The trilogy of lacking...part three

I have already covered lack of direction and lack of focus. All that remains is to tackle lack of desire, which is probably the most insidious of all. I don't really feel much like writing about it, as it only seems to lead to despair, but sometimes you need to take that journey. Why is lack of desire such a dangerous trap to find yourself in? In order to find direction, or focus, or almost anything else you have to want it. Without the desire, the passion, or whatever you want to call it, its unlikely you'll ever get up from the couch long enough to accomplish much of anything.

Beyond anyone else on the planet, the filthy rich, the naturally talented, anyone, I envy those who know what they want from life. I envy those with dreams, even unfulfilled dreams. I've never had that. Sure, I've had interests. There are things I obsess over from time to time, but they are fleeting, temporary things. Although I pursue them for a while, get excited about them for a while I don't have that driving passion. Is it an inability to commit? Maybe I've always expected something more than I find. There are a lot of things in this world that never live up to the expectations we have of them. Passion and drive may be like this. My perceptions, having been colored by the clear-cut drive of fictional characters, may have left me cruelly unprepared for the reality of the situation. I don't think that's really it, though. The problem with accepting this type of reasoning is this I've been there before. When I said that I've never felt that sort of all consuming passion, it wasn't exactly accurate. To clarify, although I've never felt that all-consuming drive, in terms of direction, I have been in love before. I was not really intending to enter into a discourse on the nature of love, but I seem to have wound up here anyway.

Love is a strange and amazing thing, and as with all things capable of bringing great pleasure, it may bring with it great pain. I think, or at least my experience tells me that the first serious love affair of your life is the worst. We are so open, so vulnerable and so amazingly willing to put everything on the line that heartbreak is almost inevitable. But you learn something. Something about life, about love, and about yourself, so when the next time rolls around you're better prepared. Not that it matters much. The options are simple, you either put up emotional barriers to protect yourself, or you risk going through the pain all over again. The innocence, however, never comes back. Even if you're capable of putting yourself on the line time after time, you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that there is the potential for pain hiding just around the corner. I've never been one who can easily risk myself like that. The sheer awkwardness of putting this into words is, even now, driving me crazy, but I think this is one of those roads I have to commit to following now. To try and detach myself at this point would just drive this experiment to failure.

I made the transition from adolescent romance to serious relationship during my first few years of college, and like many first loves it ended badly. Of course we claim to be friends still, but the remaining emotional debris makes a normal relationship difficult at best. There is a saying that goes, "There is nothing like falling in love for the first time," and while that may be the case, it certainly leaves a good deal unsaid. By the end I was a wreck, and hiding in a protective shell, which was most likely doubling as a prison, but I wasn't looking to get out. Into this mess walked, unexpectedly, the wonderful woman who would years later become my wife. She, probably unknowlingly, helped me put things back together, and it was this process that really became the foundation of trust which allowed me to relate to her. It was certainly very different from the first time, and thankfully so. The first time I felt a lot like I had been caught in a sinkhole and the ground I was standing on was disappearing rapidly. There's a tendency to call this a time of "fireworks", but it's a lot more like the feeling in your stomach when you're falling from a very tall building. The second time was as different from that as night is from day. I was moving again, but rather than plunging I felt more like I was moving to a safe place. It's a little hard to explain, but the relationship I was building, which started so awkwardly, was slowly growing around me. It was not really tearing down my barriers, but absorbing them. As the years have gone by I find I have fewer and fewer left standing. There are a few left, some remaining scars, but far fewer. Am I describing a safe and boring relationship? No. Although I have my issues, and still hide behind some walls, there are times, when the walls fall, that there is a very strong connection between us. In fact, I think the "fireworks" are more meaningful and powerful now. It would be a lie to say that the fire which burns so brightly at the start of a relationship continues to burn at the same intensity forever. I don't think it could sustain itself. My wife and I have been married for four years now, and I would say that I've now lost count of the number of times I've fallen in love with her. Love is a constant thing, but being in love is a state of mind that comes and goes. If you spend too much time chasing the fireworks, you'll miss the beauty of the moments in between.

