How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickenson

Most days of my life are lost in a daze right now, I spend most of my time trying to forget just how useless I am, but every so often (like today) its just not possible.

I really wish that comforting words and gestures can truly change the way things are, but they can’t, not for this anyway, and the reality is that I’m still a failure, and I’m still the reason I’m a failure, and there isn’t anything anyone else can do to change that for me.

Wow, that’s depressing, but today was a depressing day, so what else do I expect?

Nothing.

I expect nothing.

I hate feeling guilty.

In a way its why I hate being in debt (to anyone for any reason.)

I also hate new years resolutions, but since I had such a great time over the past few weeks, I made one this year.

Its not the typical resolution, I can’t stand people that think an incremental change of “1” is going to suddenly improve their fortunes in life, love, business, etc.

Just because the year is now 2010, doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly get a great promotion, or lose 20 pounds, or get engaged/married/pregnant/etc.

The year isn’t the problem, WE are the problem, and we can change whenever we want.

But yeah, so rant aside, I made a resolution, its a stretch (not really a lie, right?) to say it was entirely a “new years” resolution, because really its been on my mind since the day I was discharged from the navy last september.

I can’t even post the real resolution, because its too personal, too raw, too absolutely insane, and I’m way too scared of how people will react, friends I might lose, and family that may disown me.

Instead I’ll post a uselessly vague sentence that could encompass an infinite number of issues/problems/etc. and hope that its enough to set my mind at ease for now.

So what’s my hopelessly vague sentence/resolution?

To finally confront my deepest/darkest fear/issue/denial, and hopefully find some solace and help in making future decisions, and relieving these intense feelings of guilt and uncertainty that plague me every day of my life.

So much for writing a happy blog post.

So yeah, I’m still here, life is fairly normal, there are ups and downs (and of course an infinite number of overlapping waves to these cycles) and right now seems to be coming off a short up, and hopefully into a short down.

I really don’t like being on the down/bottom of these curves/waves, but I understand that the ups can’t last forever.

Everything balances out somehow, right?

Thinking of the past, and fantasizing about what lives my previous acquaintances might now have, it makes me feel lazy, and unimportant.

(both might be true)

Maybe its a last-ditch attempt to try and impress old friends and make old flames jealous (even though they ought not be?)

I’m not sure of anything anymore, except that, regardless of how socially awkward I was and still am, I miss my old friends.

Frankl said it best, life can have meaning in one of 3 ways, and one of those was by experiencing something OR encountering someone.

Maybe meaning can be found by simple encountering friends, even if they have no super-meaning for society as a whole?

Or is this another futile, fruitless attempt at self-affirmation? Another attempt to direct what little ambition I have left at defining myself in spite of what I have failed at, what I may have succeeded at, and what I have still yet to discover about myself?

At this point, I turned to the second book that accompanied Baar upon delivery at my house, “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl.

As best I can tell, both Baar and Frankl agree that “meaninglessness” in life is a direct result of people being inadequately affirmed, and that believing that life is meaningless (as existentialism would have us do) is self-defeating; instead of empowering people, it makes them feel less and less meaningful.

I was definitely surprised by how this seemed to resonate with “Zefrank” and his views/ideas as said in his episode of the show “baseline” (you can watch it here: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/12/121906.html) In that certain emotions can feed on themselves, but I think it goes a step farther too, at least Frankl does.

To Quote Frankl, “I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology “homeostasis,” i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

Frankl then continues by coining the term “existential vacuum” to mean, “the total sense of internal emptiness/meaninglessness of life that so many people today feel.”

“The existential vacuum which is the mass neurosis of the present time can be described as a private and personal form of nihilism; for nihilism can be defined as the contention that being has no meaning.”

So how then does one overcome the existential vacuum? Frankl would have us believe that its through “logotherapy” his beloved method of psychotherapy that stresses that:

“The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

If this were the end of his ideology, I’d have some strong points of contention here regarding the dangers of asserting that meaning is relative, as it allows for all kinds of atrocities to be justified as long as they’re “meaningful” the sociopaths who commit them.

