A good heart, virtues, vices and choices?
Let me try a different direction if I'm able, a meandering on the human heart...
Coming from the safe but cold world of reason, as I do, I know it is easy, when confronted by apparent intractible complexity, ignorance, or clarity of purpose, I easily imagine a warmer climate where universal emotion leads, always leading back before the fall from the garden, before awareness of sin. Well, it all comes together in a fuzzy hope that if I could properly surrender ego and self-direction, that the heart can lead unimpeded to goodness.
I titled this blog "A good heart" mostly because I thought it a strange combination of words, mostly because I think the word good exists at the level of consciousness, while heart exists at a level that transcends judgements of good and evil, or if not transcends, then perhaps submerges good and evil.
I have a faith that feelings, longings, searching for expression for something inside that asks to become, that this holds potential for goodness. I think of Joseph Campbell, saying "Follow your bliss". But I also find there is always a cost involved, and so choices to be made, and most are made unconsciously.
It is interesting to me, from the religious side, virtues are defined that define goodness, and a person who follows them is considered good, even if that good means silent suffering and diminishing what we can become, leaving doors unopened because we're afraid of what we'll find on the other side, afraid it'll upset our carefully constructed goodness.
I can think of the drug Ecstasy, the drug that brings a sense of empathy and oneness with humanity, distant and universal, and close and immediate. It almost does sound like you get a chance to return to the garden and know what Adam and Eve knew before the fall.
Does the heart need drugs, or perhaps the mind needs the drug to surrender itself? I don't know, but it's one door I won't open myself, among most drugs. Sugar and caffeine seem quite sufficient to challenge my power of moderation. I mostly figure that drugs can't create anything within us that is not already accessible, even if in smaller quantities, so its better to find those access points on my own over depending on drugs. It's tricky, and I could accept the argument that taking a drug once might give me signs what to look for, but overall I'll take the boring safer road. It's not because I'm "good", merely preferring to be in charge of my own life and experiences. Well, and I can equally imagine drugs all have "costs", even if not clear. Even the best drug might wreck my motivational systems, making other needed tasks harder.
Alcohol is the funniest vice for me, so widely used and abused, and so far has offered me no purpose, or to say I've never drank enough at once to definitively feel any clear effect. Not to say I've not been affected, just to say I can't see it, and don't imagine any difference in me either way - might as well been drinking water for all I know, and I do like water! I've never really drank beer, not more than a few sips. I've drank up to 2 glasses of wine in an evening perhaps, but usually over multiple hours and with food. Mostly alcohol is funny since my ONLY real motivation to drink at all is social acceptance.
I have friends who learned to drink in High school, and I missed out the experimental stage I guess. Later in college I'd go to parties, mostly to talk to the pretty girls, and never really drank at all. My friends also would go to a cabin and spend a weekend drinking beer, smoking and playing poker. Okay, reading too during the day, and darts was fun. Anyway I never drank beer (or smoked), and one friend said he feel a little self-conscious or something to have everyone else drinking except me, like I would make fun of them. Sometimes conversation was better or more interesting with people drinking, but I didn't seem to need to drink myself. Still, again, I did feel different for this.
I don't think I'm resistant to alcohol at all, or that I couldn't become addicted. I'm just more addicted to having a clear mind than wanting to lower my inhibitions or whatever. It is funny because my experimental mind says that alcohol is mostly safe, and I COULD experiment, but in practice somehow, even if I schemed how I might "get drunk" as I'd always say or "get buzzed" as real drinkers say, it just doesn't seem fun enough, or "controlled" enough to learn anything from the experiment. So again, my "virtue" is nothing more than fear. It pisses me off 'cause it seems like others enjoy it, and I think I ought to just try, just once, and I never do?!
It's said that some people are "bad drunks", that all their darker emotions come out, anger and meanness. Others perhaps don't change their personality from "good" to "bad", they're just more relaxed. I sort of imagine alcohol would just make me sleepy, well like anything that stops my mind from running on high. I don't exactly know any conscious state below high-mental activity, except if I'm tired and need sleep.
