Monday, January 25, 2010

when the oriental girl of my dreams finds me in my sleep...


....then i know that things are turning around in my psyche....

i mean, literally, in my dreams....it's a recurring dream [more meaningful than the 'i'm in my underwear and am late for a test' type---though they certainly have their use] in multiple forms that always signals a process of deep unification, not the typical western male fetish of going 'asian'----though i think the reasons behind both phenomena are similar: coming together [easy now] with the 'other', whether it be outwardly or inwardly foreign; she represents previously unrecognized parts of the self becoming recognized. in my case especially, the 'left' meets 'right' [east meets west] sides of the body, hemispheres of the brain, methods of dealing with the world, paradigms ring true.

so, i spent some quality rem-time with her...and i get the feeling that it is she that i will have to court before any non-disasterous courtship can happen in the 'real' world.

i wonder if asians dream of americans or africans [or any other, take your pick] when something in their psyches congeals?

the above 'dream-date' [sorry!] followed a day of heavy processing. i wrote frantically and honestly about my early musical miseducation [obliquely referred to in my previous depressing rant] and really felt the pain of the loss 25 years later.

a word about [my] depression: yes, there are people who can't function or who would destroy themselves without medication...but i'm not one of them, though i've been a friend of darkness for as long as i can remember. my depression is based on not feeling feelings that i need to feel to be able to move on; medication would prevent this process by killing the feelings with numbness and apathy. yesterday, i felt a neat parcel of them, personally addressed to me...

i hear a lot of 'but you have so much not to be depressed about' types of pep-talks. some i appreciate, some are patronizing, most miss the point. the point is this: my process [verb] is stuck on the inside. my outside [noun] experiences could be far worse...marauding hoards have not ransacked my village, making me watch them perform unsavory acts to those i love...etc. but then again, the same could be said of most people in the modern western world. this type of outdated thinking is a cognitive dead end and only leads to an insidious type of survivor's guilt. if we are ever going to step into a healthier framework, we have to find tools to deal with this guilt and its ilk, like being able not to feel bad about seriously considering or asking the question, 'what do i want to do with my life?' then, i think, we'd feel our abundance, actually feel it...then we can give it freely!

this is maslow-ian hierarchy of needs stuff:

we first world-ers have long since won the battle for things, material survival ['physiological' and 'safety' levels of the pyramid], but it is amazing that we still have the vestiges of the thinking ---a scarcity consciousness, if you will---that helped us to fight and win the battle. perhaps that is the real scar. the victory has become a trophy which has become a fetish we worship onanistically, a reflected exaggeration of our power---technology. how interesting that as soon as we nail down the bottom of the pyramid that the upper levels start to show cracks---the nature of our problems changes. they become more subtle, ethereal, abstract, not as gross and material. refined is the pompous, yet true, word. we need to develop a more refined technology of the upper three levels. not gadgets [things]. different ways of thinking. then we can help others build and repair their pyramids. the life of bill gates illustrates this process almost-novelistically well: from world's richest techno-capitalist to world's biggest philanthropist in 25 years....and what have i done in the past 25 years? ahem...

back to my point: treating depression in a 'thing', noun, materialist way has become the norm via the technology of drugs, and, hey, if you're depressed because your nerves are deficient in certain neurotransmitters, then this is the appropriate solution. reach into the noun [your skull] and tweak the mechanism...bang. done. bill my insurance [ah, if i could afford it ;-) BUT, if you happen to be having upper pyramid issues, different tools are needed.

cooked.

love,
dan

2 comments:

  1. I think your oriental girl left a comment two posts ago, and you blanked her dan, you blanked her!!! Well these posts are very good stuff. Just thought I'd check in and see what you are up to. How are you going? Are you into attending my novel writing course? It was cancelled for lack of interest this term, but the former members wish to carry on privately. They have to pay £50 but you could sit in for free if you promise not to barrack the tutor.

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  2. omg, gary, was that mika?! i'm VERY SORRY if she was insulted by my cluelessness. my 'huh?' was just a prompt for further discussion...actually i thought that the post was a random web 'drive-by'...let's definitely talk about your course!!

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