Don't Quote Me...

     The word is aphorism, a word I didn't know.  And I wasn't alone.  Here's how television host Hoda Kotb put it in her book of quotations: I'd never heard of it until I started doing some digging into why so many of us --including me-- love inspirational quotes.  Sociologist Murray Davis describes aphorisms as "the finest thoughts in the fewest words." ...Media psychology expert and communications consultant Scott Sobel says that "inspirational quotes affect us on a primal level."  Describing human nature as "aspirational" performance psychologist Jonathan Fader says quotes can be powerful in changing our thinking and helping us see something in ourselves that we want to change or overcome.  As I read through her book, I somehow couldn't help but think of the many times I had said or heard the expression "thank God," as in "luckily no one was hurt, thank God."  Which made me also wonder when we use that phrase -- thank God-- do we?  And if not, why use the phrase at all?  Does it reflect a religious belief or attitude, or is it just an engrained phrase, one said as easily as a cursory expression of anger, pain, or surprise?  Isn't that phrase of "thanking" God meant to be more of a reminder?  Perhaps such a thought came to me because of reading the third quote Kotb used in her book, one by Sana Dabbas: And if I asked you to name all the things that you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself?  Wrote Kotb: I think as we get older there's less pretending.  Year after year, our internal blueprints develop into a solid structure where we move about the world as ourselves.  She was referring to yet another quote: Be careful who you pretend to be.  You might forget who you are.

     So there I was, sliding through this easily readable book of quotes when I came across this one: External clutter is internal clutter on display.  Wait, if that was true (and it likely was), what did that say about me?  I say that because my wife always tells me that clutter doesn't seem to bother me.  Now I partially defend myself by noting that I'm not that hoarder that piles towers of papers and magazines throughout rooms, although I do seem to have more than a few small piles scattered about...one on the desk, one by the bed, one on the kitchen island, one here and there.  Such piles are a mix of bills and articles, or magazines not put away, and sometimes a coupon for something I intend to buy (such coupons are usually expired by the time I "find" them again).  So yes, clutter seems to be my nom de plume.  But now as I age (my polite form of denying my growing old), I see the need to clear things out (yes, I've mentioned this several times in earlier posts but stay with me here).  So i had to ask myself, if I could recognize that, what was the problem?  I knew that I wasn't/wouldn't/and soon couldn't, look at those videos, or read those books, or listen to those cds.  So why was it so difficult to just dump it all into boxes destined for the thrift store?  Was it some sort of insecurity, those "possessions" bringing some comfort from my youth, a security blanket of sorts?  And if I was even thinking that1 a way, then it told me that I hadn't yet figured it out and that somehow there had to be a way into those dark recesses of my mind.  It was obvious I needed help.  And I knew just who might have the key to unlock some of those doors.

     Hypnosis has something of a stigma, and yet I'd been through it ages ago.  For those of you who have never been, hypnosis can prove an interesting peek into glimpsing another side of you.  As the hypnotherapist explained to me, we all undergo self-hypnosis at some point (and she added that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis).  Reading or talking in a noisy room and still able to concentrate?  Self-hypnosis.  Listening to a boring conversation and catching yourself drifting away to other thoughts?  Self-hypnosis.  Absorbed in a movie and transported away for a couple of hours?  Self-hypnosis.  As to wanting to question other aspects of your "awareness," explain dreaming: what's it for?  Is it your "sub" conscious?  What are you trying to work out?  I tend to enjoy such a session of "going under," finding myself quickly drifting into a "deep" state of awareness (for you are always "aware" of your surroundings), the colors (for me, anyway) of early dawn maroons and purples appearing in a welcoming way.  And so here I was again, this time trying to tap into that "other" side to find out why I kept holding onto so many items.  But here was what I found from the session: I sort of knew all along.  As we talked ahead of time, I mentioned to the hypnotherapist that I was hoping to discover what my hangup was about clutter, as if a single answer was hiding in the dark cubbyholes of my mind...only it wasn't.  It was actually a series of things, all of which came out as I talked to the hypnotherapist -- sentimentality, giving up my youth, mortality, monetary value (real or imagined), the difficulty of physically getting rid of something (such as a king-sized sleigh bed or a dining table), pure laziness, and of course, simple procrastination (there's always tomorrow).  And while my session tried to "push" those things along, to have me admit them and by doing so, get rid of them, the hypnotherapist mentioned to me that the "conscious-filtering" part of our mind is only about 15% of what controls us, which makes changing the subconscious so difficult...it's the garrison of our being.  And in my case, that castle was apparently not that willing to lower the drawbridge.

