What Really Hurts
Something hit me on the way to school this
morning...
Not a deer or a rock or a tree limb. It was one of
those moments.
What really hurts is being honest. Lying allows me to create a comfortable place where I can be safe and I don't have to hurt. Lying allows me to fabricate situations and emotions and a gentle reality that lets me live exactly how I want to live, without regard for anyone else, and without feeling selfish about it, because it is my world, and, in my world, I am not selfish. Others might be, and, if I agree to that, then it it is okay for them to be.
But that world is still a fabrication.
There are redeeming features about living in a fabrication, though. As opposed to honesty, where there is no real way out, lying offers two options- confession and apprehension. Confession is even one of those redeeming features people look for. A confession of a lie, a duplicity, is a sign of strength. A confession can actually completely redeem a me in the eyes of the accuser. Even apprehension, even when caught red-handed, I am offered a way out of my lie, and I can blame my pain on someone else for catching me. That's how blame works- it is someone else's fault.
None of that is possible with honesty. Once the truth is stated, it is difficult to refute. After all, it is the truth. The truth is scary; being honest is a frightening thing, because it is the complete admission, a profession of thought and intent and need. Truth is admission to a guilt that doesn't exist- the guilt only comes afterward, when you realize what the truth has done to you.
The truth rends me. It pulls me apart- it is not something I can rescind and call a misrepresentation. Once the truth is stated, it exposes me to all the flagrant humiliation and ridicule I should be expecting by now, after so long of living in the truth. The problem is, once I believe in the truth, I become comfortable in it, and enjoy expressing it, sometimes to distraction, falling into the trap of stating the obvious, and that becomes redundant, the idiot savant who knows one thing,and knows it well, but is unable to function otherwise.,
I've enjoyed writing my truth. I have enjoyed admitting my commitments. I have enjoyed being a part of something so much larger than I will ever be. But I wonder, what would a world of my fabrication feel like? Would I feel safe and happy, believing in the facade I create? I could say things, and make people believe them; I could control whole governments with a few phone calls- imagined, of course, but they would still be real to me. And, for that, they lock me up and call me crazy.
I hate being able to feel my pulse. I pounds inside me, beat after beat, and it is not in time to the music. It is out of sequence, asynchronous, and it hurts to feel it. My pulse is an immediate indicator of my life- If I still have one, I still have one. I am not wishing for death- just for the pounding of my pulse to stop. It is often loud in my ears as I try to sleep. There are... mantras... I can say to calm me, a word, a name, a series of words, like beads on a rosary, without the interruption of a cross to interfere with my cycles and repetitions. My thoughts move from word to word effortlessly, but honestly, and I fall asleep stating the obvious and repeating the unnecessary. But it is all the truth. And the truth hurts. And my blood pounds. And I feel it and hear it and hate both. The pounding pushes against my pillow and the noise plays over the ringing in my ears and keeps me awake. And so, more mantras, later nights, less sleep, fewer communications, more madness. Because of the truth.
There are remedies. Communication. Plurality. Secret codes involving a tapping of fingers ("Everybody knows that one."), the mentioning of members of the vegetable kingdom, and the laughter caused by being furious. Drowning. I still drown. Daily. Momently. Often. And the filling of my lungs with something other than air is an excitingly exhilarating experience, and nothing like my actual drowning experience when I was 16. Then, the filling of my lungs with water was a poison, a panicking thing. I was alone in the warm brown of the water. Here, in the drowning I do now, I am never alone, nor is the element I breathe a dreadful poison, nor is it in anyway deadly. Instead, the brown is comforting and surrounds me gently.
I suppose I am a man of words, but words describe actions, not in the sense of adjectives and adverbs, but in the same very real sense that a well-aimed arrow describes an arc to its target, whether it is a bullseye, or Cupid's metaphorical target within me. And here are my words: If you love her, tell her, and be honest and open about it. If you don't, or choose not to and won't, then tell her. Stop the act. She deserves better than that. She deserves the truth. She deserves what really hurts.
