My Tent on The Beach

So Kristine (of “Hey my friend Kristine…” fame) started a blog and this excites me for many reasons.  1) She’s funny.  2) She’s a fellow armchair philosopher. 3) It’s called Tomballery and if ever there was a topic to blog about, it’s Tomballery.  Of course, she provides an excellent definition of it over at the blog itself: http://tomballery.blogspot.com which you should definitely check out…all 3 of you…but I’ll provide the context of the name.  We were discussing a friend of mine who really struggles with confrontation of any kind who, in his avoidance of it, actually creates confrontation for me.  Through our conversation we said he was basically outsourcing his balls–completely ducking out of the way of his mess knowing that I’ll then get smacked with the effects of his problem and, because I’ll deal with them, I’m actually doing his dirty work.  Hence: Tomballery.  Similar to Tomfoolery, except we’re talking about guts (okay, balls) and not foolishness.

Anyway, I digress.  She wrote a very interesting post about relationships and the point in which a relationship crosses the line from mutual responsibility to me just letting someone else off the hook for not giving me what I need.  But the one thing that really made me think was her question about the “sunsetting” of relationships–the natural falling away of those who once served a very important purpose but have since grown more distant and, sad to say, less important.  At the very least, our relationship to them has changed significantly.   I have to say, this notion both terrifies and intrigues me.

I have always been something of a warrior princess.  If I think something is important or worthwhile, I will clamp on to it like a vise and fight to the  death to keep it.  What I often lose sight of is that the process of holding on generally turns it into a mangled, ragged version of what it once was while I’m standing there sweaty and out of breath.  It would have been better for the integrity of whatever I’m holding and  for me if I’d have just let it go and slip away quietly…and maybe beautifully. There’s a certain grace to letting things go the natural way.

On the other hand, if I’m being sunsetted…well, that’s just about my worst fear which I’ve come face to face with before…and it’s still my worst fear.  Being let go always feels to me like a total rejection with a side of shame.  In whatever way, I’m so disappointing in this relationship that they’re not even going to try anymore.  Personally, I’m scarred by this–yes, I’ve been sunsetted–and frankly, I’ll always be a little skittish when I suspect someone’s leaving me before their time.  Kristine knows.  For one day a couple months ago I thought she was moving to Tampa and I freaked.  No, sunsetting and I will never meet in a spirit of love and friendship no matter who’s doing the sunsetting.  But it’s not because it shouldn’t happen. It just always hurts.

I think we’ve become used to having our own comfort at our control.  We have things when we want them.  We have choices…lots of choices.  We can artificially sustain things as long as we want (except life, but we’re pretty close to that too.)  That kind of life has allowed us to lose touch with the natural cycle.  Birth leads to life leads to decline leads to death.  That’s how it’s always been.  And I think there’s a truly natural wisdom in that.  And if we let each stage have its moment and respect it, I think there’s something inherently beautiful about each.

Letting go, I think is easy.  Accepting that something’s run it’s course.  That’s just about the toughest thing we have to deal with.  I think because we’re all a little bit warrior princess.

One of my favorite little mysteries of life involves getting smacked in the proverbial face by the answer that you’ve been waiting on for awhile.  I’ve been laboring over coming up with something to say in these special fields that I’m working on and it’s been annoying and exhausting.  All of these little snippets of things roaming around peripatetically in my head with no connections.  The picture on paper is even worse.  Excruciatingly slow writing progress.

And then, yesterday, it hit me.  Like a friggin’ ton of bricks.  There it was, unfolding in front of me, much like the path of the most perfect putt does to Junuh in The Legend of Bagger Vance. I saw my way home.  I saw the end and I saw the path.  Finally those pieces clicked into place.  And instinctually I cried at the sheer simple beauty of it.  And out of a profound sense of relief.  (Which was short-lived when I realized that I was crying in a semi-private forum…ah well…it was in the moment.)

