The Archaeology (Sociology, Anthropology, Biology...) of Joy
It feels like that. I am discovering/uncovering deeper joy, and it is amazing. I am learning more about the way I work, with myself, others, the world. I am trying to understand and be more... efficient.
I've always taken IMMENSE pleasure in sensory things. So much that I have learned to try to hide how much, though I am generally unsuccessful and people comment on it often. "You look so happy." "Every time I see you, you look happy!" "You always have a smile." "Gosh, you must really be enjoying ______!" etc. Socially and emotionally, I am almost always a wreck. I have to fight depression and self-loathing every day, anger and homicidal/genocidal/suicidal/matricidal/fratricidal/CATricidal feelings more often than I would ever want to honestly admit, and no one would believe how many days I take bad hits or flat-out lose (well, not on the 'cidal. YET.) But continue to fight I do, of course.
"It is fair to judge peoples by the rights they will sacrifice most for. Super-cat-men would have been outraged, had their right of personal combat been questioned..."
But the happiness is not faked*. Everything i see interests me. Even on the coldest day, a stray sunbeam can trap and fascinate me and turn my normal constant small smile into a truly stupid grin. Even at my unhappiest, a bird on the porch or the movement of the pine trees in the wind or the sharp sparkle of sun on the ripples of the river can just turn me to warm sensory goo. I am immensely grateful for this propensity, it has probably been a key factor in keeping me and my possibly victims alive this long.
"They will probably not even notice you; but if they do, you are lost. They take offense in a flash, abhor strangers, despise hospitality, and would think nothing of killing you or me on their way home to dinner."
But it causes me to seem to put on a false face. I look so friendly, happy, peaceful, and so many people take this literally at "face value" as it were, and that puts me in a lot of odd and tricky spots. I would like to be this content in all aspects of my life. It doesn't seem very efficient, but it does seem pleasant. The problem is that I am intrinsically NOT this way. Perhaps when I am fascinated by a sparkle or leaf-shudders, - i am also watching every single movement within my periphery, ready for whatever. When I am smiling so contentedly, I could be thinking about something you said on Facebook - or putting your favorite thing in the driveway and running over it (in YOUR car) until I feel it is small enough. Usually, I am not. Usually I AM thinking about how actually tasty licorice can be sometimes, or that sweet smooch i got on the eyelid yesterday, or how weather is god-love. My squishy, colorful personage combined with my expression of stupid pleasure often seems irresistible to all but the most sour or busy, and sometimes even them. Yet, my real nature, at least socially, is incredibly reserved, at least as far as connecting emotionally with others. my level of trust in the average person is VERY low, and even with my closest and most trusted friends, i have certain points beyond which i NEVER relax. I feel awkward around other people, even my closest friends (everyone but Chris, really) 100% of the time.
"A race of civilized beings descended from these great cats would have been rich in hermits and solitary thinkers. The recluse would not have been stigmatized as peculiar, as he is by us simians..."
It's a bad enough punishment that I often disappoint others with my disparate demeanor and nature. But being actually human and not a super cat person (darn.), what really makes a daily difference to me is how disappointed I am with myself and all my annoying flaws and mistakes. Like a cat person, my dignity has a very hard time suffering the constant blows. Which reminds me what a vain, selfish, wussy b@$t@rd ape I really am, etc. - thus the cycle continues. But continue to fight I do, of course. :)
"Like ants and bees, the cat race is nervous. Their temperaments are high-strung. They would never have become as poised or as placid as--say--super-cows. Yet they would have had less insanity, probably, than we. Monkeys' (and elephants') minds seem precariously balanced, unstable. The great cats are saner. They are intense, they would have needed sanitariums: but fewer asylums. And their asylums would have been not for weak-minded souls, but for furies."
Figuring out how to make the balance is not easy. Especially when you're as easily distracted and antisocial as I am.
"They would have been strong at slander. They would have been far more violent than we, in their hates, and they would have had fewer friendships. Yet they might not have been any poorer in real friendships than we. The real friendships among men are so rare than when they occur they are famous."
I have always been very analytical, and enjoyed it for the most part. It has served my survival instinct well. I am quite critical and quite judgmental, and so whatever my opinion, it is never garnered lightly. I have found that society generally frowns on this, no matter what they say, and I understand that this is often deemed inconsistent with my outward appearances.
"They would have been personally more self-assured than we, far freer of cheap imitativeness of each other in manners and art, and hence more original in art; more clearly aware of what they really desired; not cringingly watchful of what was expected of them; less widely observant perhaps, more deeply thoughtful.
Their artists would have produced less however, even though they felt more. A super-cat artist would have valued the pictures he drew for their effects on himself; he wouldn't have cared a rap whether anyone else saw them or not. He would not have bothered, usually, to give any form to his conceptions. Simply to have had the sensation would have for him been enough."
