Today, in my world...there is much chaos...I can not share specifics because of this big word - "anonymity"...but trust me... things are absolutely positively chaotic. I don't always do things that I should do and I often do things that I shouldn't do. Having said that, I must admit that I have done things over the course of my life that I am not proud of. There was a time when I was sooo emotionally inept that I physically lashed out at people (no, you do not want specifics...twenty years ago in the "ladies room" of a bar you did not want to look at me with that look!!!). In fact, recently I became sooo enraged with someone in my life that I violently lashed out at them verbally and physically. I accidentally stumbled upon a voice recording from that evening and was utterly astonished at the venom in my voice!!! I am sickened at some of my recent choices.
The choices I've made in my life have not always been the best ones. Trust me. I am like a perpetual child...I sound like one more often than not - LITERALLY, my vocabulary, my tone, my body language does go there!!!...but the inherent flaw in this psychology is ...that, I am not a child. I am a woman... (of course, it reminds me of a song from my childhood..."I'm only human, I'm just a woman, Lord for my sake teach me to take one day at a time...yesterdays gone sweet Jesus and tomorrow may never be mine...Lord for my sake, teach me to take...one day at a time"!) Yeah, I did go there! Inner Religion can bring great freedom from my fundamentalist past!!!
Anyways...I greatly digress...my point is that I have over the course of my life tended to make poor choices. What I realize today is that I do have the ability to choose. As opposed to a time in my life when I felt like I had no choice. Under the influence of certain substances (that shall remain nameless) I am virtually unable...absolutely incapable of making the right choice!!! I realized this in my twenties and it was greatly emphatically reinforced - at mid-life!
Several years ago...I got sick and tired of being sick and tired...I got tired of allowing people to yell at me...I got sick and tired of hating myself...and I got sick and tired of not being able to "take care of myself"! But guess what?? (I'm waiting...go ahead...guess!) I am sooo insane...that even as I write...nothing...absolutely nothing in my life has changed! If it has...it's only been for the worse!!! Trust me!!!
Thus my dilemma...Am I morally incapable of making good choices? Am I sooo traumatized by my perception of my life that I can not make the right decisions about anything in my life???...I am so uncannily intuitive that I know what other people are thinking regardless of what they say - I know! I am so gifted in that respect that I can't pay attention to myself!!! I think the term that I'm searching for is "INDIVIDUATION". No..not even at midlife have I had the where with all to examine my life and myself enough to disconnect from those around me.
I have a very dear friend that says, "don't let your super woman cape become your straight jacket"! Well guess what...I have! But today, in this very moment...I choose to disconnect...I choose to become an individual and stand on my own two feet...oohhh...what if I have to eat cat food? Yep, that's where I go. Although, I have never eaten cat food (but honestly, once as a young pre-adolescent girl I did eat Alpo...just to see what it tasted like!!!) Are you beginning to get the picture?
Individuation requires that I stand on my own two feet and own who and what I am. It requires that I be absolutely honest about who and what I see when I look in the mirror. The problem lies not in what I see...but rather in how I feel! I am so caught up in the darkest universal realities that I may never be able to see the underlying reality of my existence!! Thus, my perpetual tragic existence...I spin my wheels round and round...never beginning and never ending...just spinning!!! Is this my choice? I can not answer that question today!
side note:
Frederick Nietzsche offers an extensive discussion of the tension between impartial, chaotic fluidity and individuated subjectivity in The Birth of Tragedy, these dichotomous qualities embodied by the Dionysian and Apollonian respectively. Nietzsche claims that the perpetual, unresolvable tension between these two opposing aspects of nature fosters the conditions necessary for the creation of tragic art.
The choices I've made in my life have not always been the best ones. Trust me. I am like a perpetual child...I sound like one more often than not - LITERALLY, my vocabulary, my tone, my body language does go there!!!...but the inherent flaw in this psychology is ...that, I am not a child. I am a woman... (of course, it reminds me of a song from my childhood..."I'm only human, I'm just a woman, Lord for my sake teach me to take one day at a time...yesterdays gone sweet Jesus and tomorrow may never be mine...Lord for my sake, teach me to take...one day at a time"!) Yeah, I did go there! Inner Religion can bring great freedom from my fundamentalist past!!!
Anyways...I greatly digress...my point is that I have over the course of my life tended to make poor choices. What I realize today is that I do have the ability to choose. As opposed to a time in my life when I felt like I had no choice. Under the influence of certain substances (that shall remain nameless) I am virtually unable...absolutely incapable of making the right choice!!! I realized this in my twenties and it was greatly emphatically reinforced - at mid-life!
Several years ago...I got sick and tired of being sick and tired...I got tired of allowing people to yell at me...I got sick and tired of hating myself...and I got sick and tired of not being able to "take care of myself"! But guess what?? (I'm waiting...go ahead...guess!) I am sooo insane...that even as I write...nothing...absolutely nothing in my life has changed! If it has...it's only been for the worse!!! Trust me!!!
Thus my dilemma...Am I morally incapable of making good choices? Am I sooo traumatized by my perception of my life that I can not make the right decisions about anything in my life???...I am so uncannily intuitive that I know what other people are thinking regardless of what they say - I know! I am so gifted in that respect that I can't pay attention to myself!!! I think the term that I'm searching for is "INDIVIDUATION". No..not even at midlife have I had the where with all to examine my life and myself enough to disconnect from those around me.
I have a very dear friend that says, "don't let your super woman cape become your straight jacket"! Well guess what...I have! But today, in this very moment...I choose to disconnect...I choose to become an individual and stand on my own two feet...oohhh...what if I have to eat cat food? Yep, that's where I go. Although, I have never eaten cat food (but honestly, once as a young pre-adolescent girl I did eat Alpo...just to see what it tasted like!!!) Are you beginning to get the picture?
Individuation requires that I stand on my own two feet and own who and what I am. It requires that I be absolutely honest about who and what I see when I look in the mirror. The problem lies not in what I see...but rather in how I feel! I am so caught up in the darkest universal realities that I may never be able to see the underlying reality of my existence!! Thus, my perpetual tragic existence...I spin my wheels round and round...never beginning and never ending...just spinning!!! Is this my choice? I can not answer that question today!
side note:
Frederick Nietzsche offers an extensive discussion of the tension between impartial, chaotic fluidity and individuated subjectivity in The Birth of Tragedy, these dichotomous qualities embodied by the Dionysian and Apollonian respectively. Nietzsche claims that the perpetual, unresolvable tension between these two opposing aspects of nature fosters the conditions necessary for the creation of tragic art.
