wanted to start a fight with me. I noticed my reaction was that I wanted to get angry with her back because that was what she wanted, but I couldn't find any genuine anger with her to give. I was frustrated with her, and I told her that directly, but I felt like I could see what was going on with her and felt no anger about it. My problem in fights and arguments is usually that; I empathize too quickly to the other side as well as my own. I'm left with no solution for the disagreement but no will do to anything other than defend my own space while under attack.
Todd is convinced there is a deep well of anger inside me that has yet to be tapped. He has told me straight out that he is waiting for the day for my top to blow, a scene in which he expects to see an explosion rivaling the eruption of Krakatoa. A few others along the way have said similar things, but as I've searched in myself at length I genuinely don't find an unexpressed repressed anger that's just gathering steam before a blow. I have tried to find this lost anger, but I just don't think its there.
There is, however, a need in me for aggression which these bouts with screaming into the air are attached to. I'm only now starting to see these strings and follow where they are connected to me. I have a bad habit of allowing people more space than I should. As Todd notes, I have a bit of a martyrdom complex. Cede my own territory in whatever form to allow others the space for them to breathe and heal. This seems to be most visible in my romantic relationships which generally last a few months.
Allie and I have been dating about three months now, and that seems to be the thresh hold of when the heavy metals of my self imposed resentments need to be dumped. Outside of Ingrid and Stu my relationships tend to last anywhere between two and a half to four months. My relationship with Ingrid survived a year from my sabotage because I was daring myself to be in a long term committed relationship, and we were open which allowed a pressure valve to my need to martyr. Stu, on the other hand, found a psychological hold on me that had me attacking myself for seven months daring me to continue on as a challenge.
Looking at my relationship behavior I can easily see that within a month or so of being involved with someone I tend to cede most of my priorities, without recognizing it, to their needs, not only without them asking, but without them wanting me to. One more month or two seems to go by before I recognize anything of this, then the last month is spent forming an argument to myself that the relationship will not work in the end so I should just let them go now. All of this remains internal, with only little conversations here and there to provide hints.
I say all this because it illustrates how internal I am and speaks loudly to the need for me to finally be external. Not only to be fair to others, but to be fair to myself at long last. This, I think, is that boxed anger that's being referred to. It only blows in relationships, and quietly at that, because that's when its most concentrated. With friendships things are generally not confined to such close quarters. Allie and I have talked at length about how we each love and value our own space, but for whatever reason I've gone ahead and ignored that anyway.
After an hour or so of sitting up on my seaside root throne thinking about these things, still gurgling in my throat and breathing loudly, I felt much more solid as I did after that last weekend in April. Todd had asked me, after hearing about my experience at the Mankind Project, if I could access what I'd tapped there. I said I could, but it was only this night that I realized how and had done so.
Its become clear to me that I need to, as my Mom says, take up and own more of my own space. Aggression is something I am weakest on, and I need to focus my energies on strengthening that now. Healthy aggression to establish my space illustrates I know what the hell it is I'm pursuing and have a clear understanding of who I am. The more I work on establishing my boundaries I realize the more I'll know where those boundaries are.
Friday, August 13, 2010
I Find Myself In August
I'm not even sure I care what's going on right now, but I'm also obsessed with it. I've fallen back into being lonely again, and I'm hoping its simply a temporary stumble back into it, but there I am.
Jane helped fix so much in me and now in my very next relationship, as it struggles, or at least I struggle with it, I fall right back to where I was. I did it tonight while consciously thinking "don't go on the internet", "don't look at Casual Encounters", "don't look at porn", "don't go look for kink on Instant Messenger". Successively I did it every step of the way like a crackhead.
I've suddenly slipped so far from being a content man, as my friend Jeff in Denver noted in May, back to a flailing sad little boy anxious for affection, or the flip side; that sordid confirmation of self indulgence through slutting it up.
This is exactly what Iron John is talking about, and MkP. The Sacred King and the Poisoned King. Both are very much a part of me, now what do I do about it? How do I eat that? How do I hold that by the throat when it so easily controls me?
I need to recognize it is not an "it" controlling me, that "it" is as much a part of me as my big toe, spleen, or face. I can't get rid of it, I need to find a way to honor it, and as Mikael says, show it love because it exists too. I have knowingly be fighting this seemingly small battle for at least 15 years and have been losing consistently.
Its what had me tied to stranger's headboards covered in cum, piss, and drool, and nearly gotten me raped several times. Its what finds me wasting entire days on my extreme lows beating off to internet porn. Its what has me circling over and over in the same relationship patterns. Fronting the best of my personalities for which ever girl I'm dating then cutting them off abruptly when I don't want to let them see me be disappointing. Its in this way I try to remain that great ex-boyfriend who never worked out in their future reminiscences. Its a way to keep them in Love with me.