This nature also makes me feel definite and determined about my personal tastes and opinions. I think I'm pretty open-minded about other people's gigs. As long as no one's being hurt (unless that's their gig) and it's all mutual and consensual, I say, have fun. But I have spent a lot of time considering my own interests, and I feel like an expert on them.
"...to the west is a beautiful but weirdly bacchanalian park, with long groves of catnip, where young super-cats have their fling, and where a few crazed catnip addicts live on till they die, unable to break off their strangely undignified orgies. And here where you stand is the sumptuous residence district. Houses with spacious grounds everywhere: no densely-packed buildings. The streets have been swept up- or lapped up**--until they are spotless. Not a scrap of paper is lying around anywhere: no rubbish, no dust. Few of the pavements are left bare, as ours are, and those few are polished: the rest have deep soft velvet carpets. No footfalls are heard. There are no lights in these streets, though these people are abroad much at night. All you see are stars overhead...
Follow one of them. Enter this house. Ah what splendor! No servants, though a few abject monkeys wait at the back-doors, and submissively run little errands. But of course they are never let inside: they would seem out of place. Gorgeous couches, rich colors, silken walls, an oriental magnificence. In here is the ballroom. But wait: what is this in the corner? A large triumphal statue--of a cat overcoming a dog. And look at this dining-room, its exquisite appointments, its--daintiness: faucets for hot and cold milk in the pantry, and a gold bowl of cream.
Some one is entering. Hush! If I could but describe her! Languorous, slender and passionate. Sleepy eyes that see everything. An indolent purposeful step. An unimaginable grace. If you were her lover, my boy, you would learn how fierce love can be, how capricious and sudden, how hostile, how ecstatic, how violent!
I want to be a good, generous, thoughtful, helpful person, and be kind to, accepting/forgiving/loving/understanding of every person I meet, but I also think most people are complete !@#$ idiots, and that many of them are hateful, selfish b@$tards, and that we'd all be a lot better off if they'd get abducted by aliens and used (gently) for test subjects or space janitors.
"In the circus, superlative acrobats. No clowns."
I feel like, in a way, this is my life's work. Becoming the best person I can be, for my own sake and for the sake of the people who care about me - the true treasures I've found in this semi-scientific dig of my self. And there's that whole 'cidal thing too. Best to do what I can to keep from breaking that commandment at least, no matter how you - haha - slice it.
We cannot escape the fact are born to, eventually, fatally, fail. We are none of us more special than the other. We will age and die. We will make mistakes. We will break hearts and have our hearts broken. We will spend time in pain. We will never be perfect. We will often not get it right. 100% of us, no matter how we dissect and work on ourselves.
"The trouble is, it would defeat itself in the beginning. It would have too bitterly stressed the struggle for existence. Conflict and struggle make civilizations virile, but they do not by themselves make civilizations. Mutual aid and support are needed for that. There the felines are lacking. They do not co-operate well; they have small group-devotion. Their lordliness, their strong self-regard, and their coolness of heart, have somehow thwarted the chance of their racial progress.
Luckily, I've obsessively pondered all that too, for most of my life.
I believe I started off with enough of a handicap that I don't stand much chance of reaching enlightenment in this go around. But I'm ok with that. I have plenty of work to do here. And I'm having a LOT of fun anyway.
Whatever happens, I usually land on my feet (or at least my @$$, which is built for the eventuality. :)
"In literature they would not have begged for happy endings."
Love, peace and roasted fresh Seattle salmon-skin skin grease,
-s
*"They [Super-cat men] would not have been a credulous people, or easily religious. False prophets and swindlers would have found few dupes..."
All excerpts from This Simian World, Clarence Day. My kinda' self-help book! :)
**or gathered up and recycled for art supplies.
“None but the lowest dregs of such a race would have been lawyers spending their span of life on this mysterious earth studying the long dusty records of dead and gone quarrels.”
No surprise that the swing has swung back to Apocalyptica. It’s my basic default setting really. It would be pretty easy to blame the upcoming 40th b’day for part of this stress, and maybe in some ways, deep down, it is. But I’ve done the ‘how-do-i-feel-about-this’ self check: stared in the mirror, considered it for hours – where I’ve been, what I’ve done, possible regrets and the realistic future, and overall, I feel pretty good about where I am at this age, especially with all considered. This is more like the cyclical depression that seems to be as much a part of my daily ups and downs as my blood sugar level. Part of it is environmental. I have been reading some depressing news, and once the world gets it’s foot in my emotional door, I can’t seem to keep it from just coming right on in. China’s water problems, the general malaise of western youth, the social isolation problems in Japan, the ‘random’ horrible violence everywhere, the list is endless… every country, every individual needs something, some help, some strength, some forgiveness, some love, some money, some clean air…