Self-awareness is One Liberated Bitch

"you're a frog, shacka lacka, DON'T COME IN!"

 
Lately, I've been mildly obsessed with introspection. Not the middle school kind. You know, when you close your bedroom door, plug in your mock electric candles (because your mom doesn't trust you not to burn the house down at the grown-up age of 10), put Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" on repeat for hours and cast new-age, poorly-interpreted Wiccan curses on the various boys who could never love you... Well, actually now that you mention it, the feeling is actually pretty similar.  

What I'm talking about is really sitting down and getting this life business figured out. Books I'm reading and seminars and workshops I'm enrolled in are all pointing me to this astonishingly omnipresent idea:

 POSSIBILITY

Totally hokey, I get it.

Despite the adages, "You can do anything you set your mind to" and "the sky is the limit," that word POSSIBILITY has been ultimately absent from my life. The whole business of being born, learning some colors and numbers, going to schools where the government ensures we can pass standardized tests that tell us who we have the potential of being, so we can drop out or go to trade-school or college and keep on this predetermined track, laid out for us by society's vision of how each socioeconomic class is supposed contribute to the status quo.

...this is actually quite true.

For example: I am a white woman from middle America. Raised in a suburb of Chicago, I was expected to do well in school, babysit my neighbor's kids because girls are nurturing and responsible, get a job at a pizza place to learn American work ethic, go to liberal arts college...and then what? Now I am working as a University Administrator.

Essentially I am a gussied up version of a secretarial type that has been historically characterized in the U.S. often by the color "white" and most definitely by the gender "female." Just google image search: "administrative assistant" to see for yourself.

Where was my choice? They say the U.S. is "land of the free" and yet, there are well-trodden paths we are all just going to follow. Unless something or someone interrupts, we the zombies plod along the railway laid out for us by our predecessors.

This kitty has no self-esteem. :...(

Though it's not just the predetermined path on which we embark from birth. There's reactionary behaviors I've had my whole life that I didn't even know about. I'll procrastinate all the time because I tell myself I'm lazy. Or I'll procrastinate further on something I've BEEN procrastinating because I don't want to look like a fool or get in trouble for being lazy. See, the "being lazy" part was a fucking self-fulfilling prophesy rather than WHO I AM. What I did was I thought it, then I also made it real. I took the unreality of some dumb stuff I said to myself and made it real.

THAT's some choice, huh?

The thing I'm taking away from all this intellectual exercise on thinking (GAH!) is that thinking simultaneously means everything and does not mean anything at all. To elaborate, if you honor your thoughts, you will be the things you think because you will act on them. If you do not honor your thoughts and choose NOT to be reactionary all the time, then you will have more freedom to be whoever you want. It's hard for me to know, at this point, if that means anyone really CAN be anyone they want. This...this sounds like a B sci-fi psychological thriller just waiting to happen.

The lead character in this drama is Self-awareness. She is an unrelenting, unapologetic, but totally liberated bitch.

...self-awareness? girl, she as crazy as you! And she don't take no trains.

But, the only way to be truly free to choose my life is to figure out all this shit. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep on keepin' on the same tracks, let my inner voice dictate how I act and thus who I am.

Now that I know this, how could I possibly let it happen?

Writing is mind-body integration (so, naturally, also a penis)

Before posting today, since April, I've redone this damned blog about 4 times. Different colors, pictures, the url has changed. I changed anything I could other than add new writing to it.

Often when I think of writing, I think of the time differential between having thoughts (milliseconds) and the physical act of writing (foreeeeeeveeeeeeeeer). It seems nearly impossible to take the many hours to transpose thought to paper without forgetting what you thought in the first place! What I also forget is yes, thoughts change during the journey of writing. And that's ok, Sara. You're gonna be ok. It's all gonna be ok.

All of the following are important and merge to create the writing process:
1. your ever-churning reckless production of thoughts
2. mindfulness
3. the physicality and pace of your hands.
(4. oh, and editing, but we won't count that... haha...ha...haa....)

Hey, I know. This picture is laaaame. But I can put whatever pictures I want here, it's my damn blog.

It is (2) and (3) I forget always when thinking-thinking-thinking away. I think, holy hot damn, my hands would hurt like I jerked off a good couple thousand horses if I wrote as fast as I am thinking these weird ideas right now. But...only having thoughts are not enough to write. You need it all - that is (ready?...)
the process by which mindfulness harnesses the spontaneity of thoughts through your physical body into the physical realm.

Three cheers to integration!

Speaking of which...
The other reason I don't write is due to this bipolar-ish superiority/inferiority complex type thing. It makes me feel like two completely different assholes that are not writers.

From the facebook photo album: ME!!11!!1 :)

 I'll disparage myself to the core when I think of my (lack of) abilities in relation to a particular art form...until I actually do said art form. As in sit down and create something. Then I'll show it to someone and get good enough feedback. That's when my ego goes, "what's cookin', good lookin'" on repeat for days. That is, until I realize I could never live up to its expectations. Then sadness. And productivity dies. More sadness.

It's like my mind is a penis.

...Just bear with me a second.

It's like my mind is a penis. After I haven't been productive for a while, it's a penis that is very insecure with itself.  When it isn't all pumped full of love blood, it's lonely and sad. It limps and looks down at the ground every where it goes and isn't very obvious to anyone. To the point  where other people totally forget it could ever, EVER, get inflated (with an ego, you see). My mind thinks, "oh, if I don't create anything with this dumb useless tool, no one will know how lifeless I am. Wonk, wonk."

But then, it gets INSPIRED!

Inspiration can be sexual sure, for the sake of jiving with this mind-penis metaphor. It can be inspired by the environment or by biological influences. For example, inspiration can come from:
-other people's writing,
-just some regular influx of serotonin or dopamine or otherwise a generally good mood,
-taking my vitamins in the morning,
-a cup o coffee extra in the afternoon (which is currently the checked box, squeee!),
-some vague mortality reminder.

Those are the big ones. Each of those reasons, that causes me to actually write, turns my ego into a big one. (See what I did there. I meant big one as in huge throbbing penis ... oh god, it's alrEADY HAPPENING.) I'd better stop now before I write up metaphors on how life is a rose and shit and really blow my load.

Oh, shit... I'm fucked.

In any case, I should go home now. I have to go ... do laundry. and make dinner. and go the gym. and and and and never have children.