[Continued from part one]
My experiences have taught me many things: the one lesson that comes to mind right now is that "do not judge" is actually a pretty good axiom to follow. Jesus said it, and even though most Bible-believing folk at best consider it a neat little suggestion that they usually don't follow but think is a nice thought nonetheless, it's actually one of the things in the Bible that makes a lot of sense. Of course, the Bible isn't the first place the human race has encountered this idea. It's been around for a long, long time - long before any biblical author borrowed it; nevertheless, Christians aren't the only ones who either ignore it, misunderstand it or misapply it. Indeed, some readers might think that my statements above are judgmental towards Christians, which only serves to prove my point.
Humans (as I imagine any self-aware beings would be) are complicated, confused, confusing creatures. We can be inconsistent and unpredictable, even on our best days. We make decisions way too quickly, making evaluations based on first impressions or preexisting desires. Chemically, humans are mostly water. That fact resonates with me as deeply as Shakespearean prose: we are water, both physically and metaphorically. As I wrote in "Between Gods and Demons":
Perhaps "who" I am is the total of all my different "whats" - everything I listed above and everything else I didn't list. Maybe "I" am the result of that combination. And as the total combination of "whats" changes, so do I.
The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus believed all things are in flux, like the river (Plato ascribes to Heraclitus the view that “you cannot step twice into the same river.”): ever changing, yet preserving an identity through the changes. And all things are in continuous exchange. Similar to this idea of a "continuous exchange," Mahayana Buddhist philosophy claims that all things are “conditioned,” not autonomous, but dependent upon other things for its being.
Nagarjuna, an Indian monk, philosopher and mystic, and the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhism, equates emptiness (i.e., nothing is ontologically autonomous) with the Buddhist principle of Conditioned Arising. The doctrine of Conditioned Arising states the principle of conditionality, that all things, mental and physical, arise and exist due to the presence of certain conditions, and cease once their conditions are removed. Nothing is independent. German philosopher Martin Heidegger said Dasein (the "Being" or the "me") is thrown into a context, among others, most often lost in "everydayness," coping with existence and thus being "in a mood."
Perhaps the "who" of "who I am" is this consciousness I have as well. I am aware of my existence. I am aware of all (or at least many) of the "whats" that have made me the way I am. I know I exist, because I am aware, I can think. "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"), said Descartes. If I didn't exist, there would be no "I" to think and say things like "If I didn't exist..." ... perhaps "who I am" is the culmination of all of my experiences and sensations, both imagined and real; what some would call the soul.
All the "whats" that make me who I am swirl about constantly, shifting, turning, their influence and impact differing in degree and intensity depending on the moment and contingent upon how all the other "whats" interact with each other and respond to the constant influx of new "whats" introduced to the context of who I am. We are water: ever flowing, ever changing, ever molded and conditioned by our context. The river never stops running. What all this dilettantish philosophical musing means to me is that we're bound to make a bunch of mistakes, we're going to be naturally inconsistent in both our thoughts and our actions, and no one can change that fact any more than we can change the direction of a river's current by jumping in the middle of it.
That's an encouraging thought; moreover, it's the thought that's literally kept me going. Contemplating suicide means one isn't entirely certain that existence is preferable to non-existence. If I'm the monster, if my children are better off without me as my ex-wife believes, if the journey so far has yeilded nothing but disappointment and pain, if all I see when I look in the mirror is failure and regret, then what reason do I have to keep going? Before there's a "happily ever after," the monster must first be vanquished.
My journey thus far has been a struggle to accept myself, flaws and all. I'm that river, ever moving, ever changing yet remaining constant, and I'm filled with life and beauty, and just as much mud and rock and garbage. Judge me if you must. I am every bit the monster you might think I am. There's no doubt that you'll be able to find a lot of dirt and debris in this river. There's no doubt I could find much of the same in yours. This is why I've developed a severe pet peeve over the years when it comes to negative people. I'm talking about those people who apparently have nothing better to say than to make some kind of negative comment about whatever they see: people who see only negative things first and/or point out only negative things first. I don't have time for people like that. Everyone has negatives. We could spend hours pointing them out, and these same negative people get their knickers in a knot whenever someone does it to them. I'm digressing here, but this is my blog and that shit annoys me.
I think part of the reason I hate that behavior is that I was that person when I was younger. My humor was mostly derogatory, and I quickly developed an ability to extirpate someone with my words. This is the kind of behavior in which we engage when our self-confidence is low, and making fun of someone else is easy because of the low self-confidence of others, and making fun of someone else fulfills our need to deflect negativity and attention away from us and onto someone else. Not to mention that it gives us a sense of superiority. If I point out your flaws, and especially if I can get other people to laugh at your flaws, then that puts me in the control seat. I have the power. I am now above you, as you wallow in the mud of embarrassment, trying to find a way out.
I finally reached a point where I no longer wanted to be that kind of person. Don't get me wrong: I wasn't a completely heartless bastard. I've always been a nice guy. Most of the time it was simply a matter of taking a joke too far, or poking fun at someone excessively. Still, the nice guy in me wanted to change. There's enough negativity in the world already without my help.
Ha. I just stumbled across another Tim. This one is a memory of a much younger me: a naive boy forced into adulthood against his will, trying to maintain that façade of a rebel attitude. I used to speak of having a "dark side." I thought it was cool to brood, I guess. I've wrestled with depression since I was a child, but this "dark side" nonsense was just an attempt to sound dramatic. I was never an emo (as much as I may joke about it). I never died my hair black or wore my sister's tight jeans (although I was and am still a huge fan of Sunny Day Real Estate). There's enough darkness in the world without my needing to fabricate some of my own.
