You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression

I posted this on my Live Journal a few months ago.   Since Live Journal has gone through an ownership change I have deleted that account and am now reposting this here.

Sometime in the late 1980s I started to hear the name Trump. Trump this, Trump that, Trump blah, blah, blah.  He'd built a building in New York City; something so banal that it certainly did not warrant such publicity.  One thing it did tell me was that this man was in love with his own name; and himself.  A few years passed and I was flipping through the channels one day and happened across him being interviewed along with his wife, in a parking lot of all places.  She didn't say one word, he however did plenty of talking.  Not only was he in love with his name, he was in love with the sound of his own voice; the why of that I will never comprehend.  He talked about how the only thing important in life is one's health and other such platitudes.  

As I watched him my gut reaction was, “every word that comes out of this man's mouth is a lie.  He is a con man; and he is cheating on his wife.”  I changed the channel and hoped I would never have to hear about him again.  Of course the news was unavoidable when it was announced a couple of months later that he was divorcing Ivana in favor of his mistress. 

Through the ensuing years I have never had reason to change that impression of him.  All through last year's campaign I thought people would be able to see through him.  His skills as a salesman served him well as people bought his rhetoric. He claimed that he would make America great again while never once defining how or when it had lost its greatness and what he planned to do to restore this so-called lost greatness. Apparently this is what 62 million well placed people wanted to hear. I can't recall anyone, either citizen or press asking him straight out how America was not great.  

He played into insecurity and fear, enticing voters with catch phrases and sound bites, using the old ploy of: The Other.  All the voters' problems are the fault of The Other and he can swoop in and fix everything.  It's a tactic so overused it's become tiresome.  

Have people forgotten how their ancestors were once not wanted here because they too were deemed to be terrorists? 

I have tried to look at the election through the eyes of a Trump voter and I can only see people looking for a scapegoat, which I find ironic.  I have had to make peace with the fact that no matter what there are fellow Americans who will support Trump even if he manages to get us all nuked off the face of the earth.  There is someone whose last thought just before being vaporized is that this man was the best president ever.  Tact and diplomacy are vital skills for a president, yet he has neither.  He has bluster and chicanery.  He dangles a shiny object (a wall, for instance) in front of people to distract them from what he is really doing (dismantling democracy.)

I'm still not convinced he ever really wanted the job; the publicity, absolutely, but not the job.  I'm definitely not convinced that he has what is best for the country at heart.  I am convinced that his primary goal is to further enrich his family and himself.

I'm exhausted and depressed to the point of physically aching, and there's something deep in my soul that is tired of the cycles of history and sighs wearily as it says, “not this sh*t again.”  I try to take comfort in the unity that has arisen, but I am worn out from a lifetime of clinging to silver linings from storm clouds. Right now I'll settle for no nuclear war and for national lands to be saved.  I remember the Cold War and never once believed that we would actually be attacked or that we would attack, I am not so self-assured now.

Being Independent, this election, to me, was not about Democrat vs Republican or liberal vs conservative or man vs woman.  It was about this particular candidate.  If any other Republican had been elected I don't think we would be seeing the protests that are happening.  It's about competence more than politics.  On election night I felt as though I was falling down the rabbit hole and I thought I could handle this because I naively thought he'd be kept under control by less impulsive people around him.  I thought Congress would keep him in check, as it is supposed to do.  At least the Judicial branch still remembers how to do its job.  The rest of the government should take heed from one of its founders, Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in 1778: "When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall."

My Thoughts on "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster"

Although The X-Files is fond of saying, “the truth is out there,” every now and then they give a wink and a nod to the truth being “in here” (or there, depending on one's point of view.) If The X-Files purest quest is about finding the truth, then they can stop production permanently because they have given us the truth, sugar-coating it in tongue in cheek references to help the medicine go down.

Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster has touched off a debate between viewers who felt the episode “too campy” and those who remind them that the show always had its share of comic episodes. What both sides seem to be overlooking is that beneath the Easter Eggs and Mulder's mid-life crisis was a story of an entity thrust into an overwhelming world he didn't even want to try to understand. (And most certainly didn't want to exist in.) There are some who have commented that this episode was not scary enough. I found this episode to be the most frightening episode; ever.

Has any episode ever confronted the banality of the human condition with such on the mark, center of the dart board precision?

