[Miscellany]

My crisis of faith wasn't a crisis at all.  There is no crisis when truth is uncovered.  It just is.  I think truth comes into your world and that's the end of it.  Regardless of whether your truth be spiritual or scientific; it still brings about an enlightenment.  Your truth is enlightening to you.  I am philosophical enough to know that there is my truth, your truth and *the* truth. However *the* truth isn't ever going to matter anywhere but in the court of law. Even then what point is *the* truth when there is no way of ever proving it either way?  Does it even exist anywhere but in one's own heart?  That's hardly scientific but perhaps empirical knowledge is the key to understanding, here.

I used to believe in God but now I do not.  I used to believe that when humans die they stay with us as spirit.  That notion has helped me get through a lot.  It's helped me get through my father's death.  It helped me make sense of a world turned upside down to still feel him there with me - to talk to him when there was no one else to talk to and to feel comforted by the notion that someone still had my back, even if they weren't human at all.  It helped me to think (know!) that there was life after death, even if I didn't believe in God... or heaven or even if I didn't follow a dogmatic approach to things...and even if I was morally and intellectually opposed to anything religious.  It didn't matter to me that it was confusing that God was dead but my dad had somehow lived on.  My truth didn't have to make sense.  The truth doesn't have to make sense for it to be real.  Those kinds of details really don't matter when you are grieving.  They really don't matter even if you aren't grieving to be completely honest.  Don't judge until you have been there at age 16.

I'm not quite sure how truth came in or how I got enlightened but however it happened, it happened and here I am; embracing truth.. as I have done before, albeit from a different vantage point.  I don't know if it is *the* truth, but it's enough.  I can't say it's a *better* place to be but whether the truth of my past was truer than the truth that exists now is irrelevant.  In the end what it presently true is essentially more true that what was true before just because it's true now, to me.  Right?

So as I approach the 20th anniversary of the death of an important man, that wasn't really all that important to anyone else but me and the few people who loved him, I'm reflecting a lot on humans and death and decay.  I'm reflecting on the truth of humankind. I'm reflecting on how one little human being can explode all over the place just by disappearing and how the domino effect of that is greater than anyone can ever understand and how unimportant that is at the same time to anyone else and anything else going on in the world.

I'm looking at the truth and the truth is that there is absolutely nothing more than what your eyes see now.  There is carbon and worms and stardust.  And if you happen to die and don't exist anymore then did you ever?  I mean you were here, there's the photo that proves it, there's the headstone and there's the memory of you.  All these things fade however - even the headstone.  Things that humans build when they are alive decay unbelievably quickly when you take away the human element from them.  Buildings deteriorate, friendships are lost, love is gone and there is nothing left once you take the human bit away.

And what of that exactly? Sure there are the trinkets left behind; cufflinks or faded smiling photographs or that one little gift left in the form of interlocking silver hearts I wear sometimes as a pendant. These are the tributes one has of a person and we wear them and look at them to remind us or to grip on to because the essence of the real them does not exist anymore. They are a tribute but what are we tributing exactly?  Ghosts don't exist, spirits don't inhabit, memories fade and love is lost.  All these tangible and intangible things that we hold on to so tightly eventually fade as if they never existed in the first place and after all is said and done and the dust has settled again and the last paper decays and the memory dies with the last person well what of that existence?  It ceases to exist completely like it never did. What is left?  I suppose there is the empty seashell; the meaningless chaos of tragedy and near-misses.  There's that.

And what to make of 20 years that has gotten a lot harder in the last year, harder than it ever has been before?  What do I make of you now, Dad?  Did you ever exist and does it matter?  Is the sum of you encapsulated in the trinkets left behind when you left? Is it the nostalgia of you, the not-quite memories of something that is basically an untruth that has been manipulated by time and my memories of the way you might have been.  And when that smashed up memory of you dies or fades then do you die again, or is that your one true death?   What is the sum of 20 years?  Is it just time?  Is it just emotion?  What are you?  Where are you?  Who are you?  ...Who am I?

How can I miss the ghost of somebody that doesn't exist anymore so, so much?

But I do, I really do miss you.  I miss almost everything about you and that's the honest truth.

Labels: truth, truth time

posted by M at 10:53 pm 4 comments

I got called out on being the 'I know' girl the other day.  It's my go-to phrase: "I know".

