serenity now?
i have to figure out a way to be calmer. small inconveniences can still send me into a towering rage. i just have so much anger built up from the past couple of years and no way/nowhere to release it except upon unsuspecting strangers. sometimes i see it in people's faces, their astonishment at my willingness to do battle for tiny things or nothing at all--to simply punish them for what i perceive as their good fortune. it used to be principle and indignation that drove me to go the extra mile for small injustices. it wasn't personal, just business, as they say. now i suspect it is merely blood letting. i have realized that i want to do damage, shove a little piece of my darkness down the throat of someone who's pain i do not have to manage. it's awful, but it's true.
i find it so difficult to simply be mellow and let things go--to move on from one disappointment and view the next thing, whatever it is, as a challenge that requires little more that a bit of hope and determination. instead i wallow. i have always done that, but these days the wallowing is anxious--high energy, high stakes wallowing--and i always think that absolutely everything is on the line. i always think that the next thing will be the straw that breaks me. and the prospect of being broken only intensifies my worry.
i wish i could just relax, find a reliable way to release the tension in me and salve the distress it leaves behind. i swear i'd kill to have my psyche permanently fitted with the faith that things will generally work themselves out. instead, i believe the opposite: that things will generally turn to shit right before your eyes, that good intentions don't count for much and the suffering that results (for there will always be suffering) will be greater than any universal justice ought to allow. it's murphy's law to the nth degree and it seems to be hardwired into the very fiber of my being. i have no idea how to shake it off. reason through it. overcome it. no clue. i do little things to mitigate the effects. obviously, exercising, crafting, sewing, are all things meant to distract my brain from devouring itself with worry. but they are stop gaps, they do not change my nature.
a nature which makes trust very difficult and planning the future an unusually dower enterprise filled with treacherous ruminations on inadequacy, betrayal and bad luck.
i just wish that i believed, truly believed, that better days would not only come, but stay. or even better that everyday is likely to turn out alright, give or take. this is a position as reasonable as any. so, why don't i believe it?
i don't know how to make a convert of myself. i keep thinking of the "serenity now!" episode of seinfeld. you know, that's what i want. serenity now. right now. with no insanity later or ever. i'm just so tired of trouble.
in any case, as luck would have it the late israeli poet yehuda amichai has a poem that perfectly expresses this sentiment. i can never tell whether you all like the poetry i post or not, but it is one of the ways i work through things so, i cannot apologize for it.
I, May I Rest in Peace
I, may I rest in peace-I, who am still living, say
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I’m still alive.
I don’t want to wait like that pious man
who wished for one leg of the golden chair of Paradise,
I want a four-legged chair right here, a plain wooden chair.
I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind;
battles without and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy face,
Wars with the old weapons-sticks and stones, blunt axe, words, dull
ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons-machine guns, missile, words, land
mines exploding, love and hate.
I don’t want to fulfill my parents’ prophesy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.
-Yehuda Amichai
if you like this poem, there are more selections by amichai here.
i find it so difficult to simply be mellow and let things go--to move on from one disappointment and view the next thing, whatever it is, as a challenge that requires little more that a bit of hope and determination. instead i wallow. i have always done that, but these days the wallowing is anxious--high energy, high stakes wallowing--and i always think that absolutely everything is on the line. i always think that the next thing will be the straw that breaks me. and the prospect of being broken only intensifies my worry.
i wish i could just relax, find a reliable way to release the tension in me and salve the distress it leaves behind. i swear i'd kill to have my psyche permanently fitted with the faith that things will generally work themselves out. instead, i believe the opposite: that things will generally turn to shit right before your eyes, that good intentions don't count for much and the suffering that results (for there will always be suffering) will be greater than any universal justice ought to allow. it's murphy's law to the nth degree and it seems to be hardwired into the very fiber of my being. i have no idea how to shake it off. reason through it. overcome it. no clue. i do little things to mitigate the effects. obviously, exercising, crafting, sewing, are all things meant to distract my brain from devouring itself with worry. but they are stop gaps, they do not change my nature.
a nature which makes trust very difficult and planning the future an unusually dower enterprise filled with treacherous ruminations on inadequacy, betrayal and bad luck.
i just wish that i believed, truly believed, that better days would not only come, but stay. or even better that everyday is likely to turn out alright, give or take. this is a position as reasonable as any. so, why don't i believe it?
i don't know how to make a convert of myself. i keep thinking of the "serenity now!" episode of seinfeld. you know, that's what i want. serenity now. right now. with no insanity later or ever. i'm just so tired of trouble.
in any case, as luck would have it the late israeli poet yehuda amichai has a poem that perfectly expresses this sentiment. i can never tell whether you all like the poetry i post or not, but it is one of the ways i work through things so, i cannot apologize for it.
I, May I Rest in Peace
I, may I rest in peace-I, who am still living, say
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I’m still alive.
I don’t want to wait like that pious man
who wished for one leg of the golden chair of Paradise,
I want a four-legged chair right here, a plain wooden chair.
I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind;
battles without and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy face,
Wars with the old weapons-sticks and stones, blunt axe, words, dull
ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons-machine guns, missile, words, land
mines exploding, love and hate.
I don’t want to fulfill my parents’ prophesy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.
-Yehuda Amichai
if you like this poem, there are more selections by amichai here.