What really hurts is being honest. Lying allows me to create a comfortable place where I can be safe and I don't have to hurt. Lying allows me to fabricate situations and emotions and a gentle reality that lets me live exactly how I want to live, without regard for anyone else, and without feeling selfish about it, because it is my world, and, in my world, I am not selfish. Others might be, and, if I agree to that, then it it is okay for them to be.
But that world is still a fabrication.
There are redeeming features about living in a fabrication, though. As opposed to honesty, where there is no real way out, lying offers two options- confession and apprehension. Confession is even one of those redeeming features people look for. A confession of a lie, a duplicity, is a sign of strength. A confession can actually completely redeem a me in the eyes of the accuser. Even apprehension, even when caught red-handed, I am offered a way out of my lie, and I can blame my pain on someone else for catching me. That's how blame works- it is someone else's fault.
None of that is possible with honesty. Once the truth is stated, it is difficult to refute. After all, it is the truth. The truth is scary; being honest is a frightening thing, because it is the complete admission, a profession of thought and intent and need. Truth is admission to a guilt that doesn't exist- the guilt only comes afterward, when you realize what the truth has done to you.
The truth rends me. It pulls me apart- it is not something I can rescind and call a misrepresentation. Once the truth is stated, it exposes me to all the flagrant humiliation and ridicule I should be expecting by now, after so long of living in the truth. The problem is, once I believe in the truth, I become comfortable in it, and enjoy expressing it, sometimes to distraction, falling into the trap of stating the obvious, and that becomes redundant, the idiot savant who knows one thing,and knows it well, but is unable to function otherwise.,
I've enjoyed writing my truth. I have enjoyed admitting my commitments. I have enjoyed being a part of something so much larger than I will ever be. But I wonder, what would a world of my fabrication feel like? Would I feel safe and happy, believing in the facade I create? I could say things, and make people believe them; I could control whole governments with a few phone calls- imagined, of course, but they would still be real to me. And, for that, they lock me up and call me crazy.
I hate being able to feel my pulse. I pounds inside me, beat after beat, and it is not in time to the music. It is out of sequence, asynchronous, and it hurts to feel it. My pulse is an immediate indicator of my life- If I still have one, I still have one. I am not wishing for death- just for the pounding of my pulse to stop. It is often loud in my ears as I try to sleep. There are... mantras... I can say to calm me, a word, a name, a series of words, like beads on a rosary, without the interruption of a cross to interfere with my cycles and repetitions. My thoughts move from word to word effortlessly, but honestly, and I fall asleep stating the obvious and repeating the unnecessary. But it is all the truth. And the truth hurts. And my blood pounds. And I feel it and hear it and hate both. The pounding pushes against my pillow and the noise plays over the ringing in my ears and keeps me awake. And so, more mantras, later nights, less sleep, fewer communications, more madness. Because of the truth.
There are remedies. Communication. Plurality. Secret codes involving a tapping of fingers ("Everybody knows that one."), the mentioning of members of the vegetable kingdom, and the laughter caused by being furious. Drowning. I still drown. Daily. Momently. Often. And the filling of my lungs with something other than air is an excitingly exhilarating experience, and nothing like my actual drowning experience when I was 16. Then, the filling of my lungs with water was a poison, a panicking thing. I was alone in the warm brown of the water. Here, in the drowning I do now, I am never alone, nor is the element I breathe a dreadful poison, nor is it in anyway deadly. Instead, the brown is comforting and surrounds me gently.
I suppose I am a man of words, but words describe actions, not in the sense of adjectives and adverbs, but in the same very real sense that a well-aimed arrow describes an arc to its target, whether it is a bullseye, or Cupid's metaphorical target within me. And here are my words: If you love her, tell her, and be honest and open about it. If you don't, or choose not to and won't, then tell her. Stop the act. She deserves better than that. She deserves the truth. She deserves what really hurts.
Posted: Tue - March 20, 2007 at 07:21 AM
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Mar 20, 2007 06:49 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Mar 20, 2007 06:49 PM