Some examples:

Mulder: You lose someone recently?

Guy: Yeah, myself.

This is an illuminating exchange because it brings up the struggle so many people go through when they lose touch with the core of their being. We know it's there, but it's been buried or hidden from us or through circumstances beyond our control we can't connect with it anymore. It's disconcerting, and it's something that every person must deal with as it is more of a rite of passage than any man-made rite such as graduation or marriage. This loss of identity can send people on a lifelong journey to find themselves. Some people give up. Some deaden themselves. Some shove the question away, not wanting to face it. Others jump from fad to fad trying to find the answer, looking for an external answer; but the answer can only be found within.

The rest of the quotes are all from Guy, with my commentary in parentheses.

“...too overcome with human fear to quit.” (Isn't this the way most people live their lives? Cowed by expectations and societal norms, too afraid to live the truth that's in their hearts?)

“...'cause life's hopeless, a few fleeting moments of happiness surrounded by crushing loss and grief.” (That's it, right there, the truth that most people try keep at bay by soothing themselves with busy-ness so that don't have to confront this basic fact of life. I know I have a depressive personality, and I do my best to fight it, but I have been sitting here for ten minutes trying to come up with any times in the past five years that have been fun, and have come up with very little. Worse, it occurred to me that this Monday, February 8 would have been my brother's 50^th birthday; had he not been killed by a drunk driver when he was 19. There is a solace from my father's death in that I no longer have to be sad for his sadness on my brother's birth and death days. I know some people use the mantra, “feel the fear, do it anyway.” I amend it to, “feel the depression, do it anyway.” It does help.)

“I have to get out of bed and deal with being a human.” (It's an unfortunate after-effect of waking up.)

“There isn't an external logic to any of it.” (Another truth.)

“...because if there's nothing more to life than we already know then there's nothing but worries, self-doubt, regret and loneliness.” (This actually illuminates how much Guy has missed in his sojourn into the human condition. I have to find something positive, if only for my own sanity. For there is of course so much more to life than that list of negative experiences. There's play, and music, and creativity, and laughter, and champagne, and chocolate, and sometimes champagne and chocolate combined.)

It's Saturday now and the reaction to this episode continues as it started. I have started to wonder if perhaps I am reading too much into the episode. The phrase “ignorance is bliss” keeps running through my head, but am I the ignorant one for seeing something not there? Or are the other commentators blissful in their non-awareness? Is there some sort of immunity to the horror of being locked in this body that I don't have? And if so, is there a way to get immunity? I envy the bliss of the people who found this episode “too comic.”

Having been spoiled on a plot point for this Monday's episode all I can say it, “be careful what you wish for.” Last week's episode too funny for you? I'm sure this one will remedy that.

I hope Monday's episode does not dip into the “tragedy brings people together” cliché. This is nothing but false comfort, trying to put a positive spin on horrific circumstances. People do come together and pitch in in a crisis, of this there is no doubt. But long lasting positive change is rare, and at its heart, based on melancholy circumstance. Another deeply hated cliché is, “we cannot know joy without having known sadness.” What utter rubbish, designed to cover up the scars. We are born joyful and learn the rest through the experience of the human condition.

It's sad, for what is the human condition other than that to which we are conditioned? By other humans, no less, who have no idea what they are talking about because of the way they have been conditioned. Most people don't know they have been conditioned at all. To them it's just life. The human condition; that's just the way it is.

That's not for me; and it doesn't have to be for the rest of humanity either. We could be so much more than we are.

Alternatives

My jury is still out on the theories of alternate or parallel universes; but sometimes the thought that there is another me out there somewhere having a much more fulfilling life is the only thing that keeps me going.

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Happy New Year?

or as I like to think of it, "Happy Day to Distract Us From It Being Winter."  Must be the Roman in me, I've never been able to reconcile a new year in the winter.  For me, a new year starts in the spring, that's when the new beginnings are, not now when everything is dormant and waiting.  (It doesn't help that my birthday is in spring, thereby throwing more rebirth into the mixture.)

 I don't put much stock into a number on a page; it can set one up for failure.  There can be so much pressure to put too much emphasis on today as a fresh start.   A fresh start can happen any time a person invests in themselves; the date on the calendar is irrelevant.

No resolutions for me; perhaps some intentions.   For example; living life as it is intended to be lived, with joy instead of sorrow.