But Frankl you’re smarter than that, so you continue, by stating that responsibleness is the very essence of human existence, and as such, “…the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic “the self-transcendence of human existence. It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself– be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself–by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love–the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possibly only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”

Wow, talk about a big block of text to get your head around. So Frankl, you’re saying what Baar is saying in regards to the futility of self-affirmation, that it has to be given to you by someone or something else external to you, ok, got it.

What interests me more than almost anything, is that both Frankl and Baar devote most of their writing to affirmation/actualization by another person, and yet neither of them deny that it can be found in the non-human world, the world of nature. In fact, Frankl seems to think nature is one of three key ways to give life meaning! “…we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.”

This throws me back to a key point he mentioned only a few short paragraphs earlier, “It is, therefore, up to the patient to decide whether he should interpret his life task as being responsible to society or to his own conscience.”

I’m not entirely sure what to make of everything. I am amazed by the eloquence with which both authors talk about the “existential vacuum” (which I believe Baar would accept as Frankl’s equivalent of his emotional deprivation disorder) and wholeheartedly agree that finding meaning in one’s life is the single key to inevitably experiencing happiness, for as Frankl writes, “But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to “be happy.” Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically.”

I also tend to agree that there are multiple ways to find the “meaning” to your life, which will likely be ones reason to be happy. The question, that I ask myself over and over, is which way is going to help me find the meaning of my life? And that’s where I feel let-down by Baar and Frankl, they both speak so passionately about the need to be loved/affirmed for the sake of yourself (and not for external reasons) and the need to find meaning in your life, but neither of them offer any kind of solution as to how to go about finding meaning! Baar at least gives some pointers to make oneself more open to affirmation, but Frankl just gives a list of case-studies that showed his psychotherapy to “work” but it feels too forced to me, as though he had to hunt for scenarios that translated decently to his writing. I don’t mean to discredit Frankl, or Logotherapy, but rather to express my frustration that he totally hit the nail on the head, which is frustrating to be so drawn to something, and not have a clear answer at the end, e.g.

“Yes, I feel like life is meaningless, no I don’t want to feel this way, so I need to find the meaning to my life, but HOW do I even begin to start this journey?!”

And after all this quoting and writing, we reach my final point (this post was all started by a facebook comment today that I should just go finish a degree, and get a job, and fall in line) and while its not of the same nature as the works of Frankl and Baar, I feel its relevant to help express my frustration with lack of direction. And I thank one of my amazing photography professors at Moorpark College for this very powerful quote that he had on his office door, as it still speaks to me today, and likely always will:

“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living. Such an enterprise is not easy to pursue, since our politicians rarely speak of it, our technology is indifferent to it, and our commerce despises it.” — Neil Postman

To pre-empt any confusion (though I believe cousin Catherine understands precisely  what I wrote about) I’m talking about affirmation as written about by Conrad M. Baars, M.D. in his book, “Born Only Once: The Mirracle of Affirmation” which I absolutely devoured tonight, in one sitting over coffee.

The section on Self-Affirmation was enlightening, not merely as a means of learning that I alone cannot affirm myself, but as a means to build a deeper understanding of my closest friendships as well.

It also saddens me to realize that the state of being inadequately affirmed is so prevalent, especially among my generation.

I won’t apologize for my sadness, but instead, will try and ponder everything that I’ve read tonight, to see how I can truly, effectively come to “be” and then as a result “do” whatever is best to help be an affirming person, once I myself am properly affirmed, however long that may take.

Likewise, I’m not going to apologize for being angered by the occasional actions of my friends, but I do hope that I can learn to help my friendships be mutually-affirming instead of mutually-denying, and at the same time, I hope that those friends of mine who are themselves inadequately affirmed, just like I am, will examine their own attempts at self-affirmation, and realize that there is so much more out there for them, just as there will be for me, once we come to be fully affirmed.

I’ve spent a while tonight reading about “the miracle of affirmation” and how central it is to finding true human happiness and joy, and I’ve come to see that while I am likely not totally unaffirmed, I am certainly inadequately affirmed.

But more than that, I think my funtional decline in life is tied to a continually decreasing level of affirmation, which I’ve tried to compensate for through self-affirmation.

I also feel that my declining affirmation level is aggravated by my being surrounded by so many people who are also inadequately affirmed, or totally unaffirmed, but are yet materialistically successful in civil society.

I think my siblings fall into this category too, and as such, any attempt by them to help affirm me, is futile.

