It's nothing more or less than the human condition

In the age of Big Pharma, we have, of course come to medicalize such thoughts — not to mention just about every other whim and pang. When I once confided with a physician friend that one of my children seemed to overheat with anxiety around tests, he smiled kindly and literally assured, “No need to worry about that, we have a cure for anxiety today.” On current reckoning, anxiety is a symptom, a problem, but Kierkegaard insists, “Only a prosaic stupidity maintains that this (anxiety) is a disorganization.” And again, if a “speaker maintains that the great thing about him is that he has never been in anxiety, I will gladly provide him with my explanation: that is because he is very spiritless. ”

Kierkegaard understood that anxiety can ignite all kinds of transgressions and maladaptive behaviors — drinking, carousing, obsessions with work, you name it. We will do most anything to steady ourselves from the dizzying feeling that can take almost anything as its object. However, Kierkegaard also believed that, “Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”

In his “Works of Love,” Kierkegaard remarks that all talk about the spirit has to be metaphorical. Sometimes anxiety is cast as a teacher, and at others, a form of surgery. The prescription in “The Concept of Anxiety” and other texts is that if we can, as the Buddhists say, “stay with the feeling” of anxiety, it will spirit away our finite concerns and educate us as to who we really are, “Then the assaults of anxiety, even though they be terrifying, will not be such that he flees from them.” According to Kierkegaard’s analysis, anxiety like nothing else brings home the lesson that I cannot look to others, to the crowd, when I want to measure my progress in becoming a full human being.

--from Mockingbird.

Let's talk about symptoms

There is the "anhedonia" phase.
Then there is the "I just want to sleep" phase.

Then there is the strange "I don't give a sh*t" phase.

Meanwhile, the disorder in my office and at home grows & grows.

Lapis Lazuli

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. 

--Wm. Butler Yeats

I owe everyone an apology

...The Black Dog is making me a bit self-absorbed these days.  One of its greatest tricks is to make me want to isolate myself, which makes me feel isolated & lonely & self-pitying, which is a self-reinforcing cycle even while I try to fight it.  Trying to make it a day at a time right now.

How fragile a thing . . .

 . . . is trust.

Monday Update, Post-Florida Edition

In short, I could use about another week of break.  This past week was grueling.  I have learned that traveling like I did this past week really takes a toll on my energy and my mind.  Sarasota is a wonderfully nice city--but also awfully expensive to visit.

Seriously, I feel like I need to find a reset button.  It's hard not to get overwhelmed by the simplest things these days.

I have learned some things recently that are hard to swallow.  Best to choke them down, though.

I guess people get used to it

Thoughts upon completing this trip to The Sunshine State, mostly involving the interminable airport parts:

1. The TSA shoe tango is utterly absurd.
2. Car rental may be the most baroque process ever devised by man. Trying to return the damn keys was an ordeal...and apparently the agent got frustrated with me because I parked the car in a spot designated for the company from which I was renting...which was apparently the wrong place to park it.
3. Traveling is brutally expensive. Why? Because when waiting for flights at the terminal, we will pay whatever they want to charge us for our coffee/cocktails/beer/soda/water.
4. How come the Sarasota airport has a B terminal but not an A terminal?
5. Props to this airport for the free wi-fi. Or for hiding the charge in the ticket prices, etc.
6. Why do people dress this way?? Eeek!
7. I think I become almost invisible when I travel by myself. You could probably put your hand right through me right this very second.

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Little Red

Tomorrow is his 4th birthday, and I'll be heading to Florida. 
I would rather spend the day with him.

In which Piers takes stock

• Papers to grade:  meh.
• Conference presentation to write:  uhhhhh...laterrr....
• Prepare for class tomorrow:  nah...I'll just wing it.
• Catch up on reading:  ooh! Facebook!
• Committee work:  ye gods, no.
• Call Sodexho for banquet arrangements:  I HATE THE PHONE.
• Find and roust out the beastie that is marauding in our garage at night:  aw hell, really??
• Write blog entry:  okaaaay, fiiiine.

Shakespeare only gets better with age

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

       For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

In which Piers bites his truant pen

I am seriously incapable of sustained concentration these days. To the left is the bulk of what I did today. Aside from teaching, that is.
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She stole my heart, and losing her broke it.

Fluffernutter got hit by a car tonight. The injuries were severe; we had to have her put to sleep. Rest In Peace, little kitty.





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Among the poems I will be reading tonight

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.  (Shakespeare)

In which Piers gets confused

"My wit is naught: I cannot learn the way."

