Namaste, Bitches

Talked to Rob about my shallow emotions, and my inability to feel anything deeply. He doesn't care as long as I'm not mean to him or the dog. He's ok with me pretending/acting, whatever. He also told me that I am different from almost everyone he's ever met in one important way - I accept. I accept other people pretty much at face value, and I'm a live-and-let-live kind of person at heart. I do judge other people, but it's mostly in my own head and I don't really expect other people to stop doing what they're doing just because I think they're a bad person - as long as they're not doing it to me.

It's not like my disaffection prevents me from doing anything. I'm not always motivated to provoke others or anger others or push other people's buttons. Inasmuch as I like the free entertainment it provides, I can also be kind. I can act compassionately, even if I'm not a compassionate or empathetic person. I know the difference between 'right' and 'wrong', and what is socially acceptable behavior in most situations. I've been doing it all along, anyway. Doesn't matter what I feel or don't feel, as long as I know what to do.

I think the most important thing is that I start accepting myself, with all my kinks and quirks. Stop beating myself up for being a bad Pagan (hellooo Apatheism!), stop beating myself up because I have the emotional depth of an ice cube tray, stop beating myself up because I communicate better with dogs & computers than people.

I am kind, and I can be kind to myself, too.

It finally dawned on me that I respond to deep emotions and emotional displays much like I respond to maggots.

Once upon a time, I went to pick up the neighbor's garbage can. It had fallen over in the street, and I was being neighborly. As I approached the garbage can, I could hear a Rice Crispie sound coming from it, the fabled sound of maggots busy eating.

Now, I still would like to somehow be involved in the caring of dead people, and when you work for the dead, you encounter maggots. But I've never actually done any field work, so to speak. When I was a little kid, I had a knack for finding rotten things in unexpected places & that basically means I've stuck my hand into maggot-ridden carcasses of dead animals. So it's embarrassing to admit that I couldn't pick up my neighbor's maggot-ridden garbage can. 

And it wasn't just a matter of looking into it, seeing maggots & going 'Ewwwww' all the way back into my garage. I mean, I stopped dead in my tracks and had a fifteen-minute argument with my hands and feet. Consciously and fully aware, I kept telling myself, "You will pick that garbage can up and move it onto the sidewalk. Now go!"... and my feet refused to move forward, and my back refused to bend over, and my hand refused to grab the garbage can. Flat-out disobeyed direct orders from my brain. It was a weird sensation. I had developed a sudden case of paralysis. My hands were clenching into fists and back out, my toes flexed, I could feel all my muscles preparing to take a step - but nothing happened. When I finally stopped fighting myself, I almost fell flat on my ass because all those straining muscles relaxed all at the same time. I had no problem turning around and going back to the garage.

That's what it's like for me. I face any number of uncomfortable, weird or awkward situations, or a potentially emotional situation, or the emotional outburst of another person - and no matter what sort of pep talk I launch in my head, I cannot move forward. And the sudden-onset paralysis creeps into my brain, too. The pep talk is squashed into silence. I cannot act or react. I just stop.

Why do I do these things to myself?!

I've been between tears and laughter all day. I hate crying at work. At least I live in a cube and I can sort of stare into the corner of my cushioned gray walls. I tell Rob that I would like to let my more compassionate, caring side show and today I got bombarded by emotions and memories and most of all I remember why I don't open myself up to this kind of thing. My heart hurts, like a crazed bird bashing itself to death on the bars of its cage.

If I didn't have to go to work tomorrow, I'd drink myself into a tequila hazed stupor. I'd listen to this song over & over again & sob drunkenly into my hands.

Sometime Around Midnight ~ The Airborne Toxic Event

And it starts, sometime around midnight.
Or at least that’s when you lose yourself
for a minute or two.
As you stand, under the bar lights.
And the band plays some song
about forgetting yourself for a while.
And the piano’s this melancholy soundtrack to her smile.
And that white dress she’s wearing
you haven’t seen her for a while.

But you know, that she’s watching.
She’s laughing, she’s turning.
She’s holding her tonic like a cross.
The room’s suddenly spinning.
She walks up and asks how you are.
So you can smell her perfume.
You can see her lying naked in your arms.

And so there’s a change, in your emotions.
And all these memories come rushing
like feral waves to your mind.
Of the curl of your bodies,
like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless and homeless
and lost in the haze of the wine.

Then she leaves, with someone you don’t know.
But she makes sure you saw her.
She looks right at you and bolts.
As she walks out the door,
your blood boiling
your stomach in ropes.
Oh and when your friends say,
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Then you walk, under the streetlights.
And you’re too drunk to notice,
that everyone is staring at you.
You just don’t care what you look like,
the world is falling around you.