Well, I guess drugs are interesting to me because they seem as "short cuts" to changing my mood, and there are plenty of times, like this afternoon perhaps, where I'll just search for distraction over distraction until something interests me enough to keep my attention. And under that manic activity, there's some sort of anxiety or some feeling I don't like. So I'm seeking relief from feeling, whether through thinking, exercising, music, food, sex or whatever.
At times I wonder why I can't seem to do what I need to do, and I basically reduce it down to unhappiness/discomfort/anxiety. I'm conscious enough to see my decisions I don't like, mostly around food addictions. I can see other choices for relief, and sometimes simple ones, like exercise or something to raise my response higher than the easiest choice.
One of my worst vices, in my mind, the cruelest, is an irregular sleeping schedule, as the world allows me. I've been a night owl since middle school I suppose, when I first learned I could stay up all night. I had a paper route and sometimes in the summer I'd just stay up until 5am or whenever the papers came, deliver them and then go to sleep. I survived high school with a 7:50am start time, but did my share of sleeping in class. I made it through college, not missing too many classes, but also only took a few 8am classes. I'd work at the University and summer hours usually like 11am to 5pm, and yes, I rarely worked full time, and still don't if truth be told. I'm paid for 32 hours weeks, done this most of my adult life, even if there was crunch times where I could work 50+ when I had to.
And worse than short hours, in recent years I moved my sleep back as far as going to bed at sunrise, sleeping til past noon and repeating. I can see it, how it works, mostly a desire to steal more time, first stealing time from work, then stealing sleep to finish work. A crazy life, and it worked mostly.
Over the last year I've done somewhere near 25 running races in 15 months, most of them in the morning, so that's been one small "fear" that has pulled me somewhat into a morning schedule, although I think one or two I ended up doing them backwards, staying up and sleeping after - no recommended, but sometimes better than a couple hours of sleep. But overall it's been one force to help me. I noticed camping helps too, not having lights late at night, and a warm tent in the morning when its sunny, hard to sleep in, plus birds of course!
I had two interesting experiences recently that changed me, one I had a bike accident and broke my left collar bone, couldn't sleep except on my back, and I got stiff, so couldn't sleep as long. Second I had long-time female friend move in with me for the summer, now 5 weeks so far. We have about the same work schedule afternoon and early evening, so that doesn't help, except that I like spending time with her so we've done gardening and walks together in the morning.
It almost has seemed too easy, not to say I think I'm cured, just recognizing there is some special spell going on here, a gift from somewhere, and lasting I don't know how long. I remember a Yoga teacher suggested practicing everyday for 6 or 8 weeks before deciding to continue or not. On the surface it seems a huge effort, but I can see habits require time to develop, and I imagine sleep is similar.
Incidentally, I had started tracking my sleeping hours since February, and averaged between 7 and 12 hours of sleep per night over different weeks. The weeks of 10+ hour averaged came mostly from a crazy schedule of some days very short sleep, like 3-5 hours, and others of 10-15 hours. Anyway I recognized both sides were vices - short sleep encouraged to sleep too long the next night, and long sleep encouraged me to stay up too late the next night. But overall it was the long sleep that hurt the most. I never willingly slept only 4 hours, only when external schedules forced it.
In comparison, for the last 6 weeks I've averaged between 7 and 8 hours/night, two nights of 4-5, and one Saturday of 11 with a 3 hour nap, and otherwise 6.5 to 9 hours. I basically have gotten up between 6am and 10am every day, and mostly 8:30-9:00am, which is amazing for me.
I've mostly gotten up before my friend and made an oatmeal breakfast to share. It's been a good ritual, glad she appreciate simple food, and oatmeal is easy to mix stuff in for variation. Anyway it's a fun thing to have something to share, since I'm not much for cooking. It wasn't even planned. First I just asked her each morning if she wanted some, and then asked before going to bed, and finally I trusted she'd share some most of the time.
My addictions are not cured, and I can still stay up too late reading or on internet, but try to keep my wake time somewhat rigid, and leave work before midnight at the latest, again not saying much except from my past.
