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I, in instants, divested

 

Let me put it this way:  I find mysterious pockets of habitual thinking functioning like cradles of jell-o.

Say couple’s therapy is called for: I consciously feel gung-ho, pro-choice, empowered by trust and intention and reciprocal hope.  Our determination, our hope.  But the rear half of my skull, the scape my subject lands in, I realize is slicky, silently and squishily snuggling into a jello-y bed of “there’s something wrong with me.  I’ve got the problems.  We’re really trying to figure out why I’m so hard to live with; how my moods impede relational success and happiness; my fears – intimacy.  If the truth were told, my spouse is acting graciously and sacrificially in order to get me help.”  It’s as natural as instinct for me to believe I’m a burden, a difficulty, a special case.

The endless desires of youth.  Our adolescents seem never to be satisfied (perhaps aren’t even “meant” – biologically, psychologically, socially, developmentally – to be), rarely “up” for family events or participation in chores, games or outings.  Seem preoccupied with themselves and their wants and preferences, shifts and swerves.  Rationally – I sense the raging hormones; the violent ego-mania seeking a code, a reflection, its own DNA; the psychoses of self/other, boy/girl, love/lust and so forth – upheaval and growth!  But my torso is wiggling and sliding itself into the slushy comfort of “I have no idea how to guide these kids!  Who am I to parent and protect, encourage and inspire?  I’m just as fragmented, uncertain, conflicted, aroused and cynical as these guys!  No way I’m good enough, strong enough, wise enough, and so on… unqualified to father, even at directing myself!”

The list goes on – as reader, writer, artist.  As male, friend, laborer.  As handyman, citizen, spouse.  As mind, as body, as conglomerate selves:

How does it come so natively to cuddle in, automatically, unself-consciously and familiarly into negative perceptions, fraught with inadequacy, victimhood and failure, with no perpetrator(s) to blame?

Ideologically, philosophically, linguistically, aesthetically, psychologically, and so on, I can adapt party lines and mottos of health, truth, justice, fallibility and courage; equality and imperfection; becoming and process,

but wherever this social solidarity is not called-for or aimed at, this prompting to blend toward community or “normalcy,” my actual mind-body-complex demonstrates an incredible proclivity to nestle and burrow into a gooey surround of personal suspicion and doubt, misgivings and cynicism…like a worm to mud, or a fossil its imprint.

What the I/eye prefers.

How we see what we see.

How something – something – (but what is it?!)

contradicts mind’s understanding and body’s sensation/perception/evidence and goes its own hellbent way in whatever direction it selects!?

I-cipher.

I-estrangement.

I-observer,

                                                            for instants,

for instance.