What "it" is is loneliness. Loneliness is a lack of self worth, a massive blow to pride. I failed a test today, and tomorrow I'll be tested again. I'll be tested Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday too. Throughout the month, and months later another surprise quiz just to see.
So what is needing Love is my sense of self. This past year I've acquired the highest sense of myself I can remember, particularly after April's grueling trials and self probing. I was at the height of that high meeting Allie in the beginning of May. She lifted me beyond where I was and my own pillars fell because I never grounded them. When those affections dropped then they sank back to the very bottom to where I was before Jane routed all my relationship self defenses as they came at her. This explains my recent sudden desire to just get a grunt back room job at Safeway or McDonalds; to rebuild my cash for what I now see as the grand escape.
Only a few weeks ago, maybe even one week ago, heading to Peru was still a spiritual pilgrimage yearning to be completed. In fact, I was anxious to just go and see what that calling is, and complete my journey, so I could get back quickly to Allie again. Now it stands as a hollow exit from another broken home.
I noticed today in my thoughts none of my plans to return seemed satisfactory anymore. Massachusetts returned to looking like a broken wastelandscape. Living here seemed like a pathetic attempt to simply exist around Allie in the hopes to go back to being fuck buddies at least, or maybe friendly exes at best. Denver seemed equally unacceptable, just in the same way returning to New York has always felt. Like trying to reclaim glory days, but inevitably end up living there as a ghost of my former self three or four times over.
Writing this out now, however, I can feel myself finally grounding those pillars I stack my self evaluation on. Sitting here, in the Pacific northwest I've mulled around several options on how to make cash. It seems to be the Universe's favorite educational tool for me.
I've already dabbled back in my old standby for easy quick cash in the sex industry but was smacked in the face with a fitting, but shocking, roadblock. Rather than an easy bout of anonymous sexy time, I found myself suddenly in somewhat of a second relationship with a man, Doug. Money wasn't flowing in through this endeavor, instead he and I connected on a very spiritual level in which he shared several secrets of astonishing spiritual and alternatively hoodoo experiences he has only told four other close friends. We experimented with amateur energy work, breath work, and hypnosis resulting in him experiencing a vivid vision of me possibly on a high altitude lake with a man he named showing me something at sunset. I won't name him now to prevent the possibility of getting scammed when I do head abroad soon.
Sexy time for cash felt all wrong from the moment I started off doing it. In fact, sex in general has felt increasingly out of place since returning to the northwest in July. This, of course, also affects my relationship with Allie. I think in general this time up here is about finally truly battling that side of me and taking control of it.
My other work options I've been looking at have been, as I said before, the Safeway/McDonald's low thought, grunt work to just blow through approach. I looked at extreme hard labor, like delivering 100 pound crates of fish for 18 hour days, 9 days straight, in Alaska for high pay and to be able to claim a Hemingway/Bukowski experience. I've also looked into selling my photos and writing again on the high self worth end of the spectrum.
I go dollar to dollar now with a spartan number of days ahead at the coffee shop in Port Townsend. I look at these options I consider and see extreme waves of genuinely high self thought and low, very low, self appreciation. In the past 24 hours I've essentially cut off my interactions with everyone and taken refuge back in Port Townsend, having my sister's house alone to myself for the weekend to process where I am, where I'm going now.
I left Denver last April excited to explore but sad to leave. I want to leave here the same way. If $2,000 dropped in my lap tomorrow, however, I'd be turning tail and ducking out through a broken picket rather than marching off proudly once again. I've spent those first 15 and a half months filled with more life than I've ever had. Now challenged again by The Universe I have to fully address what it is I'm truly after; genuine strong connection with people again. Everyone say it together: Family.
Tonight I've found myself back to having cut everyone off from me. Every one from those I'm involved with now to those I haven't talked to in several months. Tomorrow, however, I get the chance to take up the gauntlet again and actually deal with the reality of human relations, with all its ups and downs.
Jane helped fix so much in me and now in my very next relationship, as it struggles, or at least I struggle with it, I fall right back to where I was. I did it tonight while consciously thinking "don't go on the internet", "don't look at Casual Encounters", "don't look at porn", "don't go look for kink on Instant Messenger". Successively I did it every step of the way like a crackhead.
I've suddenly slipped so far from being a content man, as my friend Jeff in Denver noted in May, back to a flailing sad little boy anxious for affection, or the flip side; that sordid confirmation of self indulgence through slutting it up.
This is exactly what Iron John is talking about, and MkP. The Sacred King and the Poisoned King. Both are very much a part of me, now what do I do about it? How do I eat that? How do I hold that by the throat when it so easily controls me?