You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You know that she’ll break you in two.

In other news, I've got an interview with the Aladdin Planet Hollywood for a night auditor position. The woman really wanted me to come in today, but it was 3:30 when she called & I was still at work :P Hopefully she'll be understanding & wait for me to come in on Wednesday morning. Hopefully I can get in on Weds morning - I've got another interview w/the Water Reclamation District (cough**Sewage District**cough) at 10:20 Weds morning & the time off has already been granted.

For my history class, we're supposed to watch a film about the testimony of the concentration camp survivors. All this week, I've been trying to 'get around to it'. Every time I sit at the computer, I think to myself, "I've got to watch this film"... and then I end up screwing off on MySpace or OkCupid or playing WoW. There's always e-mail to check or something else to research, (Hel, I've even worked on math!) and then it's 9:30 in the morning and therefore bedtime, & I think to myself that movie is not the last imagery I want in my head before sleeping... or it's 8 at night and I've got to go to work... in other words, I've been finding every excuse to NOT watch the film.

So I finally said 'fuck it, I'm not watching it'. I wrote my instructor a note to that effect, and I'm taking the big fat 0.

I don't even know why I can't watch the movie. The concept fills me with dread, and I can't take not knowing why something bothers me so badly. I mean, yeah, I'm depressed but I'm always depressed - not a valid excuse there. Yeah, I'm gonna be on the rag in a week, and my emotions have been closer to the surface the past coupla months during 'this time of the month', but that's definitely not a valid excuse. PMS? Me, use PMS as an excuse for anything? Hardly. (Unless it was getting out of gymnastics during PE when I had squeamish male coaches - I could get my period to last an entire quarter sometimes, heh...)(This morning, I was in the EDR eating my breakfast of shrimp cocktail & tortellini salad & the news was on. They were talking about the fire in Esperanza, CA. A man was on, talking about how he knew he had lost animals in the fire - horses, cattle, & he couldn't save his neighbor's animals - he started crying. I started crying. I literally can't stand to watch a grown man cry - I can't remember what grown man was crying last month, but I cried for that, too. Getting older sucks). I can't even say that being Pagan is the reason... Yes, the Veil is very thin, yes, crap has been roaming around the house, no I don't need any extra ghosts, but that's not the reason. I can't even say that I don't want to see starved, naked dead piled in mass graves - because everyone knows I am a great fan of goresites & Rotten.com. I groove on dead people & freaks of nature. Call me sick, twisted, morbid, whatever - I like long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners & poking dead things with a stick.

I think what it really comes down to is that I'm tired of history. I'm tired of hearing about how base and cruel people are. I'm tired of shootings, stabbings and arson. I'm tired of intolerance and prejudice and ignorance. I'm tired of genocide. I'm tired of the decay of the human spirit. Everyone seems to think that at heart, people are good - but every page in the history books says the opposite. There's a semi-famous quote from the liberation of one of the camps, I don't know if it was Bergen-Belsen, Dachau or Auschwitz, but one of the prisoners asked an American soldier, "What took you so long?" Do you really know what took us so long? No one cared. The inmates of the concentration camps were the last thing on WWII's to-do list. It's sad, but it's true.

The truth has worn me down.

"There is no grace, there is no guilt. The whole of the Law, do what thou wilt. Love is the Law, Love under Will"...

Had an interestingly long debate about guilt yesterday. Came to a profound conclusion that guilt is a wasted emotion. Guilt has never stopped anyone from doing anything - it rarely stops them from doing the same thing twice. We all have free will, & the ability to exercise free will, so if we'd all think about the outcome of our actions, guilt would become obsolete. When you undertake a decision of your own free will, why feel guilty when you fully meant to do it in the first place?
Of course, I'm talking about the conscious making of a decision & acting upon it by a whole, fully-realized adult. People with mental disorders are not exactly whole, fully-realized adults, they have a sickness that makes them not in their right minds, not able to practice discernment in their actions.

Rob thinks it's all tied in to having concern for what other people think about you, & he says there's a discrepancy in my philosophy because I'm discounting external guilt. But why should I be forced to accept guilt from someone else? Consequences, yes. Consequences for the action I've taken, be it good or bad, but not the actual guilt.

Of course, I'm not exactly "normal" in that I don't know how to care about what other people think about me. I never have been. Why should it matter to me what someone else thinks about me, unless I'm trying to get a job or some other practical reason, like keeping said job once I've gotten it?