It feels like I am struggling today. Suffering. I have lots of ideas for what to write, but am finding no joy in the writing. I’ve got a couple of blogs half-begun, and yet cannot seem to make myself finish them. Part of it is that most of my ideas lead to long, deep analyses “with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was,” and right now I don’t trust long, deep analyses. I’m tired of my monkey-mind and its constant need to figure out and explain and know and demonstrate. Today that just all feels like control and domination, like the serving of some vague egoic need I can’t even surface long enough to understand. There’s an all-alone, listen-to-me, I’ve-got-to-explain-myself quality in my body today that I do not like and do not want. I want to find my heart and just say something from that. I want to be in touch with something else besides my mind. Perhaps it’s because Sally is away this week. Perhaps I am less grounded with her gone.
The most difficult thing for me here is to simply accept that this is how it is and let it be okay. I promised myself that I would write a blog every week. You know… the kind of blog a “pure research man” would write, full of insights and notions that chip away at the great puzzles of our time. I’m a guy who does what he says he’s gonna do, know what I mean? But this is how it is. And so I will let it be okay. Some days, I guess, when a “pure research man” goes to the lab, nothing much fascinates him. He can’t even seem to get the bunsen burner lit, and he eventually goes home and takes a nap, or reads a book, or walks along the ocean. Finding no words and ideas that really fascinate me today, I’m going to head back home and “pick up my guitar and play.” Music has fascinated me of late. And I’m beginning to find ways to share music face to face with real human beings. And I have found, when I do so, that I get a huge grin on my face, and a feeling of excitement in my body just as strong as the terror of vulnerability that’s there whenever I step into that level of self-expression. It’s still pure research, when I think about it. It’s just not in the realm of words and ideas. It’s in the realm of ears and eyes and guts and hearts, the realm of tapping feet and vibrating vocal cords, the realm of the “soft animal of my body,” as Mary Oliver would say, the realm of my beautiful but wounded soul sitting knee to knee with another beautiful but wounded soul and somehow, as if by magic, creating something joyous in this big ol’ goofy world.
So I will quit the struggle and relieve myself from suffering. My lofty ideas about science and spirit and hope and doom and love and life and death and redemption shall have to wait for another day. The Universe says shut the fuck up and sing me a song. So I shall. Who am I to say no to the Universe?
Pax. T
PS: That’s my Great Aunt Marj playing the fiddle in the photo. She was one of the people who loved me and cared for me as a young child. Aunt Marj… this one’s for you.
Hello Tim. I enjoyed your frankness in this post. I myself had just sat down to write, as Nicole and I are working together on a writing project, and needing to distract myself for just a moment longer I went onto facebook and saw your post. So, here’s to your music making, and here’s to me writing today while you take a well deserved break. And here is to emptying of oneself, which I have been doing over the last 6 weeks. Love you.
Peter, thanks! I was glad to know you were holding down the fort while I was away. Always great to find oneself on a team! Emptying… yes… over and over… because there is always more. Pax, Bro.
Right. Like you can’t write today. The blog post itself belies that assertion.
As for music…I’ve found that making it in the company of others does more to establish a sense of collaboration than any other activity (well, perhaps aside from flying formation…) and the sense of having done that always resets my state of mind.
Go play with the band.
The words will come in their own time.
Alright, Larry. You caught me!
Yeah. There’s something about the music which is very much about “finding my belonging and my right relationship” to my local community. Something about collaboration there, yes, and mastery, and even magic. I can imagine those same things working in a flying formation. Thanks!
Tim - I’m sorry that you were struggling and suffering the other day. I admire how you chose to work through it. Did you feel any better after writing and posting this?
To me, this entry reads like an ottery examination of your resistance to writing the blog(s) you thought you wanted to write. The exercise seems to have gotten you in touch with your feelings, wants, and needs, and it serves as a great demonstration of valuing the process at least as much as the product. As a “pure-research man”, is that kind of probing which helps you to “find my heart and just say something from that” any less legitimate than the kind that serves your “lofty ideas”?
Perhaps you had a different intention privately, but here’s what you told us about your “Otters of the Universe” blog:
- You were feeling “ready to take this step on the journey and see where it leads . . .”
- and you would be “playing with mindsets and stories, with dogmas and thought forms and paradigms”
- “It follows no rules and questions all assumptions”
- “Nothing is forbidden in my pure-research lab”
Check, check, check, and check in “Taking Requests”.
You write here (somewhat self-mockingly?) that you expect your writing to be “full of insights and notions that chip away at the great puzzles of our time”. Do you mean quandaries like how to get Tim in touch with the “soft animal of [his] body? Or how to he might catch himself when a “vague egoic need” is driving his behavior? Or how he can continue to open himself up to the universe to heed its advice to “shut the fuck up and sing me a song?
How is a such a public, vulnerable exploration of self any less than all of the above? (And should that be initial caps?!)
