wildwordsspoken

[wildwordsspoken]

Been thinking about Nin’s words all day. I’ve spent years like this. My depression holds me beneath a glass, like an insect. Trapped by tiny scraps of pleasure that I confusedly think sustain me. Finding the shadow of joy in people that I hold onto and bed down with, in many small projects, locked in a daydream rather than in reality. It is only when manic that I can break the spell and rush out like a child into the world. Without fear. This is why I treasure my condition, at times.

I’ve even been meditative about the small habits and rituals I latch onto, to try dispell the horror of world beyond my door. It brings anxiety to live day-to-day without adventure and without meeting strangers and engaging with the outside world. You mistake that anxiety for an anxiety of the things outside, rather than what it really is… Merely a fear of living. Because living brings mistakes and accidents.

I need some way of constantly forcing myself to live. Nin found Henry, a man who was a boundless optimist. He is not unaware of the reality of the world, but bravely raged against the impulse toward apathy and pessimism. Before him there was D.H. Lawrence (his book at least)

This quote above omits some passages… Mid sentence too… Strangely editing it into a shadow of itself. It leaves out Henry and Richard. It goes on…

“Some never awaken… They are like the people who go to sleep in the snow and never awaken. But I am not in danger because my home, my garden, my beautiful life do not lull me.”

It is this that I respect most about Nin. She lived an adventure even when at home. She kept herself awake, not with small things. She welcomed in many lovers. She sent her work to be published. She chose a space she felt safe, but to which she would never surrender. She would never listen to the lullaby of the known and the expected.

When people say that there is only the moment, they have told me to take hold of an object and to reflect upon it. To take note of it. My Dr said this to me recently. The first step of mindfulness. So few people take the next step, beyond the Western rudimentary understanding of the mindful as an absolute balance used to shut down uncomfortable elements. An exercise in trying to get more pleasure from an experience, like attempting to drink more from an already empty cup. They don’t grasp that it is that state of mind which one must bring to the forefront of their understanding of themselves. To use that new wisdom of perception to weigh their concerns, to roll their thoughts around, to smell their ideas, to listen to how their brains rattle in their skulls. To use mindfulness in life, not to escape from it and lull themselves into a calm submission again.

Someone dear to me knew this and told me this. It’s funny how Nin broke through, where she could not. I think it was because it was said, that when I read it I could finally understand. But I blame it on being distracted, at the time I was told, by calamity. I now know only thankfulness.

#mindfulness #living #anaisnin #literature #thoughts

[wildwordsspoken]

6TH NOV. 17. So, dropped into Chiang Mai, Thailand for a bit of an adventure. The flight over was a little arduous, but uneventful. Spent the whole flight with my nose in a book or my eyes glued to the TV watching a film. I appreciated the foreign films. The rest of the plane is a sea of screens dedicated to Eat, Pray, Love and Baby Driver, whilst I'm sat watching Wilde Maus; which was a lovely story about a suicidal critic. Who, it must be noted, paid no attention to Jean Sibelius' quote... "Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic." Instead, he was rather distraught at the loss of his job and his wife. And was critical of both until he worked out his criticism was the source of his ongoing malaise. Overthinking... Who'd have thought it... Haha I liked it a lot because my own suicidal notions had become a lot more absolute and a lot less emotionally motivated of late. By that I mean, objectively my life is brilliant. I'm writing in a disciplined way, working on a novel and a short story collection that I want finished by new year so I can... For the first time in my life... Submit to be published. Starting with the short stories. I'm taking photos again. Working on my collage art again. I live frugally, but well enough. I have the odd partner I drop in on and share a beautiful connection with. However, a cold calm descended on me before my last appointment at the Dr. A sort of unawareness that I'm not usually gripped by, being that my one and lasting curse is an over active mind. They've suggested a new medication, now that my diagnosis is cleared up to Rapid Cycling Bipolar Affective Disorder again. The new meds tackle people who have more trouble with depression than mania. My mania not often levelling to truely worrying extremes. The problem is that I'm genuinely happy now. Happier than I've been in years. And I don't trust it. A touch of manic energy now and then, but really rather settled. So, I started to plan my death for the moment I started to dip again come February (like clockwork). And at first I didn't realise what I was doing. I was just thinking so logically and ultimately about it all. I would be walking down to my local cafe humming away and I'd suddenly make a mental note to write a letter to someone I'd forgotten about to apologise for something that happened 10 years before... Before I took my life and lost the opportunity. After speaking to the Dr, I realise it was a more intense form of thinking and far more dangerous to be cool and calmly organising my extinction. I'd been here before, but it sneaks up on you and it seems such a reasonable train of thought, it isn't until you express it to someone that you see the look in their face and realise exactly what you're saying. I'd pretty much decided on coming to Thailand and then returning home, taking a road trip after Christmas to hand some things (treasured belongings he would like) to a friend in Cornwall and then swimming out alone into the channel. If I made it to France, I'd allow myself to live. I knew I'd never make it. I'd become a lot more focused on the familiar things I was lacking. I was feeling a failure because I wasn't in love with anyone, purely because I'd been loving someone for so long I was used to it and was pretty much set on that thinking as a default. It's a hard thing to reset and become a single person after a break-up. Much easier to just latch onto someone else to replace them. Much like it is easier to do nothing after a break-down than to actively participate in your own recovery. Cutting my hair was a bit of a drastic move and I slightly regret it. There's two physical aspects that I get compliments for and that is firstly my eyes (the big blues) and then it is my hair. Physical compliments matter more to me, I'm vain. And it is for that vanity's sake that I raged. I just got angry with the major source of my desire for continuing being the idea of finding love. Seeing the women I am at the moment, with everything so casual and single focused... It got a little bit too familiar. It all just reminded me of my life when I was younger. Hopping between women and rejecting the idea of monogamous pairing. Ultimately, I have cast off the single partner impulse; the problem was that I was still a little egotistically annoyed that they aren't making any moves toward something more serious. I hated myself for being a little miffed that they weren't falling in love me like so many have done in the past. It messed with my inflated sense of self. Which is ridiculous, because one of them is already with someone anyway, I wouldn't want them to break up to tend to my arrogance. Hence the self destructive move to make myself less attractive (to my mind). I've snapped out of that thinking now. Partly due to a date I went on with E. who was wonderfully sparing, the morning after and gave me a case of the glums when she explained she wasn't interested in being 'together'. It all reminded me so much of recent heartbreak. I wasn't looking for 'together' either, but to absolutely deny the possibility was a little jarring and that's what sparked the self-reflection. If I'm getting upset about people who I don't want to be with, not wanting to be with me... I need to get a grip of the self-esteem engine and ride that mother out! I'm old now and no longer surrounded by students... So of course they aren't going to fall head over heels in that juvenile way that I'm used to and extract so much of my self-confidence from. So, I sit by a pool writing this. I'm thankful. I just paid £2 for some cigarettes and plan on having the best time I can in this absolute paradise. I've made this blog so that I have a place where I can post in a more journalistic, honest way. It is more of a diary, but if anyone gets encouragement from it - then all the better. Thankfully now free of my destructive desires. I'll return home, take the new meds. Hope I'm not one of the unlucky sods who dies from it (a chilling possiblity) and live. And live.