      Here's how author James Hillman put it in his book on character: I like to imagine a person's psyche to be like a boardinghouse full of characters.  The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules but may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night.  An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts.  They often make the show fateful, or tragic, or farcically absurd...The integrity of character is probably not so unitary; rather, the full company is onstage as at the end of the opera, when the chorus, the dancers, the leads, and the conductor take their uncoordinated bows.  Life wants the whole ensemble, in flagrante delicto.  Even the cover-ups belong to the character. 

      Perhaps a blunter outlook came from Willie Greene's book, Not Sure Who Needs to Hear This, But...: I want you to take a moment and think about that younger version of yourself... Think about the things you believed in, the fashion statements you made, the music you listened to, the people who influenced you, and the habits you clung to.  Really dive deep into the mind of the person you were; think about your fears, your dreams, and your convictions.  Hold onto that image for a moment.  Now, reflect on where you stand today and revel in your evolution.  Your life has probably changed in ways you couldn't have ever conceptualized, even five years ago.  Those friendships you swore would last a lifetime?  Well, life happened.  Some have deepened, becoming your anchors, while others faded, teaching you the value of impermanence and the beauty of growth.  Those once scary mountains?  You've scaled them.  The dreams that felt unrealistic?  You've either achieved them or replaced them with ones that resonate more with the person you've become.  And those boundaries?  You've either expanded them or torn them down entirely, redefining your own path... It's easy to think of growth as a linear path, transitioning from one milestone to the next.  But here's the truth: Growth isn't just about moving forward.  It's about redirecting, shedding, and renewing...Release long-held beliefs that no longer align with whom you've grown into or the direction you wish to go in.  Throw out the self-sabotaging habits and self-limiting beliefs.  Stop shrinking yourself because of societal norms or limiting yourself to the confines of other people's expectations...Recognize the power and grace in changing your perspective. 

     Wow.  Did I read that or was that my subconscious getting back at me?  You're "wildly imaginative" the hypnotherapist told me, and each time I wrote these posts I felt as if a tiny sliver of that imagination got out of me, as if I were being relieved of a single porcupine quill while knowing that hundreds of other quills were still there, still bothering and sometimes hurting me.  So bear with me during this transition because all of that prior stuff you read was sort of its own clutter meant to be a lead in as to why you --each and every one of you-- should also write.  Anything.  Your thoughts, your disappointments, your anger, your tears, your laughter, your hopes.  Get it down onto paper or screen.  Make room for more thoughts.  Such words or songs or drawings you create may be terrific, or they may be nonsense or junk.  But it will be out of your head and dispensed with, even if temporarily.

      So I need to back up once again.  Think back to A Day in the Life, that John Lennon song that hit a snag, a roadblock that Lennon couldn't cross.  There was no transition between what he wrote and what he wanted to end with.  So Paul McCartney told him of an unfinished piece that he had, a lyrical bit that couldn't find a home (... woke up, got out of bed, and dragged a comb across my head...).  And like a puzzle, he inserted that into the middle and out came the resulting classic.  And as with the song, that's where I was, stuck.  My original post for this, 90% complete, was on getting you, the reader, to start a blog, or a journal, or a batch of notations.  But to just start writing.  Yet each time I would work on the post, edit it, parse it down or cut out entire sections, something was never right.  And then I read the acknowledgment section of best-selling author Katherine Arden about her recent book: There was a time when I thought this book would never be written, and I am still a little surprised that it was.  It isn't the longest book, but for draft after draft after draft, it simply refused me.  Refused to work, refused to exist.  Every chapter, every sentence --sometimes it felt like every word-- was hard-fought.  I couldn't have done it alone.  So many people stood by me at every stage, listened to me cry, listened to me complain, held me when I couldn't hold myself...And finally, to the dead, who felt so alive to me as I was working, the men and women who fought in the Great War and whose voices came to me in memoirs, reminiscences, and letters...You put the color and texture of your lives into words at a moment when it seemed as though the whole world was on fire, and I hope your acts of witness are never forgotten. 

     So there I was, trying to convey the importance of everyone writing things down and this author summed it up so well that even the words of the dead touched her.  So what did any of this have to do with that post on blogging?  Here I was ready to pass on hints and tips on writing and I realized that all of that was just me.  It was my passion, but maybe not yours, just as my neighbor's running is her passion (she regularly runs over 100 miles each week).  So I scrapped the post entirely, all after weeks of work on it (which is why the delay in getting this post out).  As with author Arden, my writing about you starting a blog, "refused me."   My urge to write was what it was, just as with my neighbor's running.  And whether I have 2 readers or 200, it makes little difference because doing this was and is something which I enjoy...and I was perhaps foolishly hoping to spur others to also jot down their thoughts and emotions, especially at this time of year.  The gatherings or the loneliness, the opening of gifts or the struggles to buy them, the smiles of children or their faces of hunger.  This season can exacerbate all those extremes and everything in between.  And maybe with all that comes the past.  

