Cutting

Self Injury Leads to a Brief Lessening of Pain

Because of how I was exposed to this issue, I will always be fascinated by the ramifications of it.  This is not news to me, but for those who might have encountered it and truly not understood, it might help.  More knowledge might have helped me.

Logic and disbelief

I keep running in to the agrument that disbelieving in something is not a belief in itself.  I have trouble with this logic, most especially when it's presented by people I otherwise like and respect.  The argument that not believing in the Loch Ness Monster makes sense and holds water is perfectly reasonable, but to make the same case for the statement, "The Loch Ness Monster does not exist," is completely different.  It's semantics, but important semantics.  In the first case you are hazily dealing with probabilities such that the odds seem to be against the Loch Ness Monster existing, so I generally don't bother believing it.  If you state unequivocally that it Does Not Exist is a statement that requires proof, not hazy generalities.  Just like proving that something Does exist requires proof and rigorous testing, proving that something does not exist would require some kind of logical or scientific argument that allows for every possible effort of having searched for and not found the Monster.  It is easy and logical to say that such a beast probably doesn't exist as it has been looked for by amateurs and professionals and crackpots for so long that at this point it would seem that someone should have found something.  The trouble is, not finding something doesn't actually prove it doesn't exist unless you can show with a reasonable amount of scientific effort that you have looked everywhere it Could be. 

There is a subtle but powerful difference between saying that something is unlikely in the extreme and that something is impossible and/or truly Does Not Exist.  You can apply this argument to any form of Statement of Universal Truth and I often do.  I'll leave it to those reading to decide whether they can agree with me even if the Loch Ness Monster is replaced with other semi-mythical realities.

Don't get me wrong, those of you who insist on a black and white world, the opposite of belief is in fact disbelief but the opposite of a believer is not an atheist. 

Slowly... slowly...

So yeah, I think I am slowly coming back to myself.  I really like the kind of high-energy buzz I get when faire season rolls around in Colorado, but this year was a bit much and I did a crap job of taking care of myself, my home and my relationships this summer.  I begin to have more sympathy for my truly busy busy friends and I wonder even more than when I had never been there how in the hell ya'll do it. 


I have had an Evil knot about the size of the end of a coke can living under my left shoulder for a week and between the gracious stabbing by Darcy and the brutal crunching of Dr Yoder, it seems to have subsided a bit.  Of course, I then proceeded to work an eight and a half hour day of nothing but belt burnishing following the chiropractor which might not have been the best choice for my own well being but left Terry in a better place for it.  It's nice to see that I really can organize that mismatched crew into an efficient belt-making machine when the need arises.  We banged out somewhere along the lines of fifty belts today.  It's a lot, trust me.  Terry's killing himself trying to get everything done and once again I have some sympathy but only some because a lot of this is bad planning in action.  Every year....

The new vehicle makes me happy.  I'm still getting used to parking it and I tend to overcompensate for the size.  I drive an SUV of sorts now.  Don't laugh, it's an Element and I like it.  It's got room for two.

I'm driving with Ashley to Michigan this year.  It has been... a really long time... since I went on the road With someone.  I mean, I've done some cool little trips with Darcy in the past and other folks too, but really travelling with someone... it's been a long time.  More than ten years, depending on how I count it.  It's good that we're taking some time away this week so's we're both less made of stress when we load up and head out.

Looking forward to Valley View.  Warm water and sun on skin and quiet.  Yeah.  Nice thought.

Our house is still half moved in to, but I did hang some more art and Ashley manages to organize small places more and more.  It's hard when you realize right after moving in that it's not where ya want to be.  I dunno where we'll wind up.  It is we, and that's got a nice feel to it, but we have much to rearrange and not all of it is furniture.

Tired and sore but feeling pretty good.  Need to remember to avail myself of acupuncture more often.  Need to find other good options for moving the chi around too.

Just reposting some thoughts from a comment a made elsewhere:

Here's a thought... we need to find some small portion of the country that we don't really need and let all of the current crop of isolationist anti-immigrationists run it exactly how they want to, so long as those policies don't extend ove...r the border. Maybe build a dome around it. I'm thinking Nevada maybe, or perhaps Arizona. Here's the catchy bit: We fill the dome with billions of on demand cameras and then collect royalties when we sell viewing rights to the rest of the world, most particularly the Middle East and Central and South America. Germany too, they'll think it's a comedy.

