Centered… or dull?
“Something had to change; undeniable dilemma
Boredom’s not a burden anyone should bear.
Constant overstimulation numbs me
But I would not want you any other way
But it’s not enough, I need more
Nothing seems to satisfy
If don’t want it, I just need it
To breathe to feel to know I’m alive
…
Something kind of sad about
The way that things have come to be
Desensitized to everything
What became of subtlety?”
Excerpts from “Stinkfist” by Tool
The other day I was having a conversation with Eric about life and the way things are nowadays, and he said something along the lines of “I think we’ve been spoiled”. When I asked what he could possibly mean (I’ve never felt anything remotely resembling spoiled), he went on to explain that life in our 30’s seems rather dull compared to what life in our 20’s was like. I won’t get into details, but we, along with Toni and Maria, led a pretty intense, wild lifestyle for a sustained period of time. Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that our lives we’re so different than that of normal folks (doesn’t everyone wake up to find people they don’t recognize sleeping in their homes every Sunday afternoon, passed out from partying the night before?), but I knew we were having fun and I guess I knew it wouldn’t last forever.
The other day Lei and I were having a conversation regarding self-awareness and personal self-discovery (these are the type of things we talk about when we aren’t goofing around talking like Sean Connery or imagining what a pool game between Obi-Wan and the Emperor might be like). We were discussing the phenomenon of suddenly becoming consciously aware of aspects of yourself you had only been subconsciously aware of before, or maybe not aware of at all.
As for myself, the latest example of such a case was the other night in my bedroom as I was just going to bed for the evening. The lights were out and I could barely see myself in the huge mirrored sliding closet doors across from the bed, and it suddenly occurred to me that my (almost) lifelong fear of mirrors had, at some point, vanished. You see, between scary books I had read as a child, scary movies I had seen, and scary stories I had been told (Bloody Mary, anyone?), I had developed an intense fear of mirrors when I was young. But at some point the fear went away, and I didn’t get the memo. I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know how many mirrors I’ve looked into while alone before realizing the fear had dissipated, but as I looked into the other mirror that night, I clearly remember thinking “Where’s that creepy feeling I used to get? Aren’t I supposed to be spooked out right about now?” But I wasn’t, and I realized that I hadn’t been - not for a long time.
We talked about various instances of this sort of self-discovery, and after chewing on the idea for a few days, I began to wonder if it has to necessarily be a passive thing. Must we really wait around for these epiphanies to strike us at their convenience? Or can we actively “dig in” to our minds to discover those truths about ourselves that have been hiding in plain sight?
Of course, the danger of digging in is that it then becomes possible to begin “finding” things that aren’t there. One of the more succulently evil doctrines of the bible articulates this perfectly - “Seek and ye shall find”. Well, no shit! If you seek the face of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, you’ll eventually find it, won’t you? But the bible has no problem confessing this idea, bare-faced and for the world to see. And there is no shortage of fools who mistake it for some sort of wisdom, and fail to understand what it really means.
I understand what it means. It means that if you are convinced you will find something, your mind will project the “discovery” onto reality. That’s why ghosts are only seen by those who already believe in ghosts, UFO’s are always seen by people who believe in flying saucers, horoscopes read by people who believe in astrology always seem to be perfectly accurate, and I routinely see the face of the Virgin Mary in the ring around my toilet bowl. It means that if you seek something *believing ahead of time that you are sure to find it*, then your mind will present it to you *whether or not reality does*.
So if one were to actively seek those subtle self-discoveries, and then suddenly start finding them, how would one know whether one was discovering things or projecting them? After all, there would be no possibility of independent verification, would there? (“Tell me pal, have I really started enjoying the taste of asparagus, or is it my imagination?”) So there would be almost no way of telling. Also, you might inadvertently make actual changes during the process of attempting (“Well, I didn’t realize I hated line dancing quite this much until I started trying to find out if I liked it!”).
[Would this then be a new “Uncertainty Principle of Consciousness”? Do I get a prize for that one?]
The other night I was in my bedroom folding laundry. Now, my bedroom has 3 items in it - a bed, a dresser, and a file cabinet. That’s it. There’s no stereo, no TV, no pictures on the wall, no woman in the bed… nothing. A book on the dresser entertains me on my way to sleep each night, but that’s the only thing in the room resembling entertainment. So there I was, folding laundry. Lei was in the living room on the computer, and I was folding laundry. The laundry was on my bed, and I was folding it. The laundry was being folded by me. All of the folding being done, of the laundry, that is… I was doing it. Laundry was being folded that night, by me. Folding was occurring, and it was all laundry that was being folded, and I was the one doing it. I was handling all the folding of the laundry that night, in my bedroom. It was being folded. By me.