And the price of tea in China? There is a connection here that I've been building toward. I want to wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose. I desperately want to want something. This I've never felt, and I must now ask the question of whether I will ever feel that. I see a distinct difference between relationships and direction, but this may be an illusion. If I, at least now, have a tendency toward emotional detachment, isn't it likely that this would also affect my commitment toward choosing a direction? Probably. Maybe I know that I've lost something and part of me wants it back. I don't know exactly. Maybe these dreams are of a different sort, but just like matters of love, by the time we've grown up and the time comes to make these decisions, our dreams have been crushed so many times we've put up different walls. I would suspect that I's a combination of the two. We know it's dangerous to want things, and we know that a lot of dreams never come true, so what's the point in wanting anything at all. Knowing, this maybe some progress can be made. It's not about falling madly in love with some direction. It's about building that relationship, cultivating the desire and refusing to give up on it or to allow fear to get in the way. To be honest, there's so many pieces of ideas hanging around right now I can't even begin to pick them up, but I think that there's a little more order than when I started. I'm just too worn out to continue right now.

So what's with all the doom and gloom...

Looking back over my first two entries here I'm begining to see a pattern emerging. The first was, more than anything else, about my lack of focus. The second was about my lack of direction. This rash of negativity makes me start to wonder whether my life is really that bad, or if maybe I'm just using this space to vent. Well, it's probably the latter. When I sit and try to start organizing the thoughts that are swirling around my head I find that the bad tends to remain long after the good have turned into pleasant memories. It's probably just the nature of these kind of feelings. Good things have a tendancy to resolve themselves quickly. They don't linger in the irksome way that so many negative feelings do, hovering at the fringes of consciousness, waiting to strike when the defenses are down. A simplification? Sure, but I'd rather not think about the alternatives they're far less plesant.

The point is that when I sit down to write in anything resembling an introspective manner it's always the doubts, the fears, and the insecurities which make their way to the front. It never seems to be about the simple pleasures and that bothers me a bit. I wouldn't like to think that if I were to look back at this in twenty years all I would have is a record of everything that kept me up at night. That would be a shame, because those are the things I would rather forget.

To be honest, it may just be too soon to take stock like this. This is my third post and I'm still really feeling my way around what it is I'm doing here. I should almost have expected that this project, borne out of a caffine-addled attempt to set my mind at ease, would come together with an emphaisis on the questions and fears. That can change, though, and probably will as will my frame of mind. Certainly there's been more dark than light around for a while now both here and in my life in general, but I think the dawn may finally be in sight. Things are beginning to pick up, I think, and that will inevitably work its way into my writing. The problem is that I have a tendancy to dwell on the questions. Open ended and poorly defined quandaries. They're the sort of things that can't help causing some emotional turmoil. How do I know if I'm going somewhere or not? There's no simple answer, maybe no answer at all. No real assurance to be found.

I guess the only point I'm really trying to make is that when the end comes and the final tally is made, I'd like to think there will be more good than bad, more happy moments than sad, and more joy than sadness. Sometimes, like now, I think there will. Other times I'm not so sure, but either way it's probably better for me if I don't use these entries as an emotional barometer. The results would likely be skewed.

Not all who wander are lost...but some are.

If you're ever in Albuquerque, and you find an old red VW bus with a bumper sticker reading, "Not all who wander are lost," you've probably found my car. The sticker was an impromptu gift from my brother, and bore a respectable sentiment penned by J. R. R. Tolkien, so I put it on without much thought.
A short time after that one of my friends was following me as I set of on what became an unnecessarily circuitous route through residential neighborhoods before winding up almost exactly where I' d started (an easy, if not inevitable feat in Santa Fe, but a trickier one in Albuquerque). When we finally arrived at where we were going he pointed out that while not all who wander are lost, some, in fact, are, and I might want to add a warning indicating such.

The full quote reads:
All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
a light from the shadows shall spring;
renewed shall be blade that was broken,
the crownless again shall be king.
-J. R. R. Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings

