Inner Grouch
10/26/08 11:27
My life has periods when whatever occurs is cajoled by an Inner Grouch into the dimmest possible terms. A beautiful day takes on an ominous quality, a friend’s loving smile looks critical... If anxiety may be termed existential and ever-present despite common sense to demonstrate its groundlessness, what about darkness, a flatness that falls over life occasionally?
Some call the thing mild chronic depression and maybe that’s right. Yet to manage the flat darkness I prefer to dub it my Inner Grouch because the way it first manifests itself is through snappish behavior. After a few days of being rude to the people I like best and wondering why I did such things, that’s when the existential flat dark (I call it EFD) settles down like a tub of jello around me. Funny remarks that would have had me howling with laughter a week earlier barely get a ho-hum. Little physical problems normal for a person with my type of handicap become insurmountable, ceasing to exert their more normal challenge to me to get with the program and figure this out. I expect too much of other people and magnify my importance in my jello filled cloud. Some others have purposes to their lives, and seem pleased about what they