I'm old enough now to understand that I don't need to maintain any illusions of a "dark side." I know what real darkness feels like. Again, no hyperbole here. I have lived with depression for many years. I know what it's like to carry it around, to feel its weight pulling me down, to hear the demon's voice in my ear telling me I'm worthless, life is pointless, and all I have ever done in my life is fail. I often refer to my depression as a person: a demon, to be precise. It's a metaphor, naturally, albeit a spot on description of my condition.
People who have not experienced true depression have difficulty understanding and empathizing with those of us who have. It's not merely a mood, and it sure as hell isn't something we can just "get over." It's an affliction. More than that, it's a part of me. I always feel the demon. In this regard I never journey alone. It's always there. The demon distorts my perception of my life. I have a hard time discerning the truly bad times of my life, and times that appear bad because I'm depressed. I have difficulty determining whether I feel bad about circumstances in life because my depression is influencing my powers of observation and analysis, or whether circumstances really are just that bad. Put simply, does my depression make me think life sucks, or does life really suck, and that makes me depressed? Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's a little bit of both.
I feel useless at my job, which isn't the demon talking. I love teaching, and find great joy in it. It's the business side of things that makes me feel incompetent. I took the job because it was offered to me, and how could I possibly say no to such a great opportunity? It felt like a dream come true. At the same time, I felt like I got myself in way over my head. I don't think I have either the necessary skills, attitude or personality to do this job competently. I drive home at the end of each work day feeling at least a little bit like a failure. Again, that's not the demon talking. I declare with confidence that this is a conclusion based on ample empirical evidence.
I've spent my life trying to figure out what I should do with it. I want to do something significant. I want my life to have mattered for something. I've never been about money, but damn, I'd love to be able to pay my bills without stressing out. Hell, some months I'd love to just be able to pay my bills. I'm a minimalist, and I can't even life that lifestyle comfortably. I know I've had setbacks. I know I've had a lot of obstacles that I've needed to overcome, and still have to overcome today. I get that. I always thought that I'd have life sorted out by the time I turned 30. When I actually hit the big Three-Oh, my wife and I were separated, she took the kids and moved three states away, and I was neck-deep in financial woes. Oh yeah, and I had discovered what living out of my van felt like for a while. Later on I tried going to grad school in an attempt to actually live the dream of becoming a professor, but divorce #2 put the kabosh on that. Now I'm staring down 40 - I'm on the tail end of my 37th rotation around the sun - and in a couple years (plus a few months) I'll leave my 30s behind me. My fear is that I'll turn 40 and have absolutely nothing to show for it, just like when I turned 30. I fear that another milestone will come and go, and I'll be living the same pathetic life I always have.
Is that the demon talking? I don't know. I heard an old preacher give a sermon long ago in which he said the devil takes pieces of truth to tell lies. There's definitely a lot of truth in what I wrote: life hasn't gone the way I've wanted it to - at all. I have always struggled financially. My life is passing me by, and I have made no real progress towards achieving stability or doing anything I might consider significant or meaningful. Most of the time I feel no true sense of purpose. None of these things are untrue. I'm going to be 40 soon. If my life were to end on my 40th birthday, what account could I possibly give? What would my legacy be?
An excerpt comes to mind from a book by Andrew Solomon on depression that I recommend highly, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. It's a quote that has stuck with me, and helped me get through those moments when my depression gets the upper hand:
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I may wake up sometime next year without my mind again; it is not likely to stick around all the time. Meanwhile, however, I have discovered what I would have to call a soul, a part of myself I could never have imagined until one day, seven years ago, when hell came to pay me a surprise visit. It's a precious discovery. Almost every day I feel momentary flashes of hopelessness and wonder every time whether I am slipping. For a petrifying instant here and there, a lightning-quick flash, I want a car to run me over...I hate these feelings but, but I know that they have driven me to look deeper at life, to find and cling to reasons for living, I cannot find it in me to regret entirely the course my life has taken. Every day, I choose, sometimes gamely, and sometimes against the moment's reason, to be alive. Is that not a rare joy?
I've never owned a firearm. I'm not opposed to guns - I'm no Charleton Heston, but I see no problem with responsible gun ownership - I've just never had the strong desire to own a gun. I consider that a good thing, at least in my case, because I know that, had I access to a firearm back in 2004, I'd have shot myself for sure. The only reason I didn't kill myself back then was because I had no instant means of carrying it out. I didn't want to experience falling from a really high place, so jumping off a bridge was out. I didn't want to risk pain and getting my stomach pumped, so I didn't go for pills (besides, they probably wouldn't have done the job anyway). Slitting my wrists was just... I mean, ick. No way. But a gun. One squeeze of the trigger, and it's done. And I'd have done it right. I wouldn't have botched the job such that I'd survive and see how I turned my face into the Sarlacc.
As Solomon wrote, such a realization has "driven me to look deeper at life, to find and cling to reasons for living." The fact that my life could have ended so easily gives me pause, and in the end, for me to survive, "I cannot find it in me to regret entirely the course my life has taken." The journey has made me who I am. This is how the river has flowed. Maybe I don't like the way life has gone. Maybe I haven't figured out a damn thing yet. Maybe I will be just as clueless when I turn 40. But could I really trade away what I've learned, what insights I've gained - who I am - for so pathetic a reason as to ease my pain? I've lived with depression since high school. I've lived with chronic physical pain since I sustained a back injury in college. I have endured sorrow and loss and deep regret. Would I really trade it all away if I could in exchange for a reprieve? If selling one's soul were possible, this is what it would look like. I'd have to pass on such an offer.
I'm reminded of the words of Captain James T. Kirk: "I need my pain."
— Dead-Logic