I state the rest of it, or at least some more of it here to help illustrate the meaning of Tolkien's poem and the way in which my friend's statement diverges from it. Tolkien starts out with a few lines about perception and assumption. Though you may think you see gold it may be something else, though someone may appear to be lost, they may have their own agenda that you are not accounting for. The next few lines turn the poem in a new direction, though still connected to this idea of perception. These lines are more about the eternal essence of things. Strength is always strong, despite the onset of age. The roots remain alive even in the blasting cold of winter. Fire is always fire, though it has been reduced to ash. So the perceptions are still being fooled. We perceive age, or cold, but in truth there is strength and fire. The line regarding the fire introduces the next theme of the piece that of rebirth. The fire, the light, the blade, and the king are all reborn. There is a nice flow to these lines. We start with the simple idea of the failure of perception to recognize reality and move through a series of images, so that when we arrive at the end the final line does not simply mean the king will return, but encompasses the full range of themes in the rest of the poem. The king is eternal and, though you may not be capable of recognizing him we is destined as are all enternal things to return. Each of the lines applies directly to the final one. You may not see the sparkle of gold on the king, but it is there. Though he appears to be an aimless wanderer, he is on the path to his destiny. He comes from an ancient line, but that line is strong and has not disappeared. Though his line appears dead it is alive and will return in the metaphorical spring. The fire of his line (of his leadership, of his strength, etc) is not dead, but will again be kindled, and so on. All in all, it's a pretty tight little verse.
Let's put this half-hearted literary analysis to the side now and focus on the single line. When you separate this part of the line from it's context the meaning changes a bit. The same perception versus reality quality remains a viable interpretation, but the meaning I find most resonant is that of the quest. Sometimes, when you are looking for something wandering in an apparently aimless fashion may be a necessary part of the journey. Beyond that, sometimes wandering may be the point of the journey. If this is the case, then how do you tell the difference between being lost and wandering toward an unknown goal? How do you know if you continuing to explore and to grow from when you're just spinning your wheels? It may be that some of us are wandering because we have to, while others are wandering because we don't know what else to do. We've lost the path, have no real way of getting back to it, and feel that any direction is as good as any other. We're lost. Maybe it's a temporary thing, maybe not.
Well, you'll have to figure out your own situation, but I feel it's only fair to warn you, I may be wandering as a means to get where I'm going, but there's a good chance I'm just one of the lost.

So little time...

Hmm...a blank page. There are few things quite as daunting. My mind is a bit of a mess today, and that doesn't help much either. I had a very large, rather too big, in fact, coffee this afternoon with rather too much sugar as well and I'm still not quite on an even keel.

So there I lay in the semi darkness of a late winter evening attempting, despite caffeine, to grab a few hours of sleep before work, unable to stop the thoughts from flashing through my head. I choose leave them here, then, so I don't have worry about them any more tonight.

Today has been rather typical in that I've spent a good portion of it reevaluating my life, a process that seems to be my new pastime. Not that it changes. Its a cycle that never seems to lead anywhere, and yet one I never seem to tire of. Go figure. Today the scalpel of self analysis touches on many things, but only one that interests me from more than a few seconds. There are some people in this world who might describe me as a dabbler. Alas, I'd have to agree. When I think about the various interests I've pursued (record collecting, leatherwork, medieval history, literature, writing, business, this blog, sewing, and guitar playing leap to mind first) I'm a little surprised at how many there have been and how few have led to anything. I am not, in theory, against having diverse interests. In fact, it's probably healthy. So where's the issue? Well, there are several, but today I seem to be dwelling on the phrase "Jack of all trades; master of none." It's a double edged knife isn't it? On one hand diversity is good, but on the other you've just got to admire the one who has gained mastery over their craft. There are just so many things to do in this world that you could never experience them all, and to some degree, I worry that if I focused on just a few I would be missing so many other things. Then again, maybe that's just an excuse to cover laziness. I wouldn't bet against it. The thing is, though, I'm enamored of greatness, of mastery. From the marital arts master to the musician I'm fascinated by the dedication of these people to their art, and the skills they display. I don't have them. Most likely I never will. I suspect this affects my outlook as well, but it provides no solution. The question remains. Is it better to have read a great number of books, or to have studied the works of one writer in great detail, to try everything for a day, or to study one thing for a lifetime? And, perhaps most importantly for me, why do I continue to pursue so many things concurrently that I wind up feeling that there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done, and I'm better off doing nothing at all, which is, of course, what winds up happening.

This won't change. It never does. Maybe it is time for me to focus my efforts a little. Perhaps I should, for once, pick something to do and then follow through with it. Maybe someday I will, but I strongly suspect that it will not be today. It never is. The great irony here is that most things aren't really that interesting until you get far enough inside the subject to understand their subtleties and details, and what you get from wide exploration often feels like less than nothing at all.

Hmm...the page isn't blank anymore.