Based on a couple of recent conversations:

1.  I cannot understand a man who comes home to his wife and children and basically wants to leave his roles as father and husband at the door.  It seems to me that whereas there may be a short term gain in slouching in the recliner with a beer or two or three and watching the ball game, does that help in the long run when the wife is harried and resentful and the children are either scared or indifferent?  Can this help the sex life, or the sense of peace and relaxation?  Does it make for a fun weekend?  I am willing to admit that there have been times--some more severe and long-term than others--that I've been pretty rough to live with (generally when I'm beset by the Black Dog).  These, however, are men who do this as a matter of policy.  By design.  I'll also grant that there are plenty of sides to each story...I just can't get my mind around it.

2.  I cannot understand men who wish to cram their girlfriends/spouses/partners into itty bitty boxes so as better to control them.  This happens in all sorts of ways aside from the obvious abuse:  emotional manipulation; belittling and questioning; constantly pointing out the others' faults; financial or sexual coercion; and so on.  Why would you want to crush the spirit of a person you love, or profess to love?  If you're this insecure/jealous, the problem isn't your partner...it's YOU.  Still, I don't understand how anyone could live with themselves and be like this.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 35

It starts every evening at about 6:00, and does not stop until 8:30 at the earliest. I speak, of course, of The Bedtime Routine. It is truly the most exhausting part of any given day. Guess who makes it that way.


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Monday Update, Shoop Bow Edition

The Youngest really enjoyed the Super Bowl last night . . . for a couple of hours he shouted "SHOOP BOW" and pointed at the TV.  The others enjoyed it as well, and at the end of the game The Runner was on her knees in the middle of the floor shouting at the TV for the Giants to HOLD THEM!!!

Speaking of Sunday, my second day of teaching Sunday school has come and gone without incident.  I did utter a phrase never before heard in that Sunday school room:  "I know when I drink too much I start talking in Latin!"  I guess I should start memorizing some names in there.

Number One Son had a big event on Friday and Saturday . . . he got to have his first sleepover at a friend's house.  And what's more, they did it as they should have:  they stayed up way too late, didn't give a second thought to their parents, and apparently slept in a tent in the attic rather than in the bedroom.  His first comment, after asking me if mommy had missed him, was:  "I forgot about you and mommy!"  I told him that was a good thing.

To rephrase that Matthew Broderick commercial from last night, if you let your guard down a little, something's gonna jump out and grab you.

The Imp of the Perverse

Please.  Tell me more.

1.  If you're sitting there telling me that you're blessed with a "silver tongue," may I suggest a more sober self-assessment?

2.  Is there a worse curse than to be a Nice Guy?  I mean, a curse for the Nice Guy himself.  Everyone else finds it awfully convenient.

3.  Please don't try to assure people that they can avoid later regret.  No one gets to live without regret.  If any choice is open to a person, it's which kind of regret to live with.

4.  It's like the implicit promise in so much evangelical preaching:  that by making the "right" choices, we're keeping a bargain with God that will result in our being "blessed."  That's a promise no one can (or should) ever make. 

5.  But, as is the case with so many things, what we assert is sometimes what we wish were true.

Tonight!

Monday Update, Balmy Weather Edition

The Runner sent the children out to play on Saturday and on Sunday.  It was warm enough that the elder two refused their jackets.  Well, they wore them out the door . . . then shed them.

I taught my first Sunday school class in a good while yesterday.  It seemed to go well enough.  I'm not accustomed to teaching in that setup, so I've got some adjusting to do.  They chuckled in the appropriate spots, and I fairly cleanly fielded the one unexpected response I got . . . so far so good.  The Runner says I did fine, so I trust her.

Rough weekend from a psychological standpoint . . . as I mentioned yesterday evening, it's hard to feel like all one's efforts are mere drops in the bucket all the time. . . while the bucket continues to get bigger and bigger.  The Runner was kind enough to assure me that I'm doing a better job than I give myself credit for.  My fear is that the moment I start believing that I'm doing alright, the bottom will drop out and I'll end up on my face.  That is a state of mind I've had since The Year I Almost Died. . . and invalid though it may be, it's a hard lesson to unlearn.

We did show the boys Star Wars on Friday night (I refuse to call it by its hokey new name).

The weather is good.  I should be out on the bike.  Always something more.

Bupropion XL 300

I am wondering if perhaps I don't do better without taking this particular drug . . . I ran out of my supply around Wednesday of last week and found that I was doing just as well if not better without it.  Time for a change, perhaps?