I’m tempted to just sit and think about the process.  How did it happen?  Why yesterday? But, I just can’t now.  I’ll never know the answers to that question.  It was, in fact, a simple gift.  Simple in presentation in that it was there one minute when it hadn’t been the previous minute. Simple in that it found me in the quiet and stillness.  Simple in that I was at ease.

Inspiration is funny.  Everything we know about working hard, challenging ourselves, making strides…it all seems pointless when true inspiration strikes.  It’s elusive both in its presence and absence.  But not ever without notice.  These kinds of deep breaths feel very good.

And I’m proud to announce that I think I have a muse.  That’s surprising too.  My muse looks nothing like the ones in Greek mythology.  I want to be able to use the word “diaphanous” in muse-talk.  I just can’t even imagine that…but it does make me laugh, so I guess that’s something.

Hooray for revelation.  Today is a whole new day.

Oh no.

I’m having a PhD-cum-life moment courtesy of an exchange I had today with a friend of mine who is honest but exasperated…possibly honestly exasperated.  I can’t say I wouldn’t be either.

The specifics of the event are not important but the lesson here is something for me to think about.  Or actually, precisely not think about.  One of the serious problems I have in balancing life and PhD is the inability to shut my brain off.  It’s become an occupational hazard.  I cannot speak for all of academia; these results may not be generalizable.  But as I examine all of the reasons I was so hesitant to keep moving on this after classes were over, this theme of “overactive brain activity” recurs frequently.  I live in a state of hyper-thinking and it’s hard to manage.

I’m already insanely observant in a subconscious way.  I know this because I know whole songs that I’ve never heard before.  As they filter into the world as white noise, I hear and know them even when I’m not trying.  Same thing with tv…my knowledge of television would indicate that I watch it 24-7.  In fact, I do not.  But I can be doing 4 other things and still know every detail of a show, including the credits.  I think it’s this quality that makes me intuitive about people; I don’t have to study them to know exactly what they’re about and what they need.  In a lot of ways, I’ve always considered this a gift.

However, I’ve begun to see in the long term that this quality ramps up to dangerous levels when I do academic thinking.  I can think in the abstract all day long and feel wonderfully comfortable.  My brain chugs happily along just thinking conceptually.  But then reality hits.  It’s a different beast but my brain doesn’t make the accommodations necessary and I end up looking at real life situations in an analytical perspective that’s so narrow, I risk wrecking what’s real.

Need a “learning lab of life” moment? Sure.  Think about the last conversation you had with another person (sorry, dogs and plants do not count here).  Now, take just the last sentence of that conversation.  Next, imagine all of the possible ways that sentence could be interpreted, running the gamut from the best message ever to apocalyptic.  Now, run a quick analysis of the most likely meaning.  If you want to add in body language and facial expressions, do that here.  Do those observational clues match your earlier language analysis?  What inconsistencies stand out?  How do you feel about what you think the likely meaning of the last sentence was?

This is how I could very systematically watch all of my friendships explode.  Aforementioned friend gave me a pearl of wisdom that I’ve always told myself but that earns a new gravitas when received from someone else.

“Just stop analyzing it.”

Yes.  Yes.  I want to do that.  But I don’t know how when my whole focus (which I’ve fought months to regain) at this moment is analysis.  This is why, in the hallowed halls of academia you see frazzled, rumpled, wrinkled, obviously brilliant people who suffer from severe social arrested development.  They’ve chosen their path and I commend them.  They’ve chosen analysis.  On the other hand, there are the apparently blissful people thrilled to not analyze a single blessed thing, who hop through life just taking it as it comes. I commend them, too.  They’ve chosen a simpler but not unfulfilling path.

Ultimately, I have to figure this out or I risk becoming “that friend” that’s held at arm’s length because of apparent uncontrollable neurosis which is time consuming and, frankly, annoying on both sides.  And while I have a lot of answers to a lot of things, I am at a loss here.

How do I keep my analytical edge without turning it toward personal relationships? Any suggestions are welcome.  I won’t even analyze ‘em…I’ll just jump in and blindly try at this point.