Waching and waiting
For the most part, I don’t blog about the important things going on in my life. And there is no way I could blog what’s going on right now; it would be like trying to blog a book. In fact, I am pretty sure it is entirely book-worthy. The names will have to be changed to protect the innocent, even though there seem to be none who are truly innocent, except for any children who might get a mention. Happily, though, there are no children involved. I guess that means everybody’s guilty of something.
As for myself, my sense of guilt has to do with lessons learned. Let me try to be less oblique. One of the big lessons of my life now seems to be about self-control; the whole “you can only control yourself”, or at least your own responses to things.
The word “response” is important, I think, as opposed to “reaction”. Stephen Covey talks a little about this in his Seven Habits. I am sure this is talked about all over the place. It surely has been talked about in my life lately.
I have noticed that the things that hurt me most, by which I mean things that come back to me and cause me emotional pain, are things I’ve done, specifically reactions to things. On the other hand, as I think about it, when I respond well, it isn’t so much proud of myself that I feel; just good, and sort of a sense of peace. Actually I will have to think more about this, since looking at this side of it just sort of occurred to me.
At any rate, at the moment I find myself caught up in a situation that has been wearing on me both emotionally and physically. However, right now it seems like it is a spiritually awesome situation. I can’t deny that I have grown as a person. I also can’t deny that I have really needed it, and I’m quite sure I have plenty of “finishing” left to do. In some ways, I barely recognize myself anymore. No, that may be going too far, but I do know that, despite everything, I am the better for it. I have complained, if only to myself (mostly), that it has been “sucking the life out of me”, but I was wrong. Sure, I think it has aged me in some ways, but mostly I think it has been sucking the crud out of me.
Typo — “Waching” has a suggestively Germanic look to it.
The way I would describe the sense of things done well, or correct responses, is that, when they are done well, they are done, as opposed to those not done so well, in which the anxiety or distress created comes back to haunt you in your vulnerable moments in the near sleep state or other times when there is nothing to distract you from a face-to-face encounter with the ineffable past.
Trial loosens the ties to the inessential, and focuses continous awareness on the things absolutely necessary to being at peace with yourself. In a way, it kills the carnal being and allows the spiritual being to emerge from the wreckage of the inessential. It saps vitality, but hones clarity of intention, eliminating the need for excessive expenditure of energy.
Alas, when the time for enduring suffering with dignity passes, and the possibility of living frivolously and mindlessly returns, I for one find it all to easy to revert the the intellectual equivalent of an unguided missile. I think I am like many apes, in that once the crisis passes, so does the alertness and sense of purpose.