My Head Hurts

I’m hoping that writing can relax me at times like these. What times are these? You might expect a diatribe about the world situation, maybe work is getting me down. But I’m afraid that doesn’t scratch the surface – or rather it only scratches the surface. Times like these are linked to inner neurosis – a recurring theme. A good friend of mine told me that at times like these – such inexplicable bouts of mental freezing – that I should report to the outside world – “My head hurts”. Though, my head does not hurt physically, maybe people could grasp that better than the truth – the truth is, I don’t know what is wrong and therefore I do not know how to fix it.

So writing is kind of nice because it goes on and on – it kills time, so to speak. Those in our Sangha at Emaho have been expressly admonished by our great Guru, ZaChoeje Rinpoche to not kill time. We should not kill time – we should instead face the facts, face our situation – not fight it as in some sort of warlike grappling, nor should we run away. Or run ‘avay’, as Rinpoche’s particular accent presents it. But it is okay for me to kill this time from Rinpche’s point of view – that is for certain. He does not hold expectations of his students. I would think he would be reluctant to call any of us students, in fact. So I will indulge here in some time killing – to the detriment of my poor mind.

This blog, Authentic Personality, has become a “Buddhist” blog. I did not intend for that to happen. I intended initially for it to be something like Reality Carnival – a mish mash of many interesting things that I find on the Internet. As I continue on in my slight Internet addiction (only slight because I don’t jones for the Internet when I am on retreat or camping or making love), I feel more and more exhausted. So much information – so much one can learn, so much exposure to people’s ideas. I used to kill time by watching television. I used to watch TV all day long. My father wasn’t around much but never-the-less I would sometimes get grounded for something – like not cleaning my room or whatever. I would be grounded but of course no one was around so there wasn’t much getting in the way of me breaking the rules. TV was my thing – I would watch it when I wasn’t supposed to and I would record the show’s audio so that I could listen to it again in bed that same night. I would listen to ‘I Love Lucy’, the same episode, several times in a day. Out of that experience would swell this wretched feeling of a life wasted, or at least a day wasted. I would feel almost dead. As I got older I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching more and more TV. I would feel dead if I wasn’t being entertained, so I just flipped the channels incessantly. Have you ever forgotten what TV show you were watching during a commercial? The commercial is half way over and you are thinking – ‘what the hell am I watching?’ Then: “Oh, of course, ‘I Dream of Jeanie’ ”. Well that feeling is starting to creep up as I watch the Internet – I can read about quantum physics and meme replication and autism cures and the way meditation is helping the elderly enjoy life again, but the feeling of a life wasted goes along with it, right there along with it.

Now if you read this blog, you know that I am a Buddhist – not like a card carrying member – but my language is Dharmic – I think in terms of impermanence, emptiness, and freedom from ignorance. It is definitely not Buddhist to be thinking of a life as either worthwhile or not worthwhile, so all of this thinking is outside of the scope of what I know is correct – I should be able to just sort of see these types of thinking, label them as such – ‘this is thinking’, and move on. But now it is difficult – now – in the last few days it has been very difficult to even make eye contact with other human beings. I’ll give you an example:

I decided to go to the grocery store and buy some soda. I bought a 12 pack of diet Pepsi and a 12 pack of diet coke, because a friend of mine only drinks diet coke. I of course, like diet Pepsi. I like diet Coke too, however, so this seemed like a great thing to do. I also bought a single, glazed donut. At the checkout, the old lady there scanned each item and told me that my total was $12 and change. I thought, ‘holy cow, I didn’t know soda was so much money’. Tanya, my wife, has been doing the shopping lately so it took me a second to come to my senses. In the parking lot I checked the receipt and found that I had saved 12 cents on the donut – 12 times! I was charged $4 for a dozen donuts instead of 33 cents for the one I had purchased. So, I decided to take the receipt back in and get my money back. I walked back in the store passing one of the old greeters. I was really besieged at that moment by feelings of guilt, which I might go into more detail in a moment, but who knows what the future will bring? That guilt was accompanied by a feeling of real dread and exhaustion in my body and so I just stood there with my receipt in hand, staring at the old lady clerk who had pushed the wrong buttons. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face her. It was very busy – long lines – and I didn’t want to explain to her that she had made a mistake – I found the whole situation entirely embarrassing. I felt embarrassed for all of us – as human beings – I felt embarrassed to be standing in a grocery store, my stomach churning from that donut. I turned around and started to walk out but I saw the greeter again – the old man who says hello to everyone to give them a sense that there are human beings occupying the store and probably to make shop lifters nervous. I couldn’t bear the idea of walking past him again – I didn’t want him to see me wasting my time and being so embarrassed. So I walked to the other end of the store to exit and threw out my receipt – to eliminate the chance of me getting that money back and feeling the embarrassment of being human all over again.

