Economy of Feelings

Happiness: what a fucking conundrum. 

You would think that happiness should just come by virtue of being a human being. I don't even know where the idea of happiness came from, or the idea that we ought to be happy. It is only one of a myriad of feelings that we get to experience in our lives. In the midst of different feelings, there are of course some that we prefer more than others.

For the most part, we lean toward the more preferable feelings, which are often the more pleasant feelings. We, for the most part, avoid difficult feelings, feelings that cause discomfort. I think this creates some tension in us. For some this is a minimal tension, for others it is an intense conflict. 

I find it interesting, however, when we talk about feelings as being better than others; putting value judgements on feelings. Raising up the value of happiness, and invalidating other feelings altogether. There is an intimate language-feeling relationship that we learn to employ. We glue particular behaviours and feelings together with our words. Words are therefore vital; these words we use to describe ourselves and our experiences. 

I wonder, if we valued all of our feelings equally, what our lives would look like

For those with Hearing Difficulties

I believe that we rarely truly listen to eachother
I believe that listening is an essential part of a healthy relationship
Yet, if we rarely do it, then I wonder what impact it has on our valued relationships

I think that most people, when they are "talking to eachother",
are simply encountering eachother, and bouncing off eachother
in a messy exchange,
of linguistic habits
that, at best, meets our need for connectedness,
in a very basic way;
regardless of what was said;
regardless of what was communicated.

However,
in times when our needs are more acute,
when there are things that are important to us
or things that we are anxious about
we might want something a little more
than just spending time with someone
we might actually want someone to listen to us
someone to lean their ear toward us

there are not many who are good at this

many of us hear trigger-words
at which point we interject
unable to surrender our own narcissism
unable to let the other speak
still longing to hear our own echo in the other
to hear our own view of the world coming out of their mouths

my best guess is this:
that we are too quick to give
our answers to their problems
to give our understandings
to their situations
to prescribe our advice
rather than listen fully to them

my best guess is this:
that we have blindspots to how poor we are
at listening to the valued-others in our lives
whether they are
our friends,
our children,
our parents, or
our partners.

when we see others struggling;
with their own feelings
or
with indecision,
we all-too-often jump in with
parenting words...caring words...advising words...loving words

words

not listening

words

filling in the blank,
plastering over the discomfort
avoiding the silence of struggling

too quick to speak...slow to listen
not still enough to listen
brimming over with nervous words
eager to parent
to reassure ourselves
reassured that we are
helping; doing good; caring; being loving
assuming that if we don't say anything
we will cease to be those things
as if to be silent were to be heartless

we rarely allow the other the dignity of their own feelings
we just use it as an opportunity to reveal our own discomfort with difficult feelings
or to share the mantras that we use to parent ourselves

I am fascinated by how parents respond to their children's difficult feelings
I see attempts to change the feeling of the child
[of course not if they are playing out happy feelings]
as if it were not a good thing to be crying
not a good thing to be sad.
I think that this is common
and I think that it has bred in us an allergy to difficult feelings,
and that instead of listening to what is going on with the other;
letting them feel what they feel,
we jump in hastily with answers
and solutions
and remedies
and advice
and happiness
and anything, other than just being there

just being there

listening

a companion rather than a parent

I wish you could have stayed forever

nothing lasts
god knows
nothing lasts

not even god lasted

not even love lasted

not even beauty lasted

not even the ecstasy lasted

not even the drunken haze lasted

not even the dream lasted

nothing lasts
god knows
nothing lasts

not even your smile

not the warm feeling in my stomach

not the butterflies that came when I saw you

not the feeling of your hand in mine, my hand in yours

not even the memories of our feet kicking through autumn leaves

not even the taste of your kisses on those wintry nights
when we could see eachother's breath, until our lips met
then parted

not a thing
no
not a thing

not a hatred

not a jealousy

not a lie

not a betrayal

not a grief

not a pain

not a thing
not a feeling
not a thought

nothing

nothing lasts

everything passes

and yet
we cling on tight as fuck
in case we lose it
lose something

but, we lose everything - don't we?

Messiah Complex

He sat on that hillside.
It was a hillside that overlooked the city.
He could see the lights glimmering
through the darkness

The lights were
static
only moving
with each shuddered movement
of his eyes
of his body

the city lights trembled
as he cried
as he wept
for it
for the city

they were
arrogant tears
tears born out of a sense
of having more than them
having more
knowing more
as if, in him
were all abundance
as if he knew
what the fuck he was doing
and
where the fuck he was going

arrogant tears
that dare to care

arrogant tears
that dare to say
I do this because
I love you

As if he had something to give
that they didn't already have

tears for them
as if he could save them
as if he knew how to save himself

and, as these thoughts dawned on him
with the dawn
he packed up his meagre belongings
and thought about
the tears he cried
and he cried
for himself
and for his
own
feelings of
lostness
and his own longing
for direction and salvation.

