understanding the dead and compassion for the living
last week i found myself contemplating the middle-ness of the summer and the fact that i had not done much traveling… or any of the things i had set out for myself as potential activities this year.
it’s not as if i have a job or any commitments to be anywhere for anyone but myself, and i wanted to get out and about and see some scenes. so i made myself a little itinerary. south down the left coast, east to the dry inland sea, and into the high desert. figured to get some coastal photographs, volcanic formations, and a couple of ghost towns to round out my trip. one week.
i also felt like i needed to get away from town for a bit, to work some things out in my head. i’ll get to those things bye and bye, but suffice it to say that the excursion began to take on the form of another one of these damn pilgrimages or quests. never mind that i am well aware that wherever i go, there i am. it seemed important to seek, even though i was not entirely certain of what i was looking for. i have not been very happy with myself, my place in life, or the world.
i set off on a monday afternoon with an unreliable notion that i actually did not want to do this thing, and was now only moving on the inertia of the fact that i had told some people that i was doing it, and set out to make that a true statement.
a sought out bit that needed sorting was an idea that i had arrived at in my post-divorce gnashing and weirdness, that i ought to embark upon a journey of self-discovery. a fact-finding mission, of sorts, to see what it was that warren was supposed to be doing for the rest of his life. or at least, the next couple of years. since this has not happened yet, i figured that perhaps this is an opportunity.
one of the hang ups has been the recurring nightmare that none of this (and please, for the sake of imparting the seriousness of this particular thought, i will repeat it), none of this – was supposed to be. as far as i am concerned, my life ended in 2004 when the burning man killed me. i was supposed to be married, with a career, and a house, and a plan, and more. and i was. for a long time. in a real and very tangible way, the burning man experience and its social webs took that life that i had, and made it untenable. the value in this execution has yet to be determined.
so, i wended my way into the indian casino where it’s looking very much like bat country, only with a steady stream of fat old white people feeding dollar bills into slot machines instead of conventioneers. i make my way to the bar for dinner and several stiff tequila drinks before making my hustle at the poker tables. i’m done in an hour or so, and its back to the hotel for a sleepless night and the cohen’s fargo on syndicated cable television. “haya, whatcha got there? arby’s? oh, yeah.” bat country. for sure.
in the morning i hit out on the road after a half hour of thinking i really should just go on home. what am i trying to prove anyway? i’ve been through this all before, haven’t i? as it turned out, i pointed the truck away from home. clutch-shift-gas. away.
another recurring thought process has me stymied as well. this is the “déjà vu but without you” syndrome. literally, ‘already seen’. having been coupled and lived in the same area for so long, i am hounded by the ghosts of memory no matter which way i turn. any road, town, shop, park i turn towards has the imprint of julie upon it. the artifacts of our life surround me in the rimrock of eastern oregon, the seafoam of the pacific, and the bricks of downtown portland. maybe i am weak, but the truth is that there is a constant reminder everywhere of when we were doing such and such a thing, how her hair was cut then, and how her face shown in sun/starlight at that time. these are not bad thoughts per se; they don’t make me feel badly. i often feel gratitude for those events and memories. the point is that it pulls me out of the now. a lot.
the reason i mention that bit at all is because of this next bit.
i’m cruising the 101 hiway southbound, stopping every so often at the lookouts and capes. taking photos here and there of spectacular views and tidepools and kelpbeds all the while wishing tamara was with me, interspersed with the déjà vu but without julie notions. i feel… not guilty, but something else. i feel sad, lonely, and apart. i want to go home. at first i am thinking that maybe it’s the years of coupledom training in me. i would rather be traveling with a partner. it’s not so much that i feel alone (though i am), but as i process the feeling into its base, the why occurs to me: though the things i am seeing and doing are cool and interesting to me, the experience is as empty and thin as an a-team plot without someone to share it with.