I would have to say love is involved, although not in any way I can understand. One part of me would say if love is real, let it be with her, and that's from not kissing her more than on the cheek. Well, basically there's complications of other relationships and loyalities from both of us, so nothing can be now more than sharing company and dreams as we can. I've wonder if I could ever be a person who could be married, or if married, if I could be one who would want to sleep together most nights, to conform MY schedule to hers and such, and my admittingly momentary thought is yes, and true or not, I have to admit I'd not want to have a relationship that didn't either sleep together nightly. It's not something I'd perhaps ever find, or even know I wanted, without someone close enough to imagine it.
And the scary thing is to realize ultimately how weak my resolve, outside of a magic spell of claimed love. And what is love? I mean even if I COULD win her heart, not just to have her declare her love to me, but desire to spend the rest of our lives together, I mean what holds my resolve for goodness when that happens. I almost wish to remain in this no-mans-land much longer to prove I'm worth something, not to be accepted too easily. I know myself at least well enough to know how easily I'm corrupted by ambition or weakness of resolve when things get hard.
So love side, I accept this special time to see who I might be if I change just a little, like this spell that allows me to get up by 9am when I don't have to.
And to the title, a good heart, I can't claim any virtue at all in my thoughts of love. They're as much as not selfish thoughts. Possessiveness scares me. I definitely don't think I am "enough" to contain the needs of her heart, so I must share her, must let her explore as her heart desires, whatever the result. So for now, again, push love aside, push aside ambition, accept we have each other for a moment, and can make good and help each other see wonder and beauty, discover dreams and hope. I'll call this love, even if so much seems "too easy", and the Scandinavian genes in me say there's always a price to be paid, and the easy stuff is just there to remember when it can't be there.
I risk reducing her being, wanting to see her as a pure heart, liberator of virtue and goodness, but I know she suffers too in her own ways, she fights her own shadows that confuse her intent and send her into superstitious games.
She's said that she doesn't believe in trying to change people, that we all can see our own weakneses and its up to us to face them. I certainly don't disagree, not at all. I certainly have my own fears that I can make a difference, seeing pain and poor decisions, self-destructiveness in another and knowing I can't help them.
I wonder how we can help each other, and I also know helping usually helps the helper more than the helpee. I mean the outward focus and intent are important, more than results. AND some help is easy - like sharing a bowl of oatmeal.
Coming from the safe but cold world of reason, as I do, I know it is easy, when confronted by apparent intractible complexity, ignorance, or clarity of purpose, I easily imagine a warmer climate where universal emotion leads, always leading back before the fall from the garden, before awareness of sin. Well, it all comes together in a fuzzy hope that if I could properly surrender ego and self-direction, that the heart can lead unimpeded to goodness.
I titled this blog "A good heart" mostly because I thought it a strange combination of words, mostly because I think the word good exists at the level of consciousness, while heart exists at a level that transcends judgements of good and evil, or if not transcends, then perhaps submerges good and evil.
I have a faith that feelings, longings, searching for expression for something inside that asks to become, that this holds potential for goodness. I think of Joseph Campbell, saying "Follow your bliss". But I also find there is always a cost involved, and so choices to be made, and most are made unconsciously.
It is interesting to me, from the religious side, virtues are defined that define goodness, and a person who follows them is considered good, even if that good means silent suffering and diminishing what we can become, leaving doors unopened because we're afraid of what we'll find on the other side, afraid it'll upset our carefully constructed goodness.
I can think of the drug Ecstasy, the drug that brings a sense of empathy and oneness with humanity, distant and universal, and close and immediate. It almost does sound like you get a chance to return to the garden and know what Adam and Eve knew before the fall.
Does the heart need drugs, or perhaps the mind needs the drug to surrender itself? I don't know, but it's one door I won't open myself, among most drugs. Sugar and caffeine seem quite sufficient to challenge my power of moderation. I mostly figure that drugs can't create anything within us that is not already accessible, even if in smaller quantities, so its better to find those access points on my own over depending on drugs. It's tricky, and I could accept the argument that taking a drug once might give me signs what to look for, but overall I'll take the boring safer road. It's not because I'm "good", merely preferring to be in charge of my own life and experiences. Well, and I can equally imagine drugs all have "costs", even if not clear. Even the best drug might wreck my motivational systems, making other needed tasks harder.