Prayers from No-man's Land

The idea that another person
can be a medicine for
feeling alone
is merely
a quick-fix fantasy
born out the hunger

to be somewhere other
than here
someone other
than me
to have something other
than what I have got

plastering over the cracks
in who we are

chronic hunger
for an intimacy;
the keys to which
are secreted
in the deep folds
and recesses
of our
esoteric private histories
and not even
love or
companionship
will find them

I am alone
I am a stranger
to myself

I will remain alone
as long as I remain a stranger
to myself

Time for Mutiny

I am out at sea

I am on a voyage

I did not choose to go on this voyage

Someone else chose for me

I don't have a memory of how I got here. I awoke onboard.
when I came round, I just watched and learned
and adapted, and conformed
I got along with ship-life .
I did what the others did.
I slipped myself into the hierarchy of power onboard this ship

But, when seas became rough, and the waves seemed bigger than the ship
I began to question why I was here
I no longer trusted the system
I no longer trusted the captain

Should I jump ship?
Should I instigate a mutiny?
Should I kill the captain?

Of course, some are made to walk the plank before they get a chance to do any of these. Left to fend for themselves.

So much of who we are, was formed in times when we had no understanding, no words, only rudimentary cognition. We were born into the gravity of family [or other institutions]. So much of our character and personality is an effect of our upbringing: a response to the dynamics of living with parents, siblings. Even when we are not with them, we are playing out the rudimentary dramas of relationship, that were scripted before we even learnt to think for ourselves.

I am on this ship. I cannot swim. I do not like how the ship was made, nor the country from which it set sail. I do not like the flag it flies under, nor the crest emblazoned on its sails. I detest the rule of the captain.

Our very existence is an act of disempowerment. We never chose to be alive. Someone else chose these things for us.

How much of who we are is beyond our control? How much of our personality, and our repertoire of emotional habits that we play out compulsively, are merely products of, and responses to, our parent's relational dynamics? To be honest, I don't know if there is anything in me that isn't. If this is true, then what does freedom look like, if not like a mirage in a desert?

Footprints in the Sand

There is a difference between finding footprints in the sand, and saying, there is an invisible man walking about...than finding footprints in the sand, and saying, I imagine someone was walking here before me. The difference between a person interpreting a stranger's laughter, as being laughed at, as opposed to seeing it as an unrelated shared joke. There are nuanced differences in the million ways we can say things, in the million ways we could interpret things, in the million statements we could make. What is interesting then, is which ones we choose, and which ones we don't.

Our experience of events and encounters, is heavily laced with our own history, of the perception of our experiences. I say, perception of our experiences, as opposed to what we would more readily refer to as experiences, because I believe how we join the dots of our existence, deeply edits our reading of our experience. 

In other words, we already have a script that we are squeezing our experiences into. We will do this consistently and determinedly, even when the script becomes entirely inadequate. So, when people say I saw it with my own eyes, or something to that effect, I am not utterly convinced by what is said, though I won't entirely dismiss it; but I wonder instead what the script was. The script that the seen was being filtered through.

What is the risk in admitting, that the way we see the world, is just that. To speak about the way we see the world, or the way we feel the world; as opposed to, attempting to speak about the way the world is. We are hooked to the is-ness, to wanting to makes statements about reality like compulsive hecklers, with a case of ontological tourettes. We would rather this than be left alone in our worlds of feeling, and having to work those out, and having to make decisions about what we do with them. 
 

This becomes a dialogue about what is going on inside our heads, and why we are behaving in particular ways when we could be behaving in another; or why we are interpreting in a particular way and not in another. 

We are all interpreting, and once we have owned up to that, we can begin the journey of finding out how much of that interpretation is based on fantasy, wishes and fears. How much of what we say is just ontological tourettes, that says everything about our compulsion to make statements about external reality, and maybe not much more than that.

At what point do we try to reinforce the scripts we have already written? Do we glue those understandings together, in order to protect our own penmanship? Do we find communities of people, where our understandings can be maintained, and remain unquestioned? Do we keep ourselves separate from the encounters that might threaten our original account, our understanding of reality, our understanding of who we are?