“the deepest need of man, then, is to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness. the absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can only be overcome by such a radical withdrawal from the world outside that the feeling of separation disappears – because the world outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared.” –[erich fromm, the theory of love]
when i am out in the world, i am confronted with my solitariness. when i am at home, the world either disappears as i fold into myself and become more insane, or i am connected with my lover and community and contented. i recognize this. fully.
fromm goes on to say that one way humans attempt to obliterate the barrier of separateness is through orgiastic states triggered by sex, drugs, or alcohol. again, an experience thin as a bottle of whiskey in a motel 6 room. again, i recognize this. fully.
my eyes had grown heavy and my belly empty, so i stopped at a park for a picnic lunch and naptime. its a beautiful lakeside affair on one side, and i picked grassy a spot under some poplar. on the other side is the sand and the ocean.
earlier, i mentioned that the burning man destroyed my life. i say this not as an accusation or indictment of the experience, but rather to point out that the experience became a focal point of forces, feelings, and decisions that made the life i had been living untenable in the face of the circus. i quote ray bradbury on this matter:
“...i was not embarassed at circuses. some people are. circuses are loud, vulgar, and smell in the sun. by the time people are fourteen or fifteen, they have been divested of their loves, their ancient and intuitive tastes, one by one, until when they reach maturity there is no fun left, no zest, no gusto, no flavor. others have criticized, and they have critizied themselves, into embarassment. when the circus pulls in at five of a dark cold summer morn, and the calliope sounds, they do not rise and run, they turn in their sleep, and life passes by."
one morning on dawn patrol, i was having a conversation with heather baker. she was asking about my family, my youth, from whence i came. i answered and she said in all earnestness, “oh, so you’re white trash.” i had not considered it, rather, i actually did not think so. my family roots in the agrarian american dream of cornfields and milk cows. my grandparents were fully middle class, riding the post-war boon. a nurse, a meat-cutter, a teacher, a master carpenter. democrats. union folk.
true enough, my youth was marked by the lean means of my father’s g.i. salary, and i felt poor in grade school wearing the hand me downs from my older cousins, but ‘white trash’ did not fit any more than ‘hippie’ or ‘silver spoon’. we worked, and knew the value of work.
in the years preceding my exposure to the circus i had become discontented with my work insomuch as i felt that my work was unappreciated and ineffectual in a corporate culture resistant to change. my task was change and process improvement and i had hit a barrier of management style more interested in short-term band-aids to meet production goals than long-term overhauls to a system that allowed inefficiencies. additionally, i could see clearly where the value of my work went directly to the shareholder’s dream and less to my own. my life, it seemed, was slipping away one paycheck at a time.
add to that, the feeling of absolute emptiness and aloneness i felt in the months preceding and especially the long hours after my first burn precipitated by the first time my spouse had ever uttered the word divorce. how could my life stand again in the face of it? i was embarrassed of it. my work and everything i had done up to that point, became a sham; useless, painful, and utterly empty. begin the quest of the orgiastic state.
i rose from my nap knowing i was unable to continue. i must hotfoot home. forget the long winding roads, find the interstate. post-haste.
my depression and isolation follows many roots. my lack of work, rather than freeing me has compounded my state. if i was ineffectual in my career, i have certainly become all the more so without one. i should be working on my dream. well… what is it?
i remember growing up and making dried apples on sheets laid out in the summer sun. pressing cider and canning pickled squash. cutting and stacking wood for winter. stocking the barn with hay. the true value of work. tangible. visible. this has a lot of appeal to me.
high desert and redrock. places on earth that appear painted by god’s hand without interference of mankind. open skies unobscured by city lights and full of stars. this has a lot of appeal to me. i want to die under the milky way.
but also, every bit of it feels to me to be empty and thin without someone to share it with.
i returned home a little over twenty-four hours from when i left to find my front door not just unlocked, but wide open. i’ve seen this before. “déjà vu, but without you”. the time we were robbed of it all. years of material artifacts stolen or destroyed. in a panic, i rushed in to find everything as i had left it, just as i had left the door open. i suddenly remember stepping over the threshold with my hands full of luggage, telling myself to return and lock the door. i did not. i feel fortunate that no unscrupulous person had come down the street last night, particularly in light of the attempted burglary across the street two weeks ago.
i’d like to live someplace where i can leave the doors unlocked. this has a lot of appeal to me.
