I Have No Answers

Current Music: Nickel Creek – When You Come Back Down

Ahhhhh, those lucid moments. Those grand insightful times when all your words flow like poetry off your lips. Those rewarding “Aha!” situations when suddenly everything makes sense. This is not one of those moments for me. I’m searching so hard and expecting the answer to come like a bright light bulb bobbing over my head, but I can’t seem to find the light switch. Some argue that we learn everything insightfully, making big jumps at a time (like this) while others believe we learn a little at time (Brigham Young being one of the first in many centuries to say that we learn “bit by bit”.) Ancient scripture teaches that man is to learn via inspiration from God, yet we are also taught that we are to learn precept by precept. I’m beginning to believe there is some of both in this life.

So, returning to what motivates me today, the “insight” isn’t coming. I want to have the answer so badly. Perhaps I am impatient, perhaps I need to take a cue from my fiancée and realize that I can’t help everyone in an instant, but I want things to be right, and I want everything to be in its place. I just want everyone to get along sometimes.

I have a heard time believing I just said that. I, who constantly complains about people in this conservative area being too non-confrontational, who likes flaring debates, who likes being outrageous, just want the bickering to end, sometimes. I just want these people to be happy with everything, even though everything isn’t perfect.

Now, being happy all the time isn’t really the goal, or shall I say it differently? There are times to be sad. However, there are times to find peaceful meaning in our suffering as well. The clinical world sometimes loses sight of our humanity and assumes something is wrong if someone is not happy. No, it’s very normal, it’s very human, and it’s very important that we have moods, and know when to mourn, and when to be joyous.

But how do you help someone, in general, or perhaps that doesn’t seem to have the happy times that one needs to survive? Do you change the situation they are in? Do you give them suggestions as to how to just deal with it, whatever it is? Maybe you reward them for doing things that will help them act differently, or change their attitude? But don’t these people have the choice to reject any of these attempts? Does it really have to come down to something so flimsy as encouraging someone to choose to do something different, or act differently? There is no power in telling someone that should just choose to be happy, regardless if we can or not.

Is our agency really that all-powerful, that we can choose our mood ever second of the day? I used to think so, but the past few years have made me have my doubts. I learned that not everyone could always be held to the same standard. Can we expect someone who truly has a severe mental disorder to meet the same expectations as someone who is otherwise “normal”? If the answer is “no,” then why should we hold all “normal” people to the same standard when they are so very, very different? I refuse, however, to accept a completely relativistic view. That, in my mind, is an impossible existence.

However, I have a hard time trying to blend these two diametrically opposed views. I seem to think everything is a false dichotomy sometimes. There must be an alternative that doesn’t lie on this continuum. But what is it? Do you see why I’m waiting for a lightning bolt of insight to plummet from the heavens and strike me down with knowledge?

I suppose I can only try to provide those happy moments, and hope they somehow stick, and somehow morph and propagate onward and upward. I’m not sure if “being an example” is all there is to it, but it might be all I have.

Yes, I wish I had more, but it might be all I have.

These lyrics from Nickel Creek sum up how I feel

A special thanks to explodingdog for the image.

The "L" word, and Closer

Currently Listening to: Collective Soul - Satellite


Love. It's word some people have a hard time saying. It’s something that comes and goes, but once it comes, it’s never the same afterwards. I’ve had the luck of never seeing it go. I don’t know what I’ve done in life to deserve that, but I hope I keep it up.

We’ve all heard the phrase “true love,” it’s a romantic idea in pop culture everywhere. It’s cliché, but you know what? It sure is great when you’ve got it. It’s the best thing in the world, because more than just “any ol love,” this never goes away. That plane flight doesn’t kill it, it never gets lost and runs away, it never gets bored, and it never says goodbye. Throughout life, and through death, it’s the one constant I can rely on. In a treacherous world of deceptive relativity, I have something that won’t change with conditions, situations, or context. It defies time and space. Doubt flies at the sight of it.

I wish I knew it better. I wish I saw it every aspect of my life. I wish I wouldn’t forget so easily that it’s there. Luckily for me it is as tangible as my next meal, with the added effect of not getting eaten every time I see it. In times like this I think Plato was right when he taught his people, a materially obsessed, status seeking people, that there was more to life than the mere reflections of reality they saw and depended on everyday. Indeed, there is something more. There is an idea, out there, or better said an ideal. A form that transcends each individual moment and incident, it is reflected in the basest of things, but its nobility is often left behind

Close

Within this fallen sea
I fear, I push away, and yet, still
Close to the one I love, still
Close to reaching the sky, and touching the sun.
Close to feathers flying in the wind, and oh so
Close to falling leaves in the eastern-most town.

The aura seeps in, leaving its mist behind
And solidifying into something
Close to you again and thoughts
Close to the divine that scream “I’m
Close to what I want, it’s here, but
Close isn’t good enough.”

Be.
It is seen.
What could be done
Will never be until I’m so much more than

Close.

© Michael Paul Van Dusen 2006