Sound exciting? Well, I suppose it isn’t any more exciting in reality than it is to read about (I’ve made it as exciting on paper as I could!), and while I was folding the laundry, I had one of those waves of self-insight. I thought to myself, “Self, shouldn’t you be feeling really bored and isolated right about now?”
You see, I clearly remember the feelings I had when I was in my 20’s. In order to fold laundry, I had to have the TV on, the stereo blasting, a beer within arm’s reach, and be talking to someone on the phone. After all, who can actually spend 10 minutes of their life doing nothing but FOLDING FUCKING LAUNDRY???
But it occurred to me that I felt none of the isolation or loneliness that used to accompany tackling these unexciting tasks. When did that change for me? When did I become capable of … stillness?
As I folded the laundry, I began examining this discovery, and going over a mental checklist to see if I wasn’t imagining it. Had I been occupying my thoughts with something interesting (sex, Rush, philosophy, chess, etc…)? No, I hadn’t. Actually, I had been pretty much focused on folding the socks together without stretching them out too much. Was I anxious to complete the task and get on with something more fun? No, not really. In fact, when I really thought about it, I realized I would’ve been perfectly happy folding laundry for the next half-hour.
All said and done, I realized that some part of me had changed, and once again I hadn’t gotten the memo. I wasn’t like this before. If something as mundane as folding laundry is sufficient to occupy my time and thoughts… what does that say about me? And why did I change? I could only come up with two possible answers, and only one of them sits well with me.
Maybe I’ve become so well-centered and so at peace with myself and with the world around me that I no longer need the constant stimulation to drown out my inner pain. It could be that I’ve developed an appreciation for life in general and an overall happiness and contentment such that rather than requiring a constant barrage of stimuli, I am satisfied with simply living. Maybe I’ve learned to simply enjoy *life*!
Or, maybe I’m just a boring old geezer, and the all of the excitement and lust for life within me has been slowly suffocated over the years until it died an unnoticed, un-mourned, and unceremonious death.
But how can I know? How can I know whether this calmness inside me is a strength or a weakness? A triumph or a failure? Something to celebrate or something to fix? And to whom do you bring such a question? Who the hell knows these things?
Pardon me while I consult my horoscope, shoo away the ghosts, dodge the aliens that are here to abduct me, and irrigate the virgin…
Boredom’s not a burden anyone should bear.
Constant overstimulation numbs me
But I would not want you any other way
But it’s not enough, I need more
Nothing seems to satisfy
If don’t want it, I just need it
To breathe to feel to know I’m alive
…
Something kind of sad about
The way that things have come to be
Desensitized to everything
What became of subtlety?”
Excerpts from “Stinkfist” by Tool
The other day I was having a conversation with Eric about life and the way things are nowadays, and he said something along the lines of “I think we’ve been spoiled”. When I asked what he could possibly mean (I’ve never felt anything remotely resembling spoiled), he went on to explain that life in our 30’s seems rather dull compared to what life in our 20’s was like. I won’t get into details, but we, along with Toni and Maria, led a pretty intense, wild lifestyle for a sustained period of time. Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that our lives we’re so different than that of normal folks (doesn’t everyone wake up to find people they don’t recognize sleeping in their homes every Sunday afternoon, passed out from partying the night before?), but I knew we were having fun and I guess I knew it wouldn’t last forever.
The other day Lei and I were having a conversation regarding self-awareness and personal self-discovery (these are the type of things we talk about when we aren’t goofing around talking like Sean Connery or imagining what a pool game between Obi-Wan and the Emperor might be like). We were discussing the phenomenon of suddenly becoming consciously aware of aspects of yourself you had only been subconsciously aware of before, or maybe not aware of at all.
As for myself, the latest example of such a case was the other night in my bedroom as I was just going to bed for the evening. The lights were out and I could barely see myself in the huge mirrored sliding closet doors across from the bed, and it suddenly occurred to me that my (almost) lifelong fear of mirrors had, at some point, vanished. You see, between scary books I had read as a child, scary movies I had seen, and scary stories I had been told (Bloody Mary, anyone?), I had developed an intense fear of mirrors when I was young. But at some point the fear went away, and I didn’t get the memo. I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know how many mirrors I’ve looked into while alone before realizing the fear had dissipated, but as I looked into the other mirror that night, I clearly remember thinking “Where’s that creepy feeling I used to get? Aren’t I supposed to be spooked out right about now?” But I wasn’t, and I realized that I hadn’t been - not for a long time.
