Renewal

So: it’s been a long time and I was even beginning to ask myself whether or not I would just write this blog off as another of many abortive experiments from over the years, but things have changed, so many things…

It’s been a long month and too many things have happened to list: I left VT for the first time in a long, long time; I set up my studio and cleaned the house top to bottom; I even got rolling on the schoolwork that I’ve been keeping at bay with my most recent existential crisis.  But the big event was that I think I’ve finally met the girl.  That’s right.  The girl.

But that’s not exactly my story to share, not in this (in theory) public forum.  Instead I’d like to muse briefly on just what this has done for me, because it’s nothing short of remarkable how much seems to have changed in me, but I also want to suggest something that might, maybe, on the surface of it, seem a little unromantic: that while she’s inspired me, these changes come from within.  Now if that’s unromantic, consider this: if these changes come from within (and I think we’re all familiar with “love” changes, i.e. happiness, singing and dancing, increased energy and productivity) then the possibility is always there.

OK, so if this possibility for happiness and personal growth is always in there, well, maybe we can learn to unlock it in other ways.  This is a variation on the problem of learning to love yourself, so that you might learn to love others: this is a technological question of a metaphysical nature, and that’s one of the things that this blog is supposed to be about.  I lost my confidence in that original idea… but she’s inspired me to restore it, and so to continue groping my way towards this admittedly unusual thesis: that the full powers of humanity will be unlocked from within our minds, our (though I hesitate to give the wrong impression in using the word) souls, and that this can be figured out.

I’m 27.  I don’t get kicked to the kid’s table anymore, and I’m starting to like the feel of the years.  It’s like old Polybius said: we study history because when you boil it down there are really only two ways to learn: from your own mistakes, or from those of others.  The latter is preferable, of course, but the first is vital.  A one-line version of my first twenty-five years might read that I did most of my learning the hard way; the last couple of years, though, have been marked more by restraint and reflection than regret.  I’ve been learning to love myself, and I’ve actually been getting there: slow going, sometimes, and rocky, but well worth the effort, because these last have been some of the best years of my life.

So what is it, then, about some inspiring other that suddenly makes this effort so incredibly easy?  Because while I’ve been working at it… suddenly my confidence is restored.  I feel like that wild brash boy again, like I could do anything.  There’s something here, something about being seen.  Over the years you pick up fears and the list of things that bit you grows and grows and before you know it you’ve hidden, like a secret: unseen.  The reasoning only rarely surfaces, and then generally only in moments of irony, but we do this in an effort to make ourselves safe.  We go to such lengths, contort our hearts, produce such elaborate bleak poses and all to avoid pain, even when we know that the only thing to do is gather what courage remains and face the possibility again, and in the mature, hard-earned knowledge of exactly what’s at stake.

It’s not just love, of course: we all grow increasingly hesitant with age.  Some time back the issue of somersaults came up.  I used to throw a pretty good somersault, in my time… but I found that I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t hurl myself into the air the way I used to.  As a kid, of course, I didn’t have a blasted back that could go out and probably would with such athletics, but that’s exactly the point: I got that blasted back by hurling myself out there into space and, on more than one occasion, by falling to the ground, and that’s where the fear came from.

She’s my age, beautiful, intelligent, accomplished… and she likes me? I mean, I can babble, and I do so when I get nervous, sort of like an octopus farting ink, and so she’s really seen me babble… and it seems as though she loves it.  And this feeling like I’ve been seen for what I really am, more or less, is what’s allowed my confidence to roll back in.  So how did I forget, for so long, that I was loveable?  How does this happen?  What can be done to prevent people – our loved ones, our friends and family – from feeling this way?  And how can we rescue ourselves from this ugly fate?

Two separate questions.  I have one partial answer for the first: look at compliment-giving as an art, and practice it: tell people that they are beautiful, and good, that they’re wearing a nice outfit.  Say it.

The second… tougher… further posts to follow.

~ by Teo on April 1, 2009.