Alcohol is the funniest vice for me, so widely used and abused, and so far has offered me no purpose, or to say I've never drank enough at once to definitively feel any clear effect. Not to say I've not been affected, just to say I can't see it, and don't imagine any difference in me either way - might as well been drinking water for all I know, and I do like water! I've never really drank beer, not more than a few sips. I've drank up to 2 glasses of wine in an evening perhaps, but usually over multiple hours and with food. Mostly alcohol is funny since my ONLY real motivation to drink at all is social acceptance.
I have friends who learned to drink in High school, and I missed out the experimental stage I guess. Later in college I'd go to parties, mostly to talk to the pretty girls, and never really drank at all. My friends also would go to a cabin and spend a weekend drinking beer, smoking and playing poker. Okay, reading too during the day, and darts was fun. Anyway I never drank beer (or smoked), and one friend said he feel a little self-conscious or something to have everyone else drinking except me, like I would make fun of them. Sometimes conversation was better or more interesting with people drinking, but I didn't seem to need to drink myself. Still, again, I did feel different for this.
I don't think I'm resistant to alcohol at all, or that I couldn't become addicted. I'm just more addicted to having a clear mind than wanting to lower my inhibitions or whatever. It is funny because my experimental mind says that alcohol is mostly safe, and I COULD experiment, but in practice somehow, even if I schemed how I might "get drunk" as I'd always say or "get buzzed" as real drinkers say, it just doesn't seem fun enough, or "controlled" enough to learn anything from the experiment. So again, my "virtue" is nothing more than fear. It pisses me off 'cause it seems like others enjoy it, and I think I ought to just try, just once, and I never do?!
It's said that some people are "bad drunks", that all their darker emotions come out, anger and meanness. Others perhaps don't change their personality from "good" to "bad", they're just more relaxed. I sort of imagine alcohol would just make me sleepy, well like anything that stops my mind from running on high. I don't exactly know any conscious state below high-mental activity, except if I'm tired and need sleep.
Well, I guess drugs are interesting to me because they seem as "short cuts" to changing my mood, and there are plenty of times, like this afternoon perhaps, where I'll just search for distraction over distraction until something interests me enough to keep my attention. And under that manic activity, there's some sort of anxiety or some feeling I don't like. So I'm seeking relief from feeling, whether through thinking, exercising, music, food, sex or whatever.
At times I wonder why I can't seem to do what I need to do, and I basically reduce it down to unhappiness/discomfort/anxiety. I'm conscious enough to see my decisions I don't like, mostly around food addictions. I can see other choices for relief, and sometimes simple ones, like exercise or something to raise my response higher than the easiest choice.
One of my worst vices, in my mind, the cruelest, is an irregular sleeping schedule, as the world allows me. I've been a night owl since middle school I suppose, when I first learned I could stay up all night. I had a paper route and sometimes in the summer I'd just stay up until 5am or whenever the papers came, deliver them and then go to sleep. I survived high school with a 7:50am start time, but did my share of sleeping in class. I made it through college, not missing too many classes, but also only took a few 8am classes. I'd work at the University and summer hours usually like 11am to 5pm, and yes, I rarely worked full time, and still don't if truth be told. I'm paid for 32 hours weeks, done this most of my adult life, even if there was crunch times where I could work 50+ when I had to.
And worse than short hours, in recent years I moved my sleep back as far as going to bed at sunrise, sleeping til past noon and repeating. I can see it, how it works, mostly a desire to steal more time, first stealing time from work, then stealing sleep to finish work. A crazy life, and it worked mostly.
Over the last year I've done somewhere near 25 running races in 15 months, most of them in the morning, so that's been one small "fear" that has pulled me somewhat into a morning schedule, although I think one or two I ended up doing them backwards, staying up and sleeping after - no recommended, but sometimes better than a couple hours of sleep. But overall it's been one force to help me. I noticed camping helps too, not having lights late at night, and a warm tent in the morning when its sunny, hard to sleep in, plus birds of course!
I had two interesting experiences recently that changed me, one I had a bike accident and broke my left collar bone, couldn't sleep except on my back, and I got stiff, so couldn't sleep as long. Second I had long-time female friend move in with me for the summer, now 5 weeks so far. We have about the same work schedule afternoon and early evening, so that doesn't help, except that I like spending time with her so we've done gardening and walks together in the morning.