it’s not the circus, but then again, the circus only appeals to me when i feel alone.
it’s not as if i have a job or any commitments to be anywhere for anyone but myself, and i wanted to get out and about and see some scenes. so i made myself a little itinerary. south down the left coast, east to the dry inland sea, and into the high desert. figured to get some coastal photographs, volcanic formations, and a couple of ghost towns to round out my trip. one week.
i also felt like i needed to get away from town for a bit, to work some things out in my head. i’ll get to those things bye and bye, but suffice it to say that the excursion began to take on the form of another one of these damn pilgrimages or quests. never mind that i am well aware that wherever i go, there i am. it seemed important to seek, even though i was not entirely certain of what i was looking for. i have not been very happy with myself, my place in life, or the world.
i set off on a monday afternoon with an unreliable notion that i actually did not want to do this thing, and was now only moving on the inertia of the fact that i had told some people that i was doing it, and set out to make that a true statement.
a sought out bit that needed sorting was an idea that i had arrived at in my post-divorce gnashing and weirdness, that i ought to embark upon a journey of self-discovery. a fact-finding mission, of sorts, to see what it was that warren was supposed to be doing for the rest of his life. or at least, the next couple of years. since this has not happened yet, i figured that perhaps this is an opportunity.
one of the hang ups has been the recurring nightmare that none of this (and please, for the sake of imparting the seriousness of this particular thought, i will repeat it), none of this – was supposed to be. as far as i am concerned, my life ended in 2004 when the burning man killed me. i was supposed to be married, with a career, and a house, and a plan, and more. and i was. for a long time. in a real and very tangible way, the burning man experience and its social webs took that life that i had, and made it untenable. the value in this execution has yet to be determined.
so, i wended my way into the indian casino where it’s looking very much like bat country, only with a steady stream of fat old white people feeding dollar bills into slot machines instead of conventioneers. i make my way to the bar for dinner and several stiff tequila drinks before making my hustle at the poker tables. i’m done in an hour or so, and its back to the hotel for a sleepless night and the cohen’s fargo on syndicated cable television. “haya, whatcha got there? arby’s? oh, yeah.” bat country. for sure.
in the morning i hit out on the road after a half hour of thinking i really should just go on home. what am i trying to prove anyway? i’ve been through this all before, haven’t i? as it turned out, i pointed the truck away from home. clutch-shift-gas. away.
another recurring thought process has me stymied as well. this is the “déjà vu but without you” syndrome. literally, ‘already seen’. having been coupled and lived in the same area for so long, i am hounded by the ghosts of memory no matter which way i turn. any road, town, shop, park i turn towards has the imprint of julie upon it. the artifacts of our life surround me in the rimrock of eastern oregon, the seafoam of the pacific, and the bricks of downtown portland. maybe i am weak, but the truth is that there is a constant reminder everywhere of when we were doing such and such a thing, how her hair was cut then, and how her face shown in sun/starlight at that time. these are not bad thoughts per se; they don’t make me feel badly. i often feel gratitude for those events and memories. the point is that it pulls me out of the now. a lot.
the reason i mention that bit at all is because of this next bit.
i’m cruising the 101 hiway southbound, stopping every so often at the lookouts and capes. taking photos here and there of spectacular views and tidepools and kelpbeds all the while wishing tamara was with me, interspersed with the déjà vu but without julie notions. i feel… not guilty, but something else. i feel sad, lonely, and apart. i want to go home. at first i am thinking that maybe it’s the years of coupledom training in me. i would rather be traveling with a partner. it’s not so much that i feel alone (though i am), but as i process the feeling into its base, the why occurs to me: though the things i am seeing and doing are cool and interesting to me, the experience is as empty and thin as an a-team plot without someone to share it with.