Now that I’ve made my point and inadvertently made that reference . . . As for your “deep analyses ‘with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was’ “, just remember that the judge might end up being blind - which could manifest in many different ways in this situation - especially notable given that Obie is actually the one who did all of that documentation. Now wrap your brain around THAT nugget (if you haven’t already)!
JRF… sure. It did just what it was supposed to do: freed me up to follow my heart in the moment. Yes… still ottery, still a “pure research man,” as I got to, which is what I needed to get to. The search for “lofty ideas” can surely get in my way, so I must reveal that, first to myself, and then say it out loud, and, yes, even mock that particular strut in the ol’ ego structure, as mocking allows me a bit of gentle self-acceptance and pulls the scary mask off the monster, so to speak. All of that, is, indeed the point, and I was aware of that bit of loopiness while writing. I will need, over and over, to make room for my “self,” and for whatever needs to arise here. Vulnerability, in particular, requires, for me, careful claiming of room and declaration of need, as my ego always finds it frightening and risky, to expose itself to the reactions of others. I always evoke way more response to displays of vulnerability than I do to even the most dire bits of information or analysis I might post. I am learning, slowly but surely, to feel those responses as expressions of love, at least in part, as much as they are just other people’s own ego struts. I have found, recently, some new ability to let other people’s stuff be their own, and to not take on blame, shame, or responsibility. With that is coming an tremendous sense of relief. You mean I can just be vulnerable and let other people’s reactions be about them? AMAZING!!!
I like the notion of “the judge being blind” but am not quite grokking your reference to Obie. Care to expand so’s I’ll know what you mean?
Pax, T
Hiya Tim!
Happy to explain the obtuse reference and re-amused in the process.
I recognized your “circles and arrows . . .” quote as coming from “Alice’s Restaurant” - a song I’ve always liked on multiple levels. It bugged me that I couldn’t remember the rest of the associated phrase that Arlo repeats several times. So I looked up the lyrics in order to get un-stuck - not because I expected to refer back to them in my response. “8×10 color glossy photos . . .” - ah, that was it, that’s all I needed to know. But I took the time to scan the rest of the words to the song since it’s been a coupla years since I’ve heard it.
I laughed out loud when I saw that the officer in the narrative was named Obie! It also struck me as ironic in the context of your blog that after Obie had done all of that documentation with the “circles and arrows”, the courtroom judge turned out to be blind - literally - and Arlo played with the phrase “blind justice”. This struck me as an apt metaphor to toss in your direction given the gist of what you wrote about your own documenting process. As for my Obie reference at the very end, I assumed that you knew every word to “Alice’s Restaurant” - or that you had recently listened to it or read the lyrics since you quoted it exactly - and that if you hadn’t already noted it, the appearance of Obie as a character and (stretching a bit) the contrast of his role vis a vis your own Obie might give you a moment’s pause, if not a chuckle - nothing deep or even well-thought-out - just the co-incidence (as opposed to coincidence).
As for the rest of my reply, I was pretty confident that you “knew” all that I wrote and that was what allowed you to post that blog in the first place. Since it sounded like you were struggling with allowing yourself to accept a personal revelation as a “legit” blog, I was trying to reinforce that it’s OK and that I “got” what was going on for you - which is that you got it and were putting it out there. I wasn’t trying to lecture you on your own blogging intentions. I seem to have trouble remembering that my “in the know” friendly jesting tone often doesn’t translate innocuously even in person, much less in writing without any other cues! Crap.
Along those lines, I’m not clear whether you were referring to my response as one you needed to let roll because of my egoic stuff that you didn’t want to react to. So I’ll go ahead and say, yes, I own that my “stuff” moved me to try to reassure you. You did not express any need or desire to be reassured. As I’ve mentioned before, I seem to hold, and need to act on, an intention/desire for you to feel seen - though I wonder now upon rereading my words if what I wrote had the opposite effect. I see that your latest blog touches on this very topic - being seen. I look forward to taking the time to digest it, re-examine my stuff, and perhaps respond in time.
Ah… no, I hadn’t made the connection between Obie in the song and Obie in my book. Fun! I just use that “circles and arrows” phrase often, when referring to the impulse to justify, document, and over analyze, on my part or someone else’s. I love me some fun phrases with cultural reference points!
Beyond that, yes, I knew. You knew. I knew that you knew. You knew that I knew. I knew that you knew that I knew. Apparently you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew. Ain’t we monkeys funny! B|
I don’t remember having felt lectured by you. Just supported, I think. My comment re vulnerability and reactions feels more general to me. It happens on FB most often… that kind of “hey, don’t worry, be happy” sort of thing. But even that is feeling more and more just like love and support these days. People are trying to be good and helpful. My “need to be seen” is really on me, I think. That’s been a hard one to learn.
Ah well… peace out, sister… T
OK, good news on the feeling supported, not lectured - as intended - just checking in. Peace back at ya!