Wild horses are cursed with their freedom in mind

To be calm is the highest achievement of the self, so sayeth the tag on my tea bag. Lately my beverage horoscopes have had some strong pertinent advice that directly applies to me. It’s somewhat happenstance, I’m not so keen on such intensely individualized messages from the Universe making their way to my mug. What is it again, I don’t believe in an interventionist god? I guess I believe in symbols magically appearing and believe more in symbols and lessons being constantly and readily visible, and instead what magically appears is our willingness to see them. I should probably also define “magic”, but I’ll keep it loose and cheeky for now. But back to being calm. Is this a universal highest achievement or just a goal for others such as myself who are highly anxious? Other people observing my anxiety doesn’t really serve to make me less anxious, only embarrassed and ashamed of it. Other people observing their own anxiety relieves me in not feeling so solitary and troubles me in that its so pervasive I wonder if it will ever be relieved. That’s probably not the point, but I don’t mind having unachievable goals to help keep me focused. For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking specifically about the neuroses of trans people and wondering its possible to live in this world as a trans person and NOT be neurotic -- there are shades and gradations of how it plays out, but still, it feels like we’re all sitting on one similar plane of existence in how we react to the world. I mean, yeah, frankly, it’s impressive when we get off with just simple anxiety, but still, acknowledging that things could be worse doesn’t really clarify what’s there. I seem to run into this a lot in my life. Defining by what things are Not, rather than what they Are. Actually, I do this in my fiction writing frequently, as mentors and workshop readers have pointed out in my text, which really, my fiction is one of the true viewings into the design of my brain. Not so much the content of what I write, I’m not THAT transparently writing autobiographical fiction, but rather how I write it could probably be picked apart in a way to figure some isht out about me. But please, for the love of intervening and non-intervening perceptions of higher beings, don’t tell me those things. That’s what my death is for.