Flutter
cold air burns my lungs
but I'm glad; it reminds me
I'm part of this world
I've had to think about who I am pretty hard, recently. A few things have happened that took me outside my comfort zone, and I had a rough time getting back to terra cognita.
I've been reading about aeroelastic flutter; it's what happens when a constant stream of wind energy moves across a flat surface with a natural vibration in such a way that the natural vibration is amplified by the airflow [whew]. It's like microphone feedback, only played out in the physical world. The example that came to mind when I was reading about it was a plastic bag or a flag fluttering in the wind - when the wind pushes the material far enough in one direction, the aerodynamics of the material change, and the wind starts pushing it in the opposite direction. Rinse and repeat.
This isn't problematic unless the energy input exceeds the elasticity of the structure. A flag or a plastic bag, for practical purposes, has infinite flexibility. A steel bridge, on the other hand, does not. The most dramatic example of aeroelastic flutter is the Tacoma Narrows bridge disaster; fortunately, it was caught on film as an eternal warning to engineering and aerospace students, and the only casualties were a car and an unfortunate dog. What happened, basically, was that the wind - at gale force - was pouring more energy into the bridge than the bridge could convert into kinetic energy. That energy doesn't just get rounded off - it got stored up and put into the next flex of the bridge, making each successive twist larger than the last, until it exceeded the tensile strength of the suspension cables. Twang, twang, splash. No more bridge.
Converting this complex, scientific subject of study into a personally relevant metaphor, that's kinda how I felt for the last couple of months. When one of my core values - related to a question of loyalty and honesty, although I won't go into details - was tested, I betrayed that deeply-held value. Because it was one of the building blocks I based my identity on, I lost hold of who I was. I hated myself for being a person who would do such a thing, and I hated the other person for the same reason, and getting me involved in the first place - even though the whole time, I was aware that I'd had every chance to say no, and hadn't - which fed into my self-loathing. Feedback loop.
In reaction to this, I tried to maintain the other core values I hold dear - all the things that I think of as my positive traits. I was aggressively nice. I tried my best to be "good" to her [might as well refer to her by gender - the people who know, know, and for the people who don't - well, it doesn't narrow it down]. I couldn't keep it up, though. For every high, there was a low, and each one was worse than the last. The creeping realisation that I found the person subtly irritating didn't help, either. When things eventually came apart, they collapsed as spectacularly as the bridge. I'm fortunate that, like the Tacoma Narrows disaster, the only friend I lost through it was a bitch.
I mean that, too - the bitch comment. It took me a few oscillations between "demon in human flesh" and "oh god it was all my fault" to realize that yes, I was a bastard and unfair through the whole thing, but she was also objectively kind of a bitch. Trust me, it was a major turning point in my emotional growth.
Anyways, things fell apart. I jumped straight into a relationship with another girl, and tried to pass the whole thing off as a mistake I wouldn't make again. I tried to go back to the person I was before the disaster.
If you think that sounds stupid, good, we're on the same page.
Inevitably, that relationship went to hell too. I was beginning to clue into the fact that I needed to do some serious thinking about the way I treat relationships, women, and myself. I realized that my personality was barely functioning; I was depressed most of the time, I kept failing to keep promises and obligations, and I was just a shitty, depressing person to be around. I kept going in mental circles, trying to remember how I managed to live happily. I firmly believe happiness is a state of mind; I never lost sight of the fact that I have a good job, and great home, and friends that support me knowing full well that I'm a black-hearted bastard. So I kept trying to go back, go back, go back to where I once belonged, trying to regain that lost state of mind.
Let me explain something. As a kid, I had an epiphany: everything is beautiful. I can't always see things that way, but... well, beauty is subjective, right? Everything, on an objective level, is what it is, without worrying about looking pretty. Look at a running dog; it doesn't try to be poetry in motion, it just is. So on good days, I can look past the subjective, and see beauty in the curl of diesel exhaust or in the broken corpse of a bird. Not that I like air pollution or dead birds; I'm just trying to get a point across: with the right attitude, everything can be beautiful.
I lost that for a while. I couldn't see beauty in anything. And I scrambled to get it back, because I remembered that sense of beauty as something that made me happy, something that let me thrive in a world that is rarely beautiful in the traditional sense. And I was trying to get it back, not because it was the truth, but because... it was a desirable thing. I wanted to be a person with that ability, not the ability itself. It was like... like trying to fly by climbing a mountain. No matter how high you get, you're still on the ground.
I was trying to go back to an earlier "me," but that me was trying to be something else. I had lost sight of my original goal and I was just fluttering, tumbling out of control, throwing myself in one mad direction after another. I even started to make the same mistake again, the one that screwed me up in the first place, but even worse.
But I didn't.
I'm not asking for a parade. I'm not asking for a federal holiday. But I didn't repeat the mistake. It's not like it was a hard mistake to avoid, but it's a mistake I needed to face again, I guess. I had to prove to myself I would do the right thing next time. And I did. So even if I don't deserve a medal, I can at least raise a glass and drink to not fucking things up.
Now I'm making the right steps. I'm not chasing women anymore. Instead of trying to find someone to complete me, I'm trying to be complete. Instead of running to a community that will accept me for being a bastard, I'm trying to stop being a bastard. Instead of climbing mountains to fly, I'm watching the birds.
And they're beautiful.
Yours in Wonderland,
Sushi Jones