“I have always enjoyed reading my Journals because of the transcendent pleasures they provide. These pages become a review and I can travel across them viewing the emotional pain in perspective and from a safe vantage point. That vantage point is the shelter of my own aloneness.”
Why is it that the transient overshadows the transcendent? I did a Google search to find an image pertaining to transcendence and came up with pages of images from the film “Transcendence”. The Internet is overly populated with content that is faddish, passing, and absurd. Yes, the film was a good flick but only in the realm of entertainment.
There were undoubtedly valuable life lessons found within the film and, assuming there is one, whatever book on which the film is based. OK. Transcendence is a complex term. It has many connotations. The point I am trying to make is that the majority of society is focused on what’s below, not what’s above.
I am way too serious most of the time. I do need to chill out and have more fun. But it seems my life is always in crises mode. Even when I try to have fun, I fail because I don’t know how to have fun without alcohol. I don’t know how to socialize with strangers. I don’t know how to make friends.
There are a number of reasons for this I am sure but I am still working on them. For one thing, I have an “I” problem. Just read this post and you will see the number of times “I” is used.
Granted this is mostly due to the nature of what is being written. But it is not entirely the cause. Now is “me” time, relative to my recovery. But there needs to come a time, and soon, where the I becomes a You.
My introversion is a form of fear. I hide from people because I am afraid of their judgment, their criticism, and their needs. I feel unworthy when comparing myself to others. I am too short, too poor, too stupid, too arrogant, too aloof, too ugly, too this, too that.
Are these all true and valid fears? Not really. But they are valid to me. My problem is not the validity of my fears but that they control me. My biggest too: I’m too cautious. It isn’t that I fear things but that I am afraid of upsetting the apple cart. I hate conflict and chaos. I don’t like noisy things. I like quiet.
In a way for me, the quietness of solitude, of aloneness, is not a good thing. The thing I need to transcend is myself and my shell. It is my aloneness that provides, not a shelter, but a prison. In my writings for this blog I see myself running away from myself. A friend told me not to be so emotional about myself. My first reaction was to tell her she was wrong. I was being serious, not emotional. But as I think about what she said, she is right.
I put my emotions into writing, not living. But how can I live, unless someone teaches me. I do need to learn to live without the crutch of alcohol, but also without the crutch of my solitude. I am willing to learn. I need to learn.
Maybe I am wrong about life and everyone else is right. The here and now. The joy of living. The enterprise of daily life is more than achieving some grandiose state of spiritual transcendence. Every person has a place beyond themselves they need to reach. A place of happiness, joy, peace, serenity, and love. It is a place best reached in the company of those you love and who love you.
Pleasure is itself transcendent. It takes the mundane and makes it sacred. It is in gaining my humanity that I attain something greater than humanness. It is my connection to the Wholly Oneness of humanity and God that lifts me above myself, and joins me to this struggle within time and space that we call history and life.
I want to love, to suffer, to cry, to laugh, and do all the things humans do, and to feel it, share it, and be it. Not just think about it and write about it.