Feeling ego-ey. Making a decision and doing the four things – I saw something yesterday (I thought it was an unposted blog entry but I can’t find it now) about the four elements needed to do something – to make an upfront investment, to be accountable, to have support and something else. And yesterday I did all of those – I paid Belle for another year’s penpalling (my current sub runs out on October 10 she says). It is more expensive than it was – about $500 – but not outrageous for what she does. I wrote and uploaded my blog. I emailed Belle 4 times. And I didn’t drink (although I noticed how often I spotted a bottle or box of wine as I wandered around, especially in the evening, but during the day as well). So, yes I feel ego-ey.
And another reason. B and I read until about 10:30 and then we went to sleep. A quick cuddle, no sex (in my black moments I wonder if we’ll ever make love again) and then fast asleep. I had a funny narrative dream, sleeping with a pretty young babysitter, watching a film together, looking after the children of two families. Children came in to our room and then the parents, pissed off with us for not keeping the children quiet. I recognised one of the mums, although she was a lot older than the last time I’d seen her. They didn’t seem at all bothered that I and the babysitter were in bed together. Then they all went off to bed and we went back to watching the film. I noticed a cylindrical jar (Egyptian, stone, white alabaster, about 3,500 BC) with a funny carroty tuft sticking out of the top, and then a small child popped up, looking like one of those troll dolls, with struwelpeterish type red hair, very funny, a very naughty face. So we packed him off to bed too (or the parents came back and moaned at us again) and then I woke up. I felt like all the people in the dream were in some parallel universe, that I had dreamed about them before, that I knew them. Anyway B was sound asleep, snoring and grinding her teeth gently, and I started feeling lonely and cross and paranoid and that I should get up and go back to the caravan. But I made a very clear decision, that I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t start listening to the news or a podcast, I’d just lie there, and stick it out. So I just fondled B’s bum (and wondered if I really started feeling her up, whether she’d respond in her sleep, or just wake up and be pissed off with me), and then went back to sleep and slept like a log until 5:59. B hadn’t set an alarm (because I’d made been making such a fuss about it I think) but I woke her up because she was doing the bread. And I was feeling all antsy and ego-ey and very unrelaxed. Told André (French Canadian, here for a week) he shouldn’t sit on Laurence’s cushion, and started meditating.
Thought about Hinduism’s three Da’s – Dham, Dhatta, Dhayadvham. Found the passage yesterday in The World’s Sacred Texts. Eliot refers to them in the Wasteland – the thunder at the start of the world – Da, Da, Da. Dham is given to the Gods, is self restraint and control. Dhatta is for Men, giving. And Dhayadvham is compassion, for the Demons (Sura). I thought about why. The Gods are the elemental forces – nature – which must observe order, constraint, natural law, or no life, evolution is possible. Man is here to serve, to give. And the Demons must exercise compassion, or they will destroy us – anger, resentment, lust, hatred, fear, paranoia.
And I thought of the difference between this explanatory story, how it can help us make sense of and come to terms with existence, and the confusion of Christian fairy tales, the inability to distinguish between the meaning of Christian myths and their content, that we (or rather Christians) have to believe in the literal truth of the stories – the resurrection, the Garden of Eden, heaven and hell.
Meditation started off a bit crap, with all the ego-ey ness going on. But I did nothing. Just tried to rest on the breath. This is where I am. When I stopped drinking (before Belle) I used to get confused about how as soon as I stopped, I started to feel the will and the ego getting all muscled up, and meditation became much more difficult and frustrating. When I got really desperate, I stopped worrying about ego and just did it, with Belle. It was after all about my survival, so fuck worries about the ego and enlightenment. I think all this stuff I’ve been reading (Weil and Placid) about not doing anything is important. Don’t do anything about the ego-ey ness either.
And my demons – paranoia, isolation, they’re talking about me, B’s dumping me, they’re controlling me, my irritability and anger and despair – all have something to do with this lack of balance. My reaction to Mary Katherine yesterday telling me about the Deans’ meeting and their discussion of reading at lunchtime (it goes on too long, we shouldn’t have it every day, don’t start until most people have sat down, finish after 10 minutes). So all sorts of feelings, resentment that they had discussed it and made decisions without consulting me, that it was my fault, that they had been talking about me. So I asked B what had happened this morning and she gave me a perfectly reasonable explanation, that had nothing to do with me, and all those feelings just dissolved away.