I have this ability you see, and always have of just knowing things to be true.  I know if someone is going to be a right shit, even before I've met them properly.  I know and understand people's feelings often before they even realise them.  Sometimes I know how things will turn out.   I understand other people's emotional dramas.  I understand concepts, often before people even explain them fully (not maths *shudder*).  I guess I'm just perceptive.

I. Just. Know.

That is, to qualify this further, I am good at knowing things on an intellectual level.  I comprehend ideas and people very well.  It makes me a wonderful friend to have in your pocket.  I understand.  Yes truly I do.  When I was called out the other night on being the "I know girl" it was because I know nothing spiritually speaking.  I'm not talking about Jesus.  I mean as a base emotional knowing, I know nothing.

I guess that means that while I can be reflective, understanding, articulate and perceptive it rarely clicks over into a level so deep that knowing something changes my life.  I know for instance that I must live an authentic life, that is to honour my dreams, wishes and completely accept myself as I am.  However, despite knowing this, talking the talk and trying like buggery to live this way and thinking that I'm doing it right I'm still not.  I may even physically do things the exact same way as somebody else but still end up with a very different and unwanted outcome.  One can go to a million classes, a thousand doctors and many a positive talk seminar with the best of intentions but unless you are really able to be open it's just not going to work.  You see, I know this but clearly I don't or else positive things would be happening.

I've discovered that it's very hard for me to separate intellect from emotion.  I can think myself into or out of anything.  I am good at thinking.  I am a thinker and an philosopher.  I am also quite good at following instructions.  These skills get you nowhere outside of the classroom.  I am shite at the important stuff - that is at letting knowledge marinate so deep that it imbibes every cell and becomes the life I lead.  It's apparently not something you can learn through instruction - I've tried.

I'm frustrated about it because I don't know how else to be.
I know that I don't know and I don't know how I'm supposed to get to know.

Labels: about me, knowing, musings, oh I don't know, philosophy, the fact that I can write this entry proves my point, thinking, thoughts, truth time, wonderings

posted by M at 11:52 pm 6 comments

I've gotten to that stage where the one stable and fulfilling thing in my life is work. Mind you, that's not to say that work is good but it's just better than what else is on offer in my life, which isn't a lot. There, I'm still facing working way too hard for no recognition and dealing with, what has been described as a 'hornet's nest' by more than one outsider. I won't tell you what the insiders say. I need to leave, but I can't because it's the best thing that I've got going. Them's the breaks.

My family, that old chestnut, is fraying and unravelling like an old knitted sweater with a loose thread. Bro is absent and has been for a couple of years leaving me to deal with a mum who is stressed and heartbroken with a situation that is beyond my means of coping with. I put in more than a full day of work at my job and then make up the rest of the week helping to run a business for my mother and trying so very hard to be both daughter and son to a Mother who has lost a husband and who is by nature very high maintenance. I am an only child, in so many ways.

Somehow money has become an issue, with bills creeping up in such a way that have crippled me financially. I can't quite put my finger on how it disappears but it does. I don't spend excessively and I haven't been on a holiday in years, not even a weekender. I'm currently deciding whether to fuck it all and put a holiday on the credit card and deal with it later...but who knows if that's the right decision either?

Even MVOR isn't able to really help. With the money situation being typical for a teacher (bad) and the medicare situation not being good at subsidizing what they see as an option extra, like head shrinkers. I've had to drop back to once a month, which is really just enough to reiterate what I already know: Things are quite shit thanks.

Needless to say my health has felt the effects of this. I am tired all the time. I could sleep standing up if time allowed and have even, at times fallen asleep in the middle of a meal with my head resting on the plate. But sleep is a beautiful respite and I welcome it, whenever and however it chooses to find me. My humour, doesn't quite reach deep down far enough to cleanse what it used to so I trigger it with endless re-runs of funny, sweet happenings on my ipod, computer or television - trying to medicate the hole that was once filled with true emotion and real laughter with scripted stories that help me lose myself for a moment. It is the next best thing and thankfully they are readily available to me. I do lose myself frequently and it's glorious when I do.

What's left of my mind is really just hanging on by a thread. Every day I make it out of bed is an achievement that deserves a gold star right now and I've been good at hiding that fact from others who think that things are difficult but not yet desperate. I passed the sign post to desperate miles ago and I'm heading straight for ... well, who knows what comes next?

A festering knot of pulsating stress gnawing away at my insides doesn't even come close to describing what is going on inside me right now.

Soo... how are you?

Labels: melancholy, sad sack, truth time

posted by M at 11:14 pm 8 comments