Hi Boat,
I wonder if when someone you know (a bit) calls your name, you feel a squirt of adrenalin.
Because you are just burned out from what you're going through. And when the adrenals are exhausted,
even the simplest socializing, which only means two beagles are touching noses, feels like a forced march.
Perhaps the sheer doggedness and effort of this transition time in your life is like an endurance march.
Stopping to admire a little human flower (like a "Hi") is just more extra energy than you can spend.
Flowers/plants only give energy, but with humans, the energy goes two ways. And most of yours has to go to your healing/rescue.
The climb is on and if you get diverted by human flowers, maybe you fear you'll never get over the steep part to some level walking?
The only thing I fantasize is some way of signalling to others who do feel friendly that you may not be
able to respond with similar energy but have noted and perhaps appreciated their greeting...whether a
response like that might make you feel better about yourself. IOW, to respond without really engaging, what might work?
(I don't know.) Just free associating.
"Hey, I'm feeling burned out, probably won't talk much today." I dunno, is that TMI?
I was thinking about your class and the monologue you went through about not going.
I think you're probably absolutely right about the insipid material and how it is presented and how inadequate it is to address
the massive existential thoughts you are dealing with. Mjuch less be adequate for your level of creativity, individualism, and uniqueness.
But I think you should go anyway. Because what can happen for you is beneath the content or the topic or the presentation.
I may not express this very well and have 3 minutes, so please forgive if it's clumsy.
I think the critical thing when one is lost or floundering is to navigate to a place (with care) where one can experience humility
without shame. IOW, when you are in the canoe and have never had a paddling lesson and then one paddle is snatched by
a snapping turtle (okay, a very big snapping turtle) and despite your intelligence, your strong arms, and your keen vision,
all you know is the boat is rocking (not in a good way) and that there are dangerous rapids ahead.
Fortunately for you, there is an unattractive, obnoxious and irritating guide at the other end of the canoe. This person has
on a hideous shirt, seems dull as dirt intellectually, and behaves like the world's most boring and unimaginative boyscout (or
girlscout). But you are in that boat, and this person is the one who, with one paddle, can skillfully get you out of the rapids
and into a calm eddy where you can reorient, and s/he'll teach you one-paddle self rescue. (In an obnoxious fashion, of
course, because that's who s/he is.)
If you need help, then you need help. And as you are moving through things, you are going to be helped by a whole series
of these guides. They are not always going to be right and their tools may be cheap and generic (like a boring chipped up
paddle and ugly canoe) ... but if you need help, and you're not interested in drowning in the rapids, they're what you've got.
I think if you ask yourself not to "believe in" any ONE guide, but just continue showing up, continue cooperating, and practice
your paddling like they have suggested as earnestly as you can (even when you're flailing at the water), that the thing beneath
the content will get stronger and more effective and one day, doing your followup work or sitting and listening, something
will shift, and you will be not magically ready to persist and move forward and try again, but you will be ready o persist and
move forward and try again.
I think accepting help, even ugly and boring help, without shame (or minimizing your shame at every opportunity with
thought-stopping) will result in coordination and confidence. Really from nothing more than practicing the paddling.
Hard and tedious but when you show up and remain earnest and overlook who the guide is or what the canoe looks like
then the water beneath the canoe (the thing beneath the content) will begin to lift you. You'll find that the receiving help
experiences add up to something. Each little sweaty straining one slowly turn into becoming a canoeist.
Now I should go and not reread this because it's so rambling I'm afraid it loses its usefulness, but take anything helpful
and drown the rest!
hug
Hops