I'm thinking we'd have something like the Truman Show crossed with Das Boot and the Donner Party.

Summertime

The last few months have been a whirlwind, and possibly some of the most unhealthy time I have spent.  I've exercised very little and have had to all but force myself to meditate at all.  I've worked weird hours and weird days and never once actually felt any real confidence in what I've been doing.  I smoke too much, wound up drinking myself sick for the first time in my life and am basically a wreck.

I'm glad it's over.  I'm not sorry I did it.


Ashley moved in with me in May, just a month before we needed to move again.  Bad planning.  And then when we finally did move, it was in to a place that time and circumstances have never really conspired to leave us feeling like we really live here.  It was a month before I managed to hang anything much on the walls, we're still lacking some pretty basic furniture, we don't really have a place where anything belongs, least of all us.  And now, we're about to leave back to Michigan for a while.

I took a new job at the faire this year, which started less than a week after we moved in to our new place.  I had to create a new crew from scratch at a job that I wasn't really sure of the dynamics of.  It took me at least half the show to gain any sense that I knew what I was doing and even then I missed a thousand small things and a few big ones.  The schedule clash between me and Ashley has been near horrifying and meanwhile the job that sustains me when there isn't a faire in town is way behind, and even though that's no entirely my fault I'm still tired and disorganized enough that I'm having trouble making up the difference.

But then, we made, it didn't we.  It's been rough and hard and scratchy and both Ashley and I are bruised and battered by it (I won't go into the things Ashley's got on her plate, that's her story) ands still, we smile at one another through the bruises and say nice things and do nice things and we made it.  Not that it's over, not by a long shot, and not that I think it will inherently be easier from here on out, because we're going far away and she'll be confronted and distracted by the novelty of being home but not home and I have a shop to run and a new vehicle to make payments on and really, it's a mess.  It's my mess.  I don't like it this messy, but it's my mess, and it's our mess and if it were easy, it wouldn't be me.

So we cram in the last few gatherings, some laundry and cleaning, a trip to the hot springs and meanwhile I try and help with the worst of the load for renleather and get the car registered and maybe plated and still we're pulling our hair out, but hey, it's an adventure, right?

Oh, and as for the job, I think I made a few new customers along the way, increased sales enough to pay my wages at least (maybe a little more) and it'll be even better next year, or at least I have the skills to start really building something with the masks and the crew and the shop and Tiffany and Lynn and all. 

It has been a rough summer.  I'm in terrible shape.  I need more duct tape, some string and a long vacation.  I get a short vacation and I get to buy my own duct tape and string.

So far the summer seems to be pretty okay.

It's been a horribly good week and it's only Wednesday.  Well... Thursday now.  The music tonight was amazing.  When I got to a show I really like, or even a club where the DJ is just right on with my mood or maybe where I can slot in my mood to be right on with the DJ and the dancers and the floor, all I want to do is let go and dance.  I'm sure I look something strange when I do.  I see how... restrained everyone else looks and I know I don't look like that.  I've been told by some folks, some in particular who's opinions I value, that they love to see me dance.  Secretly I'm sure they're in the minority, and sometimes when I'm in my darkest moods, I'm sure their humoring me.  Logically I know that doesn't make sense, but I also know just how unlikely a thing logic is when applied to how people behave.

People confuse me.  They always have.

It's not just dancing either.  Conversation, self expression of any kind, I have to reach a place where I really don't care what people think about how I'm going about it.  It's a strange place to be, because to make it work, I have to stay connected, connected to the music, or to the person I'm talking with, or anything that I'm trying to stay in a creative and open space with.

When I have energy at all, I have a Lot of it.  I'm overwhelming, I've been told.  Exhausting.  I am fascinated by a spirited exchange, in experiencing the ebb and flow of conversation or of music, of experiencing the dynamic changes as they move through.  I have to stay connected or I'm just flailing my arms and wasting my breath and someone else's time.  It takes a lot of effort.  From an outside perspective, I never know how I look, not when I'm really on and feeling alive.