      Here's how author Katherine Arden captured a similar period when researching her book, The Warm Hands of Ghosts: The years of World War I were as close to a moment of historical science fiction as we will ever get: an indescribable mash-up of changing mores and technologies.  And its participants, like time travelers, were people of one era flung without warning into another.  It was a time of shocking juxtapositions.  Artillery could kill from seventy-five miles away, yet armies still communicated via messenger pigeon.  Suits of armor went up against machine guns.  Cavalry charged at tanks.  Combat nurses wore corsets and carried gas masks.  Primitive hand-to-hand combat with bayonets and trench knives alternated with precisely calibrated artillery barrage, and, famously, generals ran the war from luxurious châteaux while their men, a scant few miles away, slept in wet, corpse-ridden trenches...Europeans in 1914, rich with plundered colonial wealth, believing wholly in their cultural supremacy, discovered that they were capable of sending their children off to live in holes and murder each other.  That knowledge stayed with the survivors all their lives.  The break with the past was so sudden and so traumatic that many writers have framed the war in apocalyptic terms...I, too, considered the war through an apocalyptic lens, and in doing so I kept returning to this biblical quote: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away."  The question I would have asked this long ago prophet is: "Did you see a new hell too?"  Because humanity did.  

    We are likely entering another period of tumultuous times, which was perhaps why I felt it a good chance to give your deepest thoughts a voice.  Maybe you're seriously depressed and introspective and shy and yet have SO much to say, even if you feel so, so alone.  Maybe there's another person or an entire population out there that feels exactly the same, even if they would never write back to tell you.   And yet maybe your words would hit someone so hard that you helped save their life.  You'll never know.  But if you're at all like me, you would have shed a small piece of that thing inside of you.  A series of words and sentences that you could stare at and which was you.  And bit by bit you may discover that more and more of that wanted to get out.  Who knows, you may hold a book, or pages you'll simply want to throw in the fire.  You may want to share it with the world, or to let nobody ever see it.  Doesn't matter.  You got it out, whatever it was.  But here's another thing that emerged from my hypnotherapy session:  just talking to someone else, even while not yet "under," was enough for me to discover a few things about myself.  Maybe for you it would be running or singing instead of writing or talking.  And maybe you feel that you don't need to do any of this because you could handle whatever it is alone...and maybe you could.  But trying different avenues may surprise you...hearing yourself answer someone who's asking you some candidly deep questions, or seeing your thoughts appear on paper and perhaps finding that what you'd written suddenly had a "viewer."  And if the only person to hear what you've said or read what you wrote would be yourself, think back to what Willie Greene wrote about visualizing yourself in ten years.  You would see how much you had changed, and maybe, just maybe, your writings had been seen by others helped them to change as well.  

     To be blunt, what you're feeling now you will never feel again; you may feel something similar but never exactly what you are feeling now.  Maybe you've been promoted, or have become homeless; maybe you've just had a baby, or have just lost a baby; maybe you're in the best shape of your life, or have suffered your first heart attack; maybe you're surprised that everything is going right, or that everything is going wrong.  There are a million things, and a million places in between as to how you're feeling.  But those thoughts and emotions are here now, unfiltered, raw, angry, waiting, and inviting.  And if you feel that you're the only person in the world to feel that way, maybe you are...but maybe you're not.  I have no idea what it feels like to be severely depressed, or to be paralyzed, to fly a fighter jet, or to dance to exhaustion in a nightclub, to perform surgery on war-wounded children, or to perform with a band in front of a crowd of thousands.  Tell me.  How is it a book or song or movie can touch one person so deeply and yet not stir anything in another?  Who knows, but those books and movies and paintings and songs keep coming, each made by someone hoping to touch something inside of us, to let others know that this was what he or she felt was worth taking the time for, and that maybe you'd want a peek at what that was.  WW I redux...

     Random thoughts, harbored jealousies, wishes, dreams.  What haunts you?  What thrills you?  It's now there waiting with as much or as little as you want to expose or to exclude.  Putting that out for others may end up giving you a sense of renewal...or not.  Writing may help get rid of the clutter inside...just don't quote me (or do, it doesn't matter).