I’ve been very reluctant to write like this since I started the blog. I really want to help people. I really want to get some things on here that are helpful to other people, but I don’t feel like anyone will trust that if I myself am still messed up. I hope that people can believe that they are intrinsically okay – that they have this great Buddha Nature that makes them entirely worthy of the air they breathe – before you all open your mouths you are already worthy of this life. But who can believe that? Who doesn’t feel undermined by their own neurosis? I don’t know. When my friends are down they will usually say, ‘I have done such a bad thing’ or ‘I am not good enough’ or something. That is how I am feeling now and so I am giving myself the same words I give them, ‘give me an example of someone who has their shit together – really tell me of someone who has achieved happiness in their life’ Well for me, there is Rinpoche. He seems happy. He seems always happy. But that happiness makes me feel infinitely far away when I am overwhelmed. I feel like a monster of distress compared to his brightness. Other times, however, I feel that we are both just here – like two rocks on a lonely path staring eternally at the stars and clouds. That is a much more appropriate feeling.

Dharma, I say, has saved my life. Dharma is why I haven’t fouled up completely. But I am seeing that there is that possibility still – of fouling up completely.

STOP

No. What is being fouled up? What does completely mean? I guess I mean I see the possibility of losing my ground once again. I have lost so much confidence over the last few years – confidence in just being able to do a day to day effort. My mind turns to glue and sounds like a broken record. I think of creative ways of killing myself – these ideas come up as cartoons of self-inflicted violence. I am not suicidal – but who knows what would happen if the images persisted long enough. Divine images of Chenrezig have been replaced by comically absurd visions of my head popping off my neck and shooting into the stratosphere! This is not a ‘wholesome object of meditation’, I don’t think.

I’ve been working hard on a side job lately – doing web development. I have officially dropped the ball on that – in 4 days time. All you have to do, it seems, is not make contact with the team for 4 days and you have officially dropped the ball. So now I am impotent – unable to accomplish what I set out to do. Perhaps there is a way to pick things back up, but I am really shaken. It’s said that schizophrenics (which I am not, I do not think) are hurt very badly with every psychotic break. Their symptoms comes to such a crescendo that they lose total touch with reality that they sort of slide permanantly towards greater degrees of mental sickness – so it is inadvisable, for instance, to play with getting off of the medications to see if one can make a run at the world without that ‘crutch’. So when I hit this wall it comes as a real dilemma – it feels like every time I go through this mess I permanantly lose more confidence. It is entropy. It is atrophy.

Why do I seek so desperately to identify with mental sickness? In one of my teeny angst journals I remember being upset that I couldn’t fully commit to being insane. Why is this? Why do I want so desperately to be freed from having to take responsibility for my actions? Well, that’s wrong. I do take responsibility, what I want to be freed from is actually having to perform anything, of actually having to do anything at all! Since I was in high school I have wanted to be allowed to be crazy – to be bent. I wonder if that is because I am already bent and I need some help. I feel like I need some sort of help.

Everyone freaks out. I think that is true. That is what I am told when I reveal my problems to others – ‘everyone freaks out’. What can I say in the face of that? I am at a loss.

And I can’t go on just typing and typing here. It will come to nothing – I need to get back to the grindstone and stop ruminating. If you have read this far, thank you for indulging me in reading this. It’s not clever, it’s not funny, but it is what is rolling around in my head; so on that level it is such – it is as it is. Chris is freaked. Thank you very much. Oh, and lest you be worried, this is officially freak out #6984. I am pretty good at unfreaking. I have turned over enough new leaves to fill an autumn. My head just hurts a little.