And there it is.  I start to wonder, to worry and then to stumble.  I lose the beat or I started being too loud or talking too fast.  It would be nice to have a hand up, or just someone to tell me, yeah, you're a little over the top, but it's worth keeping up with you.  It would be nicer still not to need that.  Or not.  I'm still tempted by the tiny little castle, the bricked in monastery of one with a slot in the wall that I can close when I start to feel afraid of what people are thinking.

It would help if I didn't like people.  As painful and frustrating as they are, it's so much cooler to have a friend to share a joke with, or a box full of owls.  It's maybe even a little nicer to be able to say, yeah, wow, I'm not doing so well tonight and I'm feeling like I'm going too far and too fast and I'm a little wild, feeling a little on the edge and it might be a good thing if there's someone there to steer me away from the worst of it or at least to tell me what it was they saw me doing, see me doing.

I still feel like I have got to be embarrassing or overwhelming or just plain obnoxious and yet these are the nights when I feel most alive, most enthusiastic.  I'm not ever quietly enthusiastic.  It's a big thing.

An exhausting thing?

I had a really good night.  I hope the people around me did too and more than anything, I hope I contributed to their good night or at least didn't cut into it.  I worry about that bit.  A lot.

Cynicism

There has always been bias in the teaching and interpretation of history.  There is literally no way to prevent this, and corrections, such as they are, rarely involve new facts and are simply yet another reinterpretation of data that has been around for a long time.  History is not only written by the winners but is rewritten endlessly to fit the viewpoint of the modern age, and endless view starting from now and looking backwards without even a real sense of the biases that shape us.

Most of the time this process is done by people who are genuinely well meaning, who believe that their perspective really Is based on better facts and less clouded judgment than previous interpretations. 

I can't buy it this time.  The rearranging of history coming out the Board of Education in Texas reeks of cynical maneuvering.  I have been find genuine belief behind some of the most tragic acts in history, been able to imagine that if I believed as the people involved believed that I might have done the same thing, regardless of how easy it is for me as a modern person to look back and scold folks that are often long dead.  With a little work and a beer or two I can bring these skills into the modern world and apply to them to the people who's opinions I find to be most vile and to see that whatever else, they truly Believe in the things they are saying, even if from my view those actions and those beliefs are heinous and destructive.  I can in fact not hate the sinner and still revile the sin, as it were.

Not this time.  The mention of the McCarthy hearings makes the whole thing so sadly, sickly ironic to me. Joe McCarthy didn't check for communists under his bed at night.  He didn't attack communists because they were strong, he attacked them because they couldn't fight back. 

So, yes, Texas educators, teach sympathy for McCarthy.  Sin, the only sin I believe in, is the silencing of open dialogue.  The people who have pushed this change through in Texas are devils in their actions, as was old Joe.  The devil knows when he's lying.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions but the devils are always ready to pass out paving stones.

If government in this country had Any noble purpose, it is the defense of the weak from the strong.  It rarely ever works that way, but it's all we have.  Freedom from religion and religion's freedom from government control go hand in hand.  Capitalism is a progressive policy that can lead to more and more economic freedom for the individual unless those who have climbed their way to the top are given the 'freedom' to halt progress at the lower rungs.  Every freedom we have has to be tempered with the rights of those who that freedom will impinge upon.  Free trade without regulation becomes oligarchy.  Unchecked power in religion leads to theocracy.  Unchecked liberalism leads to totalitarianism. 


Bah.  I'm sounding preachy.  I won't erase what I wrote, but I'll let it rest.  The right to choose your religion, live your own life and not be owned, body and soul, by kings or corporations are what My interpretation of history says the founding of this nation gave us.  Protecting the rights of the individual Requires limiting the rights of all group entities: churches, companies, political parties, unions and most especially governments...



Then again, freedom is an every day choice.  Maybe they're just trying to remind us how complacent we are about it all.  If they take away the parts of American history that have to do with fighting for equality and personal freedom maybe a few people will remember that that fight never ends.