Another intention:  to empower myself for making it through the hells of my life instead of seeing myself as weak for having experienced them.   I spent most of last year telling myself, "I have been through worse."   True though that is, I wasn't giving myself enough credit.  I was still seeing those experiences as events which excluded me from life instead of being the moments that were my life.  They were not experiences to be ashamed of, but instead, they were experiences to be acknowledged and stood upon as a monument to survival.

Stephen Sondheim hits this out of the park in his song, "I'm Still Here" from "Follies."

Good times and bum times,
 I've seen them all and, my dear,
I'm still here.
Plush velvet sometimes,
Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
But I'm here.

The song continues to chronicle the ups and downs of a lifetime of experience with the singer emphatically declaring their survival.

 Yes, 2015, I'm still here.  

Shakespeare Said It Best

There is nothing new under the sun.   Technology may change; but human interplay does not.   

The work of William Shakespeare contains many brilliant insights into the human condition; none more apt than the following quotation:

                                                 “All the world's a stage

                                                  And all the men and women merely players:

                                                  They have their exits and their entrances;

                                                 And one man in his time plays many parts...”
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     - “As You Like It”  Act II Scene vii  

There are different interpretations of this quote. 

One:  We go through life from transition to transition.  Baby, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Senior; each transition has its own challenges and rites.  There are touchstones that according to society we are supposed to mark in each stage of life. (Not that I necessarily agree with these touchstones, but they are there.)  We interact with our fellow humans; they interact with us.  We come, we go; day in and day out. 

Two: We are just as much made of light and shadow as a character on a movie screen.  We are the ones taking on a persona when we take on a body.   We have the option to be anyone we want at any time we want.  We are no more married to any aspect of personality than an actor is to a role he or she plays.   There is great power in this.  We do not have to accept other's opinions concerning ourselves.  We are free to define ourselves one way one day; then if that doesn't work for us, we can define ourselves another way on another day.  We can build our own characters by collecting all the traits we want and eliminating those which hinder us.

Detachment is key. Banishing limiting beliefs from one's mind brings freedom.  It is imperative to disengage from the drama of life.  Nothing is accomplished by wallowing in drama (except for creating more drama.)  Observation brings insight; insight brings solution.   

Life is playing out on the world stage.   How do we choose to participate in it?   

First Post (Exciting Title)

It's strange; I write so often, yet have been hesitant to start posting because I want every word I post to be insightful and sparkling with wit.   That isn't the way life works though, is it?   I suppose it's a given that a year from now I will look at this post and think, "how could I have written something so not in line with what I think now?"  Or "did I really post that?  What was I thinking?"  

The only thing I am thinking right now is that I have to start posting because stuff is running through my head and it wants to be written.   

I have felt suffocated my whole life. Some people might call it being repressed, but it feels deeper than that to me. I literally feel like my soul is entombed in this suffocating body.   It aches to be able to express itself beyond the confines of this flesh.   I can't remember a time when I didn't feel suffocated, not even when I was in those supposedly carefree days of childhood.

I hope I have reached the bottom point of suffocation and am now trying to push my way through the layers of darkness that have engulfed me.    I don't know what's at the end of that process, I don't even know if there is an end to the process.   I only hope I can find a place to breath.  

So where does the title of this blog come from?   It's my answer to the age old, "why am I here?" question.   If we accept the notion that we are souls on a physical journey, then there was a time before incarnation when we made the choice to be here.  (Because I can't fathom that the universe is random enough that we just arrive here without any forethought.)   Sometimes it feels like the bait and switch tactic was used, "go on back to Earth, you can do so much good, it won't be as bad as before.  And they have chocolate."   Yup, fell for that one.   Forget about the soul crushing pain, focus on the chocolate.   That's my life plan at this point; I'm here for the chocolate.

This does not mean I am abdicating my responsibilities toward my fellow journeyers.  This blog is my way of coping; it's a way of sharing my philosophy, which I hope others will read and be inspired to create their own philosophy.  We can't expect that any institution is going to save us from ourselves, we have to be our own saviors.  (Please note that that is not a capital S on savior; I have no interest in fighting about religion.)

We have to remember the truth of our being and use our power instead of continuing to think there is someone else out there who is somehow better qualified to live our lives for us. 

Tomorrow's post:  Just What Is This Philosophy Anyway?