My Year in the Corps IV (Far away from here, there is sun, and spring, and green forever...)
Our job relies entirely on the collective notion, which I imagine we all struggle with at some point, that the best way to halt the destructive trends of mankind is not to fight against them and hold them back, but instead to calmly (yet passionately) educate them. It's hard, I find, to maintain hope, because you just wind up talking about all the things you can't get in the way of without making them worse. It's easy to feel defeated when you have trouble looking towards the future.
All I tend to do is think about the past. So, I have trouble sleeping at night. Sometimes I imagine a hand descending towards my body that slices through the skin and sternum so graceful and effortlessly, as though the incision had already been made, which grabs for my heart and warms it and makes it fluid in its movements once again.
What does it mean if I don't feel organic? If I feel like a machine more than a body, every function necessary to be productive, but nothing else...aren't there uses of the body that are not at all machine-like? Must our functions be productive, lest we fall to ruin like so many dilapidated factories?
We need a body to love, but does the body itself need love? Does a machine?
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24 has been an interesting year so far. I am 2/3 of the way to 25, and I keep meaning to ask Robin how that's been going for her. My questions rarely make sense without some elaborate explanation. I spend so much time in my head that I miss more of what goes on around me than what I observe. Is that the business of a poet? It seems likely. They are not really the best of our observers, they are simply the ones with the greatest inclination to record it, because they use it to say something about their own lives.
Anyway, this year I've learned that I am average. It was a longtime that I thought I was bound for so much more, as in my childhood my parents regarded me as a prodigy (though never really pushing me to succeed in anything, I would move on from anything once I began to figure it out.)
I do not mean to say that I am average in the sense that I am bland and boring. Obviously, that isn't very true. I've done enough that I will always have stories to tell. Rather, I am average in terms of ability, which is a revolutionary notion to someone who has struggled with depression (I believe I've either felt that I could do anything and have a significant impact on whatever field I chose, or that I was capable of nothing and that the world would gain nothing from my presence...never anything in between).
I am not meant to be a specialist, I am not meant to redefine what it means to be a doctor or a poet or an artist or even a human being. I have enough skill in most things that I can function and not lag behind, and I have no more trouble than most in learning new skills. I am not equipped to save the world, and I have to say that acknowledging this, while frightening at first, has removed a huge burden from my life. I had always felt responsible for setting some grand wrong right, but one cannot be responsible for something they are not capable of doing.
Some of you will bring up examples from my life, such as poetry or computers. I've had relative success with both of those, it's true. But the keyword is relative, for as a poet, my talent is minor, but I have an incredible ability with electronics. Likewise, as a computing technician, I may struggle to keep up with the experts or those who've made this field their life, but you should see my poetry....
I think this is what lead my parents to regard my abilities so highly...they had no practical experience with the things I could do well in. But if they did? Both of my parents are singers, and I can't for the life of me sing close to on key. My father is a draftsman, my own drawing skills are still woeful. I never bothered to learn to do the things they could do well...I learned to do the things I wouldn't have to compete with anyone else in doing, and as such, have maintained the illusion that I am extremely talented.
The truth is that there's nothing really I can do with my hands or my mind to change the world. There are people out there who can inspire hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people to change the way they live and the direction the world is moving in. I'm not one of them. Nothing I try to do in that regard is going to matter.
As far as I can tell at this point, the only thing I can do that matters is to love the people in my life and be loved in return. I feel quite equipped to do this. I also have a job, which is teaching the discoveries of others to children, who hopefully will grow up with a mindset very different from the previous generations, who believed in an endlessly abundant Earth, which could not be harmed by our whims. I do not feel particularly gifted in this job, but I do feel fulfilled for the time I am in the classroom, and I suppose that is all I can expect.
All I tend to do is think about the past. So, I have trouble sleeping at night. Sometimes I imagine a hand descending towards my body that slices through the skin and sternum so graceful and effortlessly, as though the incision had already been made, which grabs for my heart and warms it and makes it fluid in its movements once again.
What does it mean if I don't feel organic? If I feel like a machine more than a body, every function necessary to be productive, but nothing else...aren't there uses of the body that are not at all machine-like? Must our functions be productive, lest we fall to ruin like so many dilapidated factories?
We need a body to love, but does the body itself need love? Does a machine?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
24 has been an interesting year so far. I am 2/3 of the way to 25, and I keep meaning to ask Robin how that's been going for her. My questions rarely make sense without some elaborate explanation. I spend so much time in my head that I miss more of what goes on around me than what I observe. Is that the business of a poet? It seems likely. They are not really the best of our observers, they are simply the ones with the greatest inclination to record it, because they use it to say something about their own lives.
Anyway, this year I've learned that I am average. It was a longtime that I thought I was bound for so much more, as in my childhood my parents regarded me as a prodigy (though never really pushing me to succeed in anything, I would move on from anything once I began to figure it out.)
I do not mean to say that I am average in the sense that I am bland and boring. Obviously, that isn't very true. I've done enough that I will always have stories to tell. Rather, I am average in terms of ability, which is a revolutionary notion to someone who has struggled with depression (I believe I've either felt that I could do anything and have a significant impact on whatever field I chose, or that I was capable of nothing and that the world would gain nothing from my presence...never anything in between).
I am not meant to be a specialist, I am not meant to redefine what it means to be a doctor or a poet or an artist or even a human being. I have enough skill in most things that I can function and not lag behind, and I have no more trouble than most in learning new skills. I am not equipped to save the world, and I have to say that acknowledging this, while frightening at first, has removed a huge burden from my life. I had always felt responsible for setting some grand wrong right, but one cannot be responsible for something they are not capable of doing.
Some of you will bring up examples from my life, such as poetry or computers. I've had relative success with both of those, it's true. But the keyword is relative, for as a poet, my talent is minor, but I have an incredible ability with electronics. Likewise, as a computing technician, I may struggle to keep up with the experts or those who've made this field their life, but you should see my poetry....
I think this is what lead my parents to regard my abilities so highly...they had no practical experience with the things I could do well in. But if they did? Both of my parents are singers, and I can't for the life of me sing close to on key. My father is a draftsman, my own drawing skills are still woeful. I never bothered to learn to do the things they could do well...I learned to do the things I wouldn't have to compete with anyone else in doing, and as such, have maintained the illusion that I am extremely talented.
The truth is that there's nothing really I can do with my hands or my mind to change the world. There are people out there who can inspire hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people to change the way they live and the direction the world is moving in. I'm not one of them. Nothing I try to do in that regard is going to matter.
As far as I can tell at this point, the only thing I can do that matters is to love the people in my life and be loved in return. I feel quite equipped to do this. I also have a job, which is teaching the discoveries of others to children, who hopefully will grow up with a mindset very different from the previous generations, who believed in an endlessly abundant Earth, which could not be harmed by our whims. I do not feel particularly gifted in this job, but I do feel fulfilled for the time I am in the classroom, and I suppose that is all I can expect.