I went out for a walk with young Lachlan after supper. He wanted to talk to me about my idea of his being Jean Christophe’s apprentice. He’d decided he’d rather be the full time cook (which worried me a bit as I’m not sure he can cook – but he says he’s cooked two meals for everyone and they were all right). I was giving him a fatherly lecture about how he seemed to be wanting to change everything – our timetable, working hours, ways of meditating and praying – when maybe he should be changing himself. At the same time I told him how I’d been struggling for months to work out what was the difference in me i.e. what was objectively wrong with Bonnevaux – the lack of boundaries, self-time, time off, the excessive Catholicism, the words and prayers, the us and them set up (Laurence and Giovanni and Catherine and Sebastien deciding what was best for us, the community) and what was wrong with me, what were my demons – and how I couldn’t speak out, to Laurence or Giovanni or whoever as long as I was unable to distinguish between the two. And also, if the objective problems couldn’t be resolved, what should I do? Go or stay? So it’s interesting that finally in the last couple of weeks, I have talked to Laurence (totally ineffectively, in that we avoided all the contentious issues – but that in turn forced me to talk to Giovanni, where I was able to be much more direct (and probably sounded to him just like Lachlan did to me). And, in a funny and unskilful (because drink fuelled) way to B – much more a case of being sick on the carpet than my talk to Giovanni, but I didn’t hold back, and told her what I was feeling, if a bit hysterically.
So, despite my “doing” nothing, something may be shifting, at last and after all. In me, that is. The frozen wasteland of the ego starting to melt and break up . . . or at least, to shift.
And I’ve made some commitments to a future. Bought two bottles of gas. Booked flights for Touching the Void. Talked to Giovanni. Resumed contact with Belle. And so has B. She’s booked a car so we can take her stuff back to Basel and have a couple of days alone on our birthdays, and booked her flights for London. Talking to her about anything to do with the future is like walking through a minefield – not her, but me, I keep reacting to everything, not being able to stay with Sabine, rushing the trip back to Basel, not wanting her to come to London, there’s so much crap and confusion inside me about it all, her going away, and withdrawing so completely after her mum’s death, just wanting to run away and hide. So, making a real effort on the drinking is important, if only to cut off one escape route, which isn’t one at all. And anyway, escape is not the answer.
It’s really nice, sitting in my caravan, and writing this, again. It’s been a long time.
And another reason. B and I read until about 10:30 and then we went to sleep. A quick cuddle, no sex (in my black moments I wonder if we’ll ever make love again) and then fast asleep. I had a funny narrative dream, sleeping with a pretty young babysitter, watching a film together, looking after the children of two families. Children came in to our room and then the parents, pissed off with us for not keeping the children quiet. I recognised one of the mums, although she was a lot older than the last time I’d seen her. They didn’t seem at all bothered that I and the babysitter were in bed together. Then they all went off to bed and we went back to watching the film. I noticed a cylindrical jar (Egyptian, stone, white alabaster, about 3,500 BC) with a funny carroty tuft sticking out of the top, and then a small child popped up, looking like one of those troll dolls, with struwelpeterish type red hair, very funny, a very naughty face. So we packed him off to bed too (or the parents came back and moaned at us again) and then I woke up. I felt like all the people in the dream were in some parallel universe, that I had dreamed about them before, that I knew them. Anyway B was sound asleep, snoring and grinding her teeth gently, and I started feeling lonely and cross and paranoid and that I should get up and go back to the caravan. But I made a very clear decision, that I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t start listening to the news or a podcast, I’d just lie there, and stick it out. So I just fondled B’s bum (and wondered if I really started feeling her up, whether she’d respond in her sleep, or just wake up and be pissed off with me), and then went back to sleep and slept like a log until 5:59. B hadn’t set an alarm (because I’d made been making such a fuss about it I think) but I woke her up because she was doing the bread. And I was feeling all antsy and ego-ey and very unrelaxed. Told André (French Canadian, here for a week) he shouldn’t sit on Laurence’s cushion, and started meditating.