It almost has seemed too easy, not to say I think I'm cured, just recognizing there is some special spell going on here, a gift from somewhere, and lasting I don't know how long. I remember a Yoga teacher suggested practicing everyday for 6 or 8 weeks before deciding to continue or not. On the surface it seems a huge effort, but I can see habits require time to develop, and I imagine sleep is similar.
Incidentally, I had started tracking my sleeping hours since February, and averaged between 7 and 12 hours of sleep per night over different weeks. The weeks of 10+ hour averaged came mostly from a crazy schedule of some days very short sleep, like 3-5 hours, and others of 10-15 hours. Anyway I recognized both sides were vices - short sleep encouraged to sleep too long the next night, and long sleep encouraged me to stay up too late the next night. But overall it was the long sleep that hurt the most. I never willingly slept only 4 hours, only when external schedules forced it.
In comparison, for the last 6 weeks I've averaged between 7 and 8 hours/night, two nights of 4-5, and one Saturday of 11 with a 3 hour nap, and otherwise 6.5 to 9 hours. I basically have gotten up between 6am and 10am every day, and mostly 8:30-9:00am, which is amazing for me.
I've mostly gotten up before my friend and made an oatmeal breakfast to share. It's been a good ritual, glad she appreciate simple food, and oatmeal is easy to mix stuff in for variation. Anyway it's a fun thing to have something to share, since I'm not much for cooking. It wasn't even planned. First I just asked her each morning if she wanted some, and then asked before going to bed, and finally I trusted she'd share some most of the time.
My addictions are not cured, and I can still stay up too late reading or on internet, but try to keep my wake time somewhat rigid, and leave work before midnight at the latest, again not saying much except from my past.
I would have to say love is involved, although not in any way I can understand. One part of me would say if love is real, let it be with her, and that's from not kissing her more than on the cheek. Well, basically there's complications of other relationships and loyalities from both of us, so nothing can be now more than sharing company and dreams as we can. I've wonder if I could ever be a person who could be married, or if married, if I could be one who would want to sleep together most nights, to conform MY schedule to hers and such, and my admittingly momentary thought is yes, and true or not, I have to admit I'd not want to have a relationship that didn't either sleep together nightly. It's not something I'd perhaps ever find, or even know I wanted, without someone close enough to imagine it.
And the scary thing is to realize ultimately how weak my resolve, outside of a magic spell of claimed love. And what is love? I mean even if I COULD win her heart, not just to have her declare her love to me, but desire to spend the rest of our lives together, I mean what holds my resolve for goodness when that happens. I almost wish to remain in this no-mans-land much longer to prove I'm worth something, not to be accepted too easily. I know myself at least well enough to know how easily I'm corrupted by ambition or weakness of resolve when things get hard.
So love side, I accept this special time to see who I might be if I change just a little, like this spell that allows me to get up by 9am when I don't have to.
And to the title, a good heart, I can't claim any virtue at all in my thoughts of love. They're as much as not selfish thoughts. Possessiveness scares me. I definitely don't think I am "enough" to contain the needs of her heart, so I must share her, must let her explore as her heart desires, whatever the result. So for now, again, push love aside, push aside ambition, accept we have each other for a moment, and can make good and help each other see wonder and beauty, discover dreams and hope. I'll call this love, even if so much seems "too easy", and the Scandinavian genes in me say there's always a price to be paid, and the easy stuff is just there to remember when it can't be there.
I risk reducing her being, wanting to see her as a pure heart, liberator of virtue and goodness, but I know she suffers too in her own ways, she fights her own shadows that confuse her intent and send her into superstitious games.
She's said that she doesn't believe in trying to change people, that we all can see our own weakneses and its up to us to face them. I certainly don't disagree, not at all. I certainly have my own fears that I can make a difference, seeing pain and poor decisions, self-destructiveness in another and knowing I can't help them.
I wonder how we can help each other, and I also know helping usually helps the helper more than the helpee. I mean the outward focus and intent are important, more than results. AND some help is easy - like sharing a bowl of oatmeal.
posted by Ares Olympus at 6:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home