“the deepest need of man, then, is to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness. the absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can only be overcome by such a radical withdrawal from the world outside that the feeling of separation disappears – because the world outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared.” –[erich fromm, the theory of love]
when i am out in the world, i am confronted with my solitariness. when i am at home, the world either disappears as i fold into myself and become more insane, or i am connected with my lover and community and contented. i recognize this. fully.
fromm goes on to say that one way humans attempt to obliterate the barrier of separateness is through orgiastic states triggered by sex, drugs, or alcohol. again, an experience thin as a bottle of whiskey in a motel 6 room. again, i recognize this. fully.
my eyes had grown heavy and my belly empty, so i stopped at a park for a picnic lunch and naptime. its a beautiful lakeside affair on one side, and i picked grassy a spot under some poplar. on the other side is the sand and the ocean.
earlier, i mentioned that the burning man destroyed my life. i say this not as an accusation or indictment of the experience, but rather to point out that the experience became a focal point of forces, feelings, and decisions that made the life i had been living untenable in the face of the circus. i quote ray bradbury on this matter:
“...i was not embarassed at circuses. some people are. circuses are loud, vulgar, and smell in the sun. by the time people are fourteen or fifteen, they have been divested of their loves, their ancient and intuitive tastes, one by one, until when they reach maturity there is no fun left, no zest, no gusto, no flavor. others have criticized, and they have critizied themselves, into embarassment. when the circus pulls in at five of a dark cold summer morn, and the calliope sounds, they do not rise and run, they turn in their sleep, and life passes by."
one morning on dawn patrol, i was having a conversation with heather baker. she was asking about my family, my youth, from whence i came. i answered and she said in all earnestness, “oh, so you’re white trash.” i had not considered it, rather, i actually did not think so. my family roots in the agrarian american dream of cornfields and milk cows. my grandparents were fully middle class, riding the post-war boon. a nurse, a meat-cutter, a teacher, a master carpenter. democrats. union folk.
true enough, my youth was marked by the lean means of my father’s g.i. salary, and i felt poor in grade school wearing the hand me downs from my older cousins, but ‘white trash’ did not fit any more than ‘hippie’ or ‘silver spoon’. we worked, and knew the value of work.
in the years preceding my exposure to the circus i had become discontented with my work insomuch as i felt that my work was unappreciated and ineffectual in a corporate culture resistant to change. my task was change and process improvement and i had hit a barrier of management style more interested in short-term band-aids to meet production goals than long-term overhauls to a system that allowed inefficiencies. additionally, i could see clearly where the value of my work went directly to the shareholder’s dream and less to my own. my life, it seemed, was slipping away one paycheck at a time.
add to that, the feeling of absolute emptiness and aloneness i felt in the months preceding and especially the long hours after my first burn precipitated by the first time my spouse had ever uttered the word divorce. how could my life stand again in the face of it? i was embarrassed of it. my work and everything i had done up to that point, became a sham; useless, painful, and utterly empty. begin the quest of the orgiastic state.
i rose from my nap knowing i was unable to continue. i must hotfoot home. forget the long winding roads, find the interstate. post-haste.
my depression and isolation follows many roots. my lack of work, rather than freeing me has compounded my state. if i was ineffectual in my career, i have certainly become all the more so without one. i should be working on my dream. well… what is it?
i remember growing up and making dried apples on sheets laid out in the summer sun. pressing cider and canning pickled squash. cutting and stacking wood for winter. stocking the barn with hay. the true value of work. tangible. visible. this has a lot of appeal to me.
high desert and redrock. places on earth that appear painted by god’s hand without interference of mankind. open skies unobscured by city lights and full of stars. this has a lot of appeal to me. i want to die under the milky way.
but also, every bit of it feels to me to be empty and thin without someone to share it with.
i returned home a little over twenty-four hours from when i left to find my front door not just unlocked, but wide open. i’ve seen this before. “déjà vu, but without you”. the time we were robbed of it all. years of material artifacts stolen or destroyed. in a panic, i rushed in to find everything as i had left it, just as i had left the door open. i suddenly remember stepping over the threshold with my hands full of luggage, telling myself to return and lock the door. i did not. i feel fortunate that no unscrupulous person had come down the street last night, particularly in light of the attempted burglary across the street two weeks ago.
i’d like to live someplace where i can leave the doors unlocked. this has a lot of appeal to me.
it’s not the circus, but then again, the circus only appeals to me when i feel alone.
posted by warpup at 2:27 PM
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