Reflections before moving on

This post must remain brief, for I am just exhausted after another weekend in the life of, but I just had to drop a quick line about feelings. Specifically, it is jut about this hour of night when the magic of self reflection escapes the cerebral realm and resides fully in the emotions, you know, those things that manage to short circuit rationality and truly allow us to be more than just badly reasoning machines. If this seems like a departure from the norm of postings here, in a major way it is. It is tough trying to find a way to semi-intellectually discuss ideas which require as their root emotive feeling, especially at 3 in the AM. Thus if this meanders too much into the personal I apologize in advance, and pledge to all who dare read these extended brain droppings that I hope to improve in this capacity ASAP. As far as I can tell there is an interesting topic in here somewhere and I will refuse all those who will attempt to call me New Age or things of that offenseive nature. Good luck, and here we go.

I have noticed a disturbing trend as I wander the streets of an extremely liberal, soon to be extremely cold neck of the woods, and that is, at least in my limited perceptions, that there seems to be a lack of actually feeling the experiences that we all have. From regret of things both said and not, to moving beyond the recognition of crisp cool early winters day to feeling how alive and aware the crisp air makes the spirit feel: it all falls under a lack of awareness, but I have to make a call of just how pernicious this lack of awareness actually is.

For example. As I was perusing my usual series of sites on the web to visit I was struck by a particular page I came across. Now, these late night trips around the cyber space are generally focused on keeping up with old friends, be they via blogs or the facebook or whatever, and I stumbled across an old and brief flame of summers past. As I saw her picture I was struck by everything associated with our brief relationship, from the joy of finding a new and inspiring interest to the many ways that I mistreated what our relationship could possibly have been. Now I am not one to condone in any way sitting in the past or projecting about the future, but for the first time since we physically parted ways I actually felt the impact that these feelings had and have upon me. Now this was a brief "fling" in the grand scheme of things, but in fully taking responsibility for our interaction I realized that my actions while we were something were tied more deeply to my frame of mind and how I felt then and now. More specifically, in my actions, or lack thereof, I not only furthered the spiral I was going down but (and this only conjecture) I also threw mistrust and misperception of me and 'us' into another person who did nothing to deserve any feelings of ill will, confusion or whatever, especially on account of me that were aroused by the sum of the situation. This left me feeling strange, and for the first time I saw a kink in the armor of a statement that I still hold dear, that being that it is better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done.

What this all amounts to is the idea of getting out of our minds. To make more clear, it is only because I refused to be aware of what she did (and potentially could have) meant to me that I ended being the catalyst of drama that only a theatre major could truly appreciate. If I had only taken a moment to take stock of how I felt instead of how I thought I felt, or how I thought I should have felt, or how I though she felt: I might now be spending this moment reveling in the rosy glow that memory often loves, the polished memory of a wonderfully simple time when all we had was our day job and our evenings to spend on the beach by a wonderful (albeit polluted) lake. Instead I am forced to take a moment for a late night study in the consequences of our actions, which while in the end cathartic, leaves me a little sad that I set myself up to be in this position in the first place.

So this is the topic of discussion, if there is one which can arise out of such early morning (and thus barely coherent and linguistically and narratively poor) thoughts is the idea of moving from what you think you know is going on to moving to what is actually going on. There are subtle differences to these two thoughts. In what we think we know, we judge, attempting to sort the world into neat little packets that we can pull out on a whim to apply to new situation to either 'not get burned again' or know the right course of action, or whatever. Moving to what is going on requires the recognition of how precious each moment we have actually is; that each action we perform moves us one step close to our inevitable demise and so to have a moment that even in retrospect will be considered 'wasted' (that is, a moment that attaches any sort of regret) is quite possibly the most damning thing a human can do. Thus we may very well may make the wrong decision most of the time, but in doing so I really believe that the reward we get for those rare 'soul to soul moments' (more on them in another post soon) even in the midst of a what hindsight would call a mistake, are what make worth living. So the question to ask oneself may take the form of "Is this rewarding enough to make me proud to have done it?" while we lay on our deathbeds, and if the answer is "yes" that I would argue that is the only answer needed and the only analysis necessary.

So to that gal who slipped thorough my grasp, I will say this to you. I truly enjoyed the all too brief time we spent together, and I wanted to honor you and us as best as I could have. Understand that my priorities were focused on consumable substance rather than the substance that makes up a person, and all of the times that I didn't call, or gave an excuse, I was really just suffering from a lack of personal awareness. Although cliché, it was not you, it was me, and I hope that you can sympathize with the idea that we all have to walk our own crooked mile to get to a place where we can be good to ourselves and others and I just wasn't quite there yet. So as the days roll on, I look forward to seeing how you are doing, and I hope that as we converse again you might see where I am v. where I was.

By the way, if anyone wants a homework assignment, I would say it to be this. Stop thinking and realize where you stand right now and the actions and thoughts that got you there. Chances are you see some things that you like and some that you don't. Now store those good qualities, and stop being passive aggressive and start to work on those qualities that makes you take pause when you pause. When done right, the feeling is akin to realizing you are carrying a watermelon: once you realize you are holding it you can put it down, walk on knowing that you have lightened the burden of the soul just a little bit more.