We talked about various instances of this sort of self-discovery, and after chewing on the idea for a few days, I began to wonder if it has to necessarily be a passive thing. Must we really wait around for these epiphanies to strike us at their convenience? Or can we actively “dig in” to our minds to discover those truths about ourselves that have been hiding in plain sight?
Of course, the danger of digging in is that it then becomes possible to begin “finding” things that aren’t there. One of the more succulently evil doctrines of the bible articulates this perfectly - “Seek and ye shall find”. Well, no shit! If you seek the face of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, you’ll eventually find it, won’t you? But the bible has no problem confessing this idea, bare-faced and for the world to see. And there is no shortage of fools who mistake it for some sort of wisdom, and fail to understand what it really means.
I understand what it means. It means that if you are convinced you will find something, your mind will project the “discovery” onto reality. That’s why ghosts are only seen by those who already believe in ghosts, UFO’s are always seen by people who believe in flying saucers, horoscopes read by people who believe in astrology always seem to be perfectly accurate, and I routinely see the face of the Virgin Mary in the ring around my toilet bowl. It means that if you seek something *believing ahead of time that you are sure to find it*, then your mind will present it to you *whether or not reality does*.
So if one were to actively seek those subtle self-discoveries, and then suddenly start finding them, how would one know whether one was discovering things or projecting them? After all, there would be no possibility of independent verification, would there? (“Tell me pal, have I really started enjoying the taste of asparagus, or is it my imagination?”) So there would be almost no way of telling. Also, you might inadvertently make actual changes during the process of attempting (“Well, I didn’t realize I hated line dancing quite this much until I started trying to find out if I liked it!”).
[Would this then be a new “Uncertainty Principle of Consciousness”? Do I get a prize for that one?]
The other night I was in my bedroom folding laundry. Now, my bedroom has 3 items in it - a bed, a dresser, and a file cabinet. That’s it. There’s no stereo, no TV, no pictures on the wall, no woman in the bed… nothing. A book on the dresser entertains me on my way to sleep each night, but that’s the only thing in the room resembling entertainment. So there I was, folding laundry. Lei was in the living room on the computer, and I was folding laundry. The laundry was on my bed, and I was folding it. The laundry was being folded by me. All of the folding being done, of the laundry, that is… I was doing it. Laundry was being folded that night, by me. Folding was occurring, and it was all laundry that was being folded, and I was the one doing it. I was handling all the folding of the laundry that night, in my bedroom. It was being folded. By me.
Sound exciting? Well, I suppose it isn’t any more exciting in reality than it is to read about (I’ve made it as exciting on paper as I could!), and while I was folding the laundry, I had one of those waves of self-insight. I thought to myself, “Self, shouldn’t you be feeling really bored and isolated right about now?”
You see, I clearly remember the feelings I had when I was in my 20’s. In order to fold laundry, I had to have the TV on, the stereo blasting, a beer within arm’s reach, and be talking to someone on the phone. After all, who can actually spend 10 minutes of their life doing nothing but FOLDING FUCKING LAUNDRY???
But it occurred to me that I felt none of the isolation or loneliness that used to accompany tackling these unexciting tasks. When did that change for me? When did I become capable of … stillness?
As I folded the laundry, I began examining this discovery, and going over a mental checklist to see if I wasn’t imagining it. Had I been occupying my thoughts with something interesting (sex, Rush, philosophy, chess, etc…)? No, I hadn’t. Actually, I had been pretty much focused on folding the socks together without stretching them out too much. Was I anxious to complete the task and get on with something more fun? No, not really. In fact, when I really thought about it, I realized I would’ve been perfectly happy folding laundry for the next half-hour.
All said and done, I realized that some part of me had changed, and once again I hadn’t gotten the memo. I wasn’t like this before. If something as mundane as folding laundry is sufficient to occupy my time and thoughts… what does that say about me? And why did I change? I could only come up with two possible answers, and only one of them sits well with me.
Maybe I’ve become so well-centered and so at peace with myself and with the world around me that I no longer need the constant stimulation to drown out my inner pain. It could be that I’ve developed an appreciation for life in general and an overall happiness and contentment such that rather than requiring a constant barrage of stimuli, I am satisfied with simply living. Maybe I’ve learned to simply enjoy *life*!
Or, maybe I’m just a boring old geezer, and the all of the excitement and lust for life within me has been slowly suffocated over the years until it died an unnoticed, un-mourned, and unceremonious death.
But how can I know? How can I know whether this calmness inside me is a strength or a weakness? A triumph or a failure? Something to celebrate or something to fix? And to whom do you bring such a question? Who the hell knows these things?
Pardon me while I consult my horoscope, shoo away the ghosts, dodge the aliens that are here to abduct me, and irrigate the virgin…