Just saw a Facebook ad for “history photos”.
Not historical photos. Photos of the concept of history.
That sounds impressive, but actually, they just repeat themselves.
Young person : Oh my god, this thing that is happening now is so important! I am sure nothing this important has ever happened before!
Old person : Nope. Seen it before. Twice, actually.
Young person : That’s IMPOSSIBLE! This thing is so NEW and EXCITING and NOW, not like that boring stuff in the history books!
Old person : That “boring stuff” was new and exciting and now when it happened too. And I was as excited about it as you are at the time. Face it, kid, you’re living in history right now. Some day, this thing you’re all hyped up about will be just another thing in the history books and you’ll be the one trying to convince a young person that history is just the exciting stuff from years gone by.
Young person : You just don’t UNDERSTAND! *dramatic exit*
Old person (to himself) : Oh well, I didn’t listen when I was his age either.
Everything cycles, history included. Western thought can’t handle the cyclical because it seems to deny progress.
If everything is going to just keep repeating ad infinitum, then what’s the point?
And I think we suffer from this inability to handle cycles in subtle ways. We see the news repeat itself and loudly declare there to be no such thing as progress. We get into relationships and try to skip steps instead of letting things unfold naturally. We see the stages people go through as they age all around us and yet are somehow surprised when those exact same things happen to us.
As patient readers know, I see time as a kind of spiral staircase where you have to go around and around in a circle in order to ascend.
Best of both worlds, sorta kinda.
I’m clearly in some weird sort of mood right now.
Sort of softly alienated, but not in a bad way.
Just seeing things from a strange angle right now, and slightly out of phase with reality.
Moreso than usual, that is.
Maybe this is just a between-phase as I slowly and majestically turn into someone new.
I could live with that.
I still wonder what the hell I am sometimes.
Not a normal question, I admit. Most people – sane people – wonder who they are, not what they are.
But I am such a strange bird that “who” does not seem sufficient. I’ve never met anyone quite like me. My point of view is quite bizarre compared to the mainstream, I have way more brainpower than I know what to do with, and my attempts to connect with my fellow naked beach apes are often not just failures but alienating failures.
I am not quite of this world.
And were I not so solidly sensible and pragmatic a person, I might be one of those people who deals with their own strangeness by decided they are “really” something other than a human being on the inside.
I am guessing I would imagine myself to be some kind of alien. Or perhaps something more supernatural, like a nephilim, or a houri.
But alas, no, I am stuck with the reality that I am just a messed up human. A broken person who did not get nearly enough of the right emotional nutrients during his formative years and therefore grew up stunted and strange.
And that’s the ugly truth of it all.
Feeling cold and lonely and disconnected.
And trying to deal with the coming of Xmas rationally and sensibly. It feels like it’s coming at me at runaway freight train speeds and yet it’s still more than a week away and I really have very little to do before it so what’s the big deal?
It’s really got me thinking about this whole tendency to freeze up, deer in headlights style, when I feel stressed.
On one level, it fits neatly into my thoughts about how there are people who react to danger by fighting, others by fleeing, and still others by freezing up.
All of these have the potential to be the right response but when exaggerated by serious mental health issues they all become major liabilities.
I would describe myself as a “run and hide” type. Flee then freeze. Picture a caveman running away from a wolf at full speed then, once he feels like he has a big enough lead, diving behind a bush and hiding there, not moving a muscle.
But there’s another dirtier aspect to being a deer in the headlights : freezing up and letting life run me over means I never have to make the decision to act.
The choice is taken away from me and all I have to do is do nothing.
I have realized recently that simply deciding to act is extremely difficult for me. It is a manifestation of executive dysfunction, and it has a huge impact on my life.
Throughout my life, I have avoided having to choose whenever I could. When I couldn’t, I have given away that agency to random factors, i.e., if the next song on the radio is by a female artist, I will do A, and if not. B.
I have done a lot of variations on that one, especially when I was younger.
But what is the problem? Why do I hate choosing so much? It’s certainly not a cognitive issue – I am hella smart and have all the brainpower I need to figure shit out.
The problem is emotional. There is a lack of something vital – I want to say “backbone” – that makes it very hard for me to choose to do something.
And there’s just plain fear, too. I suppose it would be accurate to say that I have such a deep fear of doing the wrong thing that it keeps me from doing anything – even in situations where doing nothing is the wrong decision.
Because I know that when you choose not to choose, you are making a choice.
And yet, doing nothing still feels way safer.
Well, not even I claim to make sense all the time.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.