I need to recognize it is not an "it" controlling me, that "it" is as much a part of me as my big toe, spleen, or face. I can't get rid of it, I need to find a way to honor it, and as Mikael says, show it love because it exists too. I have knowingly be fighting this seemingly small battle for at least 15 years and have been losing consistently.
Its what had me tied to stranger's headboards covered in cum, piss, and drool, and nearly gotten me raped several times. Its what finds me wasting entire days on my extreme lows beating off to internet porn. Its what has me circling over and over in the same relationship patterns. Fronting the best of my personalities for which ever girl I'm dating then cutting them off abruptly when I don't want to let them see me be disappointing. Its in this way I try to remain that great ex-boyfriend who never worked out in their future reminiscences. Its a way to keep them in Love with me.
What "it" is is loneliness. Loneliness is a lack of self worth, a massive blow to pride. I failed a test today, and tomorrow I'll be tested again. I'll be tested Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday too. Throughout the month, and months later another surprise quiz just to see.
So what is needing Love is my sense of self. This past year I've acquired the highest sense of myself I can remember, particularly after April's grueling trials and self probing. I was at the height of that high meeting Allie in the beginning of May. She lifted me beyond where I was and my own pillars fell because I never grounded them. When those affections dropped then they sank back to the very bottom to where I was before Jane routed all my relationship self defenses as they came at her. This explains my recent sudden desire to just get a grunt back room job at Safeway or McDonalds; to rebuild my cash for what I now see as the grand escape.
Only a few weeks ago, maybe even one week ago, heading to Peru was still a spiritual pilgrimage yearning to be completed. In fact, I was anxious to just go and see what that calling is, and complete my journey, so I could get back quickly to Allie again. Now it stands as a hollow exit from another broken home.
I noticed today in my thoughts none of my plans to return seemed satisfactory anymore. Massachusetts returned to looking like a broken wastelandscape. Living here seemed like a pathetic attempt to simply exist around Allie in the hopes to go back to being fuck buddies at least, or maybe friendly exes at best. Denver seemed equally unacceptable, just in the same way returning to New York has always felt. Like trying to reclaim glory days, but inevitably end up living there as a ghost of my former self three or four times over.
Writing this out now, however, I can feel myself finally grounding those pillars I stack my self evaluation on. Sitting here, in the Pacific northwest I've mulled around several options on how to make cash. It seems to be the Universe's favorite educational tool for me.
I've already dabbled back in my old standby for easy quick cash in the sex industry but was smacked in the face with a fitting, but shocking, roadblock. Rather than an easy bout of anonymous sexy time, I found myself suddenly in somewhat of a second relationship with a man, Doug. Money wasn't flowing in through this endeavor, instead he and I connected on a very spiritual level in which he shared several secrets of astonishing spiritual and alternatively hoodoo experiences he has only told four other close friends. We experimented with amateur energy work, breath work, and hypnosis resulting in him experiencing a vivid vision of me possibly on a high altitude lake with a man he named showing me something at sunset. I won't name him now to prevent the possibility of getting scammed when I do head abroad soon.
Sexy time for cash felt all wrong from the moment I started off doing it. In fact, sex in general has felt increasingly out of place since returning to the northwest in July. This, of course, also affects my relationship with Allie. I think in general this time up here is about finally truly battling that side of me and taking control of it.
My other work options I've been looking at have been, as I said before, the Safeway/McDonald's low thought, grunt work to just blow through approach. I looked at extreme hard labor, like delivering 100 pound crates of fish for 18 hour days, 9 days straight, in Alaska for high pay and to be able to claim a Hemingway/Bukowski experience. I've also looked into selling my photos and writing again on the high self worth end of the spectrum.
I go dollar to dollar now with a spartan number of days ahead at the coffee shop in Port Townsend. I look at these options I consider and see extreme waves of genuinely high self thought and low, very low, self appreciation. In the past 24 hours I've essentially cut off my interactions with everyone and taken refuge back in Port Townsend, having my sister's house alone to myself for the weekend to process where I am, where I'm going now.
I left Denver last April excited to explore but sad to leave. I want to leave here the same way. If $2,000 dropped in my lap tomorrow, however, I'd be turning tail and ducking out through a broken picket rather than marching off proudly once again. I've spent those first 15 and a half months filled with more life than I've ever had. Now challenged again by The Universe I have to fully address what it is I'm truly after; genuine strong connection with people again. Everyone say it together: Family.
Tonight I've found myself back to having cut everyone off from me. Every one from those I'm involved with now to those I haven't talked to in several months. Tomorrow, however, I get the chance to take up the gauntlet again and actually deal with the reality of human relations, with all its ups and downs.
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