Thought about Hinduism’s three Da’s – Dham, Dhatta, Dhayadvham. Found the passage yesterday in The World’s Sacred Texts. Eliot refers to them in the Wasteland – the thunder at the start of the world – Da, Da, Da. Dham is given to the Gods, is self restraint and control. Dhatta is for Men, giving. And Dhayadvham is compassion, for the Demons (Sura). I thought about why. The Gods are the elemental forces – nature – which must observe order, constraint, natural law, or no life, evolution is possible. Man is here to serve, to give. And the Demons must exercise compassion, or they will destroy us – anger, resentment, lust, hatred, fear, paranoia.
And I thought of the difference between this explanatory story, how it can help us make sense of and come to terms with existence, and the confusion of Christian fairy tales, the inability to distinguish between the meaning of Christian myths and their content, that we (or rather Christians) have to believe in the literal truth of the stories – the resurrection, the Garden of Eden, heaven and hell.
Meditation started off a bit crap, with all the ego-ey ness going on. But I did nothing. Just tried to rest on the breath. This is where I am. When I stopped drinking (before Belle) I used to get confused about how as soon as I stopped, I started to feel the will and the ego getting all muscled up, and meditation became much more difficult and frustrating. When I got really desperate, I stopped worrying about ego and just did it, with Belle. It was after all about my survival, so fuck worries about the ego and enlightenment. I think all this stuff I’ve been reading (Weil and Placid) about not doing anything is important. Don’t do anything about the ego-ey ness either.
And my demons – paranoia, isolation, they’re talking about me, B’s dumping me, they’re controlling me, my irritability and anger and despair – all have something to do with this lack of balance. My reaction to Mary Katherine yesterday telling me about the Deans’ meeting and their discussion of reading at lunchtime (it goes on too long, we shouldn’t have it every day, don’t start until most people have sat down, finish after 10 minutes). So all sorts of feelings, resentment that they had discussed it and made decisions without consulting me, that it was my fault, that they had been talking about me. So I asked B what had happened this morning and she gave me a perfectly reasonable explanation, that had nothing to do with me, and all those feelings just dissolved away.
I went out for a walk with young Lachlan after supper. He wanted to talk to me about my idea of his being Jean Christophe’s apprentice. He’d decided he’d rather be the full time cook (which worried me a bit as I’m not sure he can cook – but he says he’s cooked two meals for everyone and they were all right). I was giving him a fatherly lecture about how he seemed to be wanting to change everything – our timetable, working hours, ways of meditating and praying – when maybe he should be changing himself. At the same time I told him how I’d been struggling for months to work out what was the difference in me i.e. what was objectively wrong with Bonnevaux – the lack of boundaries, self-time, time off, the excessive Catholicism, the words and prayers, the us and them set up (Laurence and Giovanni and Catherine and Sebastien deciding what was best for us, the community) and what was wrong with me, what were my demons – and how I couldn’t speak out, to Laurence or Giovanni or whoever as long as I was unable to distinguish between the two. And also, if the objective problems couldn’t be resolved, what should I do? Go or stay? So it’s interesting that finally in the last couple of weeks, I have talked to Laurence (totally ineffectively, in that we avoided all the contentious issues – but that in turn forced me to talk to Giovanni, where I was able to be much more direct (and probably sounded to him just like Lachlan did to me). And, in a funny and unskilful (because drink fuelled) way to B – much more a case of being sick on the carpet than my talk to Giovanni, but I didn’t hold back, and told her what I was feeling, if a bit hysterically.
So, despite my “doing” nothing, something may be shifting, at last and after all. In me, that is. The frozen wasteland of the ego starting to melt and break up . . . or at least, to shift.
And I’ve made some commitments to a future. Bought two bottles of gas. Booked flights for Touching the Void. Talked to Giovanni. Resumed contact with Belle. And so has B. She’s booked a car so we can take her stuff back to Basel and have a couple of days alone on our birthdays, and booked her flights for London. Talking to her about anything to do with the future is like walking through a minefield – not her, but me, I keep reacting to everything, not being able to stay with Sabine, rushing the trip back to Basel, not wanting her to come to London, there’s so much crap and confusion inside me about it all, her going away, and withdrawing so completely after her mum’s death, just wanting to run away and hide. So, making a real effort on the drinking is important, if only to cut off one escape route, which isn’t one at all. And anyway, escape is not the answer.
It’s really nice, sitting in my caravan, and writing this, again. It’s been a long time.
Comments
Post a Comment
Say anything you like. I do.