Self Mythology

I've been on a meandering, semi-persistent quest to strip away some of my more destructive self deceptions. The problem I've found is that it's tricky to identify self deceptions from self mythologies. Let me 'splain.

In my best moments, I make this intuitive distinction about my potential. You know potential, that latent talent that most of your family and friends see in you. It's a funny thing to understand in a dissembling guy like me or psychotics. Okay, that's all harsh and everything, I know. But when does potential have to be downgraded to self deception? Or a kind of mass hysteria?

The question of when to stop has been my constant companion for the past few years. Possibly, it's the wrong question but I had to start somewhere. I'd not been happy with the turns of my life and I decided to dig in best I can. The process has been remarkably linear. First, calm my mind. Second, get stronger. Three, evaluate where I stand and what I like. Four, change change change.

Going well so far. By any standard, I've got a great job after a number of necessary failures. I'm a specific kind of calm which honestly I never thought was sustainable. I have a core of folks that I'm lucky to know. All good, no doubt. This is all massive, emotional hard-to-do territory and I've hung in there. I sometimes am pleased to realize that I am doing exactly what I need to.

That's it. Need versus want. The "what I like" step is trickier than I thought. I like plenty of stuff. A friend once suggested that I have a catholic sensibility and that's not far from wrong. I know that I've been too long vaguely intrigued by what others like to do. Part of me wonders whether that voyeuristic tendency was vestigial false politeness or overcaution. When less charitable, I'd call it fear. But I'm getting off course and vague.

What I like versus what I need. I've been thinking about this for a while, mainly due to the Rolling Stones. The intersection of what I like, what I need, what I want and my self mythologies finds it's best tangle in my quest to write. I've spent a ton of time writing, thinking about writing and learning to write in my past few years. Working in these disciplines simultaneously has provided unexpected lessons and parallels. Maybe I'll write about that someday. For now, I'm trying not to pull at the tangle. Maybe the knots will relax some if I leave them be. All this activity is based on the idea that being a writer isn't a self-deception but my grandest self mythology.

I am not alone in having an artistic impulse that is a struggle. It's common but conflicts with my current direction away from what brings me pain. I find some consolation (warning: I am not comparing myself to VvG in any way) from a line in John Updike's review of Vincent Van Gogh: Painted with Words: The Letters to Emile Bernard. "Writing came easily to Van Gogh; he confided to his correspondent that he found it 'restful and diverting' after a long day of struggling with the evasive nuances of portraiture."

At a future date, I hope that my blobs of paint are restful diversions after a long day of doing my own writing struggle thing. I hope that my self mythology (okay, self deception) will be about me as a painter, not a writer. I can't say that I've adequately explained what I set out to. No matter.

Now, here's a nice picture for you to look at.

Rest, Van Halen-style

The three of you, my readers, know that I've been busy lately, due to fun and work. That's a challenge for the delicate boy who's newly returned to the work world, one that I anticipated and have prepared for. Meditation, mindfulness and a bunch of other things have helped me keep an even keel.

The good news is that while the preparation for a calm, energized life is real enough, my commitment remains skin-deep. I've had to adjust my activity/rest plans on the fly because of opportunities that come my way. Many would define that as "life."

After a busy three weeks -Kansas City, Seattle- I was really looking forward to a calm weekend of calm, writing, cooking and calm- the basic regenerations. Calm. Late Friday afternoon, one of our directors pulled me into a conference room and closed the door. I am an optimist so I expected something good. "I know it's short notice, but would you like to go to Portland and see Van Halen on Saturday?" Ha, it was something good!

Another director rented a Ford Canyonero ("smells like a steak and seats 35") and we headed off to Portland on Saturday morning. We met our vendor benefactors at Doug Fir, a sweet eatery, downed some nouveau comfort food and headed to the Rose Garden to shed a few unwanted hertz of hearing range. Mission accomplished. Plus, the upper registers of human hearing are WAY overrated.

Great show. Those old dudes sure can bring it. David Lee Roth was an adrenilated version of Captain Stubing (from the Love Boat, not Salton Sea). Eddie just ripped the place apart. What a monster! The sound quality was typical arena fare: loud and distorted when the whole band was playing. When Eddie soloed, it was fine and he was locked into making noise on a massive scale. Noise- good.

As loud as the PA system was, the crowd was often louder. Early on, Dave (he is our buddy, after all) asked, "Are you having half as much fun as we are?" The answer appeared to be yes. Those guys were having a ton of fun. It was a thrill to see them breathing fire and enjoying themselves so much. We had fun too. Not just because of the cocktails, or the witty banter or because we tried to see how many people we could fit into our rolling warehouse on the way to the concert.


The younger folks among us had the extended-play version of concert fun. They went to the hotel bar after the concert (no, not me. I said "younger"), encountered guys who wanted to fight, a vomit-covered women's restroom and a fellow, face down on the floor, who'd been mugged in the men's room. Now, that's good times. I was quite happy for their near misses but glad I'd opted out. Been there, done many of that.

So today, I'm a bit yawny and will go to bed early. Monday, I'll begin my restful period. Really. Nothing ever happens on Mondays at work after a soothing Van Halen weekend, right?