So how do I reconcile all this and halt, and begin to reverse my recent declining level of affirmation?

I have some ideas of course, but am perhaps too scared to attempt to act on them yet? Or perhaps I’m too scared of being let down again, by myself, or others?

Or perhaps I just don’t yet know for sure that I’m ready to attempt it?

To everyone who’s suggested I seek counseling, since this has come from so many of my family and close friends, clearly most people see me as having a problem, and I understand and accept that. However, I’ve had counseling, fairly recently too, 10 weeks of it, both one-on-one and weekly group Cognitive Behavior Therapy while waiting to be discharged from the navy.

It was exactly the fact that I needed counseling which caused me to get separated from the navy early, and regardless of whether that was right or wrong for me, I do know that the counseling itself was of little benefit. Accordingly, I think for the time being, its not for me, especially since its no longer available to me at no cost, and I’d rather not spend my last dollar (or anyone else’s money) on a few hours of somebody telling me that which I already know, that I’m depressed, and that I should take medication, and go fall in with the rest of the world.

I’m not even saying that a psychologist’s diagnosis or prescription would be wrong, to the contrary, its highly likely that its right, as my psychologist in the navy recommended I see a psychiatrist and go on medication a couple of different times.

Its just not “ME.”

As usual, I’ll resort to somebody else’s intellect to try and adequately summarize my view on life:

“…I’ve never had the propensity to work, breed and die…”

I’m not sure I ever want to fit into day-to-day modern life, and the more I search for a place to escape to (even if only temporarily), the more I realize there is no physical place capable of adequately sustaining life that hasn’t been brought under some form of government/social control.

Everyone alive today was born a prisoner to social-contract civil-society, and I can’t yet reconcile myself with that, and I’m not sure I want to live in a perpetually decaying world that I’ll never be able to truly change.

It might be best to add that I don’t believe in the judeo-christian God, and I likely never will, so any argument you use from a religious stance, to try and tell me that any/every life is worth living, is a waste of time/breath, and I’d rather not get into a debate to try and argue the existence of said God, because I believe that everyone has a right to believe whatever they want about God, and that it alone shouldn’t preclude people from being friends.

I also don’t think anyone on this planet is “special” or any more important than anyone else, for any reason, and in fact, the very fact that we’re all “different” or “unique” or whatever adjective you want to use to describe it, makes us all inherently the same; we all WANT to FEEL special/unique, in the face of the otherwise crippling reality that none of us really are important to the universe, and we are all going to die while the whole of the universe won’t even register that any of us ever lived.

Again, I acknowledge that this is all likely an expression of the truth that its ME that is “defective” in some sense of the word. I’m just not sure if I’d rather be “normal” at the sacrifice of who I truly am, just to go be a part of day-to-day modern society that I don’t care for in the first place.

Honestly, thank you, everyone, for your messages, your friendship, and your offers of support/hospitality/etc, but right now, I just don’t think there’s anything that anyone else can do.

I have decisions I need to make before anything that anybody else offers in support will be able to have any useful effect.

Right now, counseling and medication won’t do anything to help me be the “ME” that I want to be, but instead will only make me the “ME” that the DSM and American Psychiatric Association think I should be.

And I’m not sure that I want to be that version of “ME” yet.

“Son, look at all the people in this restaurant
What do you think they weigh?
Out the window to the parking lot
At their SUV’s, taking all of the space

They give no fuck
They talk as loud as they want
They give no fuck
Just as long as there’s enough, for them

Gonna get on the microphone down at Wal-Mart
Talk about some shit that’s been on my mind
Talk about the state of this great nation of ours
People look to your left, yeah, look to your right

They give no fuck
They buy as much as they want
They give no fuck
Just as long as there’s enough, for them

Son, look at the people lining up for plastic
Wouldn’t you like to see them in the National Geographic
Squatting bare ass in the dirt eating rice from a bowl
With a towel on their head and maybe a bone in their nose

See that asshole with a peace sign on his license plate?
Giving me the finger and running me out of his lane
God made us number one ’cause he loves us the best
Well he should go bless someone else for a while and give us a rest

(They give no)
Yeah, and everyone can see
(They give no)
We’ve eaten all that we can eat”

– Ben Folds, “All That You Can Eat”