Use Your Illusion/Adios 2020

I woke up this morning thinking about 1) burning my journals, and 2) what to do about my book and blog. 

I love the idea of burning my journals, I've been thinking about doing it for a while. The end of "Life: Part 1." But the thought of driving somewhere, building the fire, hauling the books, and safely burning them seems like a lot of work. Then I thought, the hell with it, let’s just throw them in the dump. An ignominious end to "Life: Part 1." Because really, a ritual burning seems kind of self-important, as if my ramblings had some significance. It also seemed a bit ridiculous, feeding into childish magicalness. Although, I like my childish magicalness... Lord of the Rings and Star Wars fantasy fun. So I'm deciding to end this year and the first half of my life with a ritual throwing my journals into the dump. And that brings me to "Life: Part 2."

I really did want to help other people who struggled with trauma, depression, and borderline personality disorder. That's what compelled me to write Borderline Shine. I have heard from some people who did find the book helpful, and I'm very grateful that my words resonated and maybe provided a bit of insight and hope. I considered writing another book, "Over the Borderline," i.e., "Life, Part 2." I would put together the simple, basic themes I have learned that have been known and written about for over a thousand years: life is absurd; it's all about radical acceptance; gratitude and self-responsibility are effective practices; and as often as you can, notice the beauty of the world and love, love, love.

I believe now that the "truths" we live by are predominantly an illusion. We spend our lives constructing a reality and living within it as though we have some control. We fight for values and achievements such as home and family, or fortune and fame. We struggle to hold onto an illusion of safety. But it's all transitory, it's all frail. It can end with a microscopic virus or the fury of a hurricane. We can end. We will end. Then there's a brief memory in the survivors, until they die, and poof! We are all dust in the wind. Maybe there's something after, maybe there's not. I sure don't know, and I don't think anyone else does either.

All these big questions have already been posed, chewed over, and answered by philosophy and religion. I've got nothing to contribute except my own personal belief system which I stated above, and which could change at any moment (ha!). Maybe my words could help other people to reduce their suffering. That being said, do I want to spend my energy on another book? Do I want to spend my energy kicking myself in the ass because I "should" be contributing more to my blog? To write something that less than a hundred people read. Come on, cut the self-importance. My writing is not changing anyone's life. That's okay. I'm practicing radical acceptance, gratitude, and putting my love and energy into the close circle I have of family, friends and clients. That's where I might have influence. That's where I might change my world.

So, adios 2020, adios book, blog and writing. Adios, readers! If anyone wants to contact me, they can through this website, I'm sure Jen will keep an eye on it and pass it on. Otherwise, just imagine me, chillin' by the lake, surrounded by those I love: my brothers, my mom and dad, my animals, my family and friends. Those alive and those dead, because time bends, and this is how I use my illusion.

Journey to Wellness

In my last blog, I used the term, "journey to wellness." Even as I wrote it, the phrase felt wrong. Imprecise. Incongruent with what I wanted to say. In need of clarification. So here it is:

At the end of Borderline Shine, I summarized some of the learning that I had gained at that time. Taking responsibility for choices, compassion, acceptance, non judgment. These values and choices have enabled me to achieve a degree of happiness and contentment in my life. Moments of joy. What I sometimes refer to as "pearls."

Yet is that "wellness?"

'Shine ended five years ago in 2015, and I wrote the book in the summer of 2018. In the last five years, would I describe myself as "well?"

I have continued to struggle. I even wrote a sequel to the book, which I entitled Over the Borderline: A story of relapse and recovery. It chronicled the personal and situational challenges I faced in the three years after 'Shine ended. And even since I completed that draft, life continues to be tumultuous inside and out. Some may say that is "normal," but besides the fact that I hate the word "normal," I often wonder, "What the hell? Surely other people don't have such bizarre, ridiculous and random events happen!"

I reflect that my own episodes of anxiety swell and ebb, much as I think many other people's do. And when I find myself lost in the distortions of fear, grief and anger, the ludicrousness of using the term "journey to wellness" makes me sneer in self depreciation.

And yet, and yet...I also believe that "wellness" can be a relativistic term. Sometimes I think that wellness can be an ever changing point on a continuum between fear and love (I use fear and love as general words to differentiate between darkness and light...and that will be a whole other blog). If I'm more often near love, maybe I'm well. If I'm even able to shift myself closer to love in the midst of fear, maybe I'm well.

Or maybe wellness can be conceptualized as a dialectic - I am love AND fear, but the greater of these is love.

My intention in writing this blog is to remind my readers that there is no endpoint in the "journey to wellness" as it can be redefined by perception, definition, and relativity. That's why one theme of Borderline Shine is to be cautious with judgments. Even with the most loving of intentions, we cannot fully understand another person.

I posted a picture of a quote by Anais Nin that said, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." This was in response to the misinterpretation of the content and intent of Borderline Shine by a few readers, misinterpretations which were absolutely unexpected and astonishing to me. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, as human history is redolent with examples of misinterpretations, and on a lesser level they occur between people every day. Thousands of years of human history, and we are still struggling to understand the world and each other. It is a bit of a relief when I give up the struggle and tell myself, "honestly, half the time I don't have a clue what is going on." Mindfulness practice teaches noticing what we observe with the five senses without judgment, with an open, curious mind. But what if we had different senses? We would totally experience a different world. It is all relative.

So whoever you are, wherever you are, and however you define "wellness," I send you love and reiterate the last lines of the poem I wrote and ended my memoir with: "Never give up/Borderline, Shine."