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raybearI keep going round and round on the same old circuit
The thing I hate about patterns of behavior is you can't spot them until you're already in them. Sort of a silly and extremely obvious thing to let me bug me, I know. Last night I had this dream where I would find myself smack in the middle of some experience before realizing I wasn't acting conscientiously or intentionally. I'm not obsessed with intentions, only in acting with intention. I despise them as excuses or rationalizations for problematic behavior, though for myself it's more a lack of intention that leads to my own mistakes.
and from behind the screen it can look so perfect...but it's not
My parents never understand my intentions in anything I did. My mother allowed for them, but I'm not entirely sure she got them any more than my father did. My dad just actively questioned me more. Why do you want to be in that play? Why do you want to watch that movie? Why do you want to hang out with those people at a coffee shop? Why do you want to see that concert? I had to explain and justify everything, shape a case that would hold up in court under their scrutiny. Even until college, my last real "fight" with my father involved him not wanting to drive me back to Chicago on September 1st when my lease started since classes didn't start until three weeks later unless I could prove to him why it was necessary. I walked out of the house in the middle dinner, which is pretty unheard of in my household and family. I left on foot because I feared getting into a car I might not come back. I was later amused at how easily this shocked my father into giving into my wishes, with or without a preponderance of the evidence.
I keep waiting for a change but I don't know what, so red turns into green turning into yellow, but I'm just frozen here in the same old spot
People have been telling me for years and years and years and years that I'm too much in my head. I didn't know how to disagree or whether I was even supposed to, in part because I wasn't sure in the beginning if it was a criticism or simply and observation. But more than that, I didn't know how NOT to be in my head. I didn't where else to be, so how could I change my behavior anyway. Often in the same breath I would be complimented on my big heart which seemed to just complicate the matter, especially since I constantly criticized myself for feeling too much.
People are tricky you can't afford to show anything risky anything they don't know
But it's happened a few times now -- I leave my head and plunge into the moment. It's become like a drug, feeling I'm acting on sheer emotional bravado. Like stepping of a cliff and enjoying every second of the rush and just knowing I can will myself into flying and not hitting the ground. The confidence is overwhelming, like it's not my own but instead being channeled within me. These aren't even just moments of positive emotion -- I'm also talking about moments of pure anger or sadness. It's just the one's of pleasure and joy and love feel even more reckless and addictive.
so baby kiss me like a drug, like a respirator
I'm an emotional junkie. And I'm someone who doesn't choose to have a life of stasis. I don't want to be even-keeled and content all the time. But to have the big bad rushes, I have to take the big bad lows. The trick is not to get stuck. Or maybe the trick is to keep breathing. Or both.
And I'll believe it's you who could make it better....though it's not
It's a tough lesson in buddhist thought for me to tackle, but a necessary one: the highs are as fleeting as the lows. At first I was resistant to the idea of calming the mind body and spirit -- I thought it was about living a life of boring mediocrity, not being moved by anything. But it doesn't have to be that way at all, it's just about not holding longer than necessary to any of them. And the other lesson -- not needing to know why. Sometimes things just are, and what's right is known not in my mind but in my heart. It doesn't matter why. It only matters that I know it is.
The thing I hate about patterns of behavior is you can't spot them until you're already in them. Sort of a silly and extremely obvious thing to let me bug me, I know. Last night I had this dream where I would find myself smack in the middle of some experience before realizing I wasn't acting conscientiously or intentionally. I'm not obsessed with intentions, only in acting with intention. I despise them as excuses or rationalizations for problematic behavior, though for myself it's more a lack of intention that leads to my own mistakes.
and from behind the screen it can look so perfect...but it's not
My parents never understand my intentions in anything I did. My mother allowed for them, but I'm not entirely sure she got them any more than my father did. My dad just actively questioned me more. Why do you want to be in that play? Why do you want to watch that movie? Why do you want to hang out with those people at a coffee shop? Why do you want to see that concert? I had to explain and justify everything, shape a case that would hold up in court under their scrutiny. Even until college, my last real "fight" with my father involved him not wanting to drive me back to Chicago on September 1st when my lease started since classes didn't start until three weeks later unless I could prove to him why it was necessary. I walked out of the house in the middle dinner, which is pretty unheard of in my household and family. I left on foot because I feared getting into a car I might not come back. I was later amused at how easily this shocked my father into giving into my wishes, with or without a preponderance of the evidence.
I keep waiting for a change but I don't know what, so red turns into green turning into yellow, but I'm just frozen here in the same old spot
People have been telling me for years and years and years and years that I'm too much in my head. I didn't know how to disagree or whether I was even supposed to, in part because I wasn't sure in the beginning if it was a criticism or simply and observation. But more than that, I didn't know how NOT to be in my head. I didn't where else to be, so how could I change my behavior anyway. Often in the same breath I would be complimented on my big heart which seemed to just complicate the matter, especially since I constantly criticized myself for feeling too much.
People are tricky you can't afford to show anything risky anything they don't know
But it's happened a few times now -- I leave my head and plunge into the moment. It's become like a drug, feeling I'm acting on sheer emotional bravado. Like stepping of a cliff and enjoying every second of the rush and just knowing I can will myself into flying and not hitting the ground. The confidence is overwhelming, like it's not my own but instead being channeled within me. These aren't even just moments of positive emotion -- I'm also talking about moments of pure anger or sadness. It's just the one's of pleasure and joy and love feel even more reckless and addictive.
so baby kiss me like a drug, like a respirator
I'm an emotional junkie. And I'm someone who doesn't choose to have a life of stasis. I don't want to be even-keeled and content all the time. But to have the big bad rushes, I have to take the big bad lows. The trick is not to get stuck. Or maybe the trick is to keep breathing. Or both.
And I'll believe it's you who could make it better....though it's not
It's a tough lesson in buddhist thought for me to tackle, but a necessary one: the highs are as fleeting as the lows. At first I was resistant to the idea of calming the mind body and spirit -- I thought it was about living a life of boring mediocrity, not being moved by anything. But it doesn't have to be that way at all, it's just about not holding longer than necessary to any of them. And the other lesson -- not needing to know why. Sometimes things just are, and what's right is known not in my mind but in my heart. It doesn't matter why. It only matters that I know it is.
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Meee tooo
Date: 2003-04-24 10:38 am (UTC)Also, while getting my minor in Philosophy, my 50 year old Ethics professor with a wife and two kids sexually harrassed me in a bar and I didn't press charges. He was nice about it later, he actually gave me the number of who I could call at the university to bring up the charges. I went to a small school so everyone would have found out, and he was just piss poor drunk so I let it go. He only really grabbed my ass and tried to dance with me in a bar that had no dance floor. I just think it's funny in retrospect that I fucked a monk and got harassed by an ethics teacher.
Ok, I'm rambling.
Re: Meee tooo
Date: 2003-04-24 10:49 am (UTC)My ethics professor in college was a fairly upstanding citizen from what I could tell, but I had a MAD crush on the TA who had this wonderful frazzled sexy chain-smoking grad student hanging at the pub look, along with an australian accent. Hot. I came up with questions to ask him after class, and it actually worked -- he seemed so overly pleased at my interest in the subject and so obviously wanted to talk to me more that it bordered on desperation for human contact, which caused me to sort of freak out. To this day I regret not capitalizing on his possible desire for more than a post-discussion group chat. Though I do remember a LOT from that class, which I'm sure is no accident.
And just last night I was having a discussion about buddhist monks being married and other ones having porn addictions. One doesn't really want to think about buddhist monks having porn addictions was the conclusion we came to.
Thanks for sharing your stories!
Re: Meee tooo
Date: 2003-04-24 12:04 pm (UTC)You know, when I was in that class we saw a video about the Zen Buddhist center in California somewhere and it seemed like all the masters were on crack or addicted to sex. Funny how that is, it's the California version, like putting tomatoes and lettuce on a philladelphia cheesesteak.
Can I add you to my friends list?
Re: Meee tooo
Date: 2003-04-24 12:20 pm (UTC)Not at all!! I mean, no more than the general nature of livejournal seems to have on all it's participants.
I really am jealous of all people who had affairs with professors. It was such a fantasy in college and I never made good on it, probably because my standards were a little too high -- I would pursue the one least likely to sleep with me either because of a different sexual orientation or because they were already being married and having an affair with the history department chair.
not all of us humans can deal with Buddhism and it's limitations on the body.
I'm curious about your idea of this, because for buddhism is often about relativism and ther note being a clean black and white pre-approved answer for every situation. For example, I feel like I can have the liberty to be a slut and a buddhist, because even if the precepts says "Sexual expression should not take place without love and commitment." I can still fit my ideas into it -- I can be an honorable and loving fuckbuddy or play partner by acting ethically and in the best interest of all parties involved, which to me is healthy and better than having bad harmful selfish sex in a monogamous realtionship.
P.S. I welcome you to my friends list!
P.P.S. I would have thought the California version of the cheeseteak would have avocado on it. ;)
Re: Meee tooo
Date: 2003-04-24 12:46 pm (UTC)Always taunting me!
I think what is hard to me about the whole I- want -to- have- sex- but- be- Buddhist- too thing is that there are really different interpretations of what is ethical in sex. If we get all Kantian and stuck up about this crap we can't even itch our crotches without sinning, yet obviously there are other views to adopt that make more sense in the modern world. Even though I know George Michael's I Want Your Sex Video really did help loosen some social mores you know we are still stuck between a popular culture openess and an old fashioned stigma about sex being BAD because it FEELS SO GOOD. You can't be hetero, bi, or just experimental or anything without someone thinking something you do is disgusting and unethical for some reason. So I hate to mix my buddhism with my ethics, it seems to get too muddy. I think you are so much on the right track, since it's making sense to you in a way that helps you use your knowledge of Buddhism as a tool. Once you start using your knowledge as a religion or a strict ethical code that's when the black and white answers start coming out because of the sheer closed nature of the two subjects.
Wow, I'm really avoiding work today, and I have to run to class. I'm glad you are jealous of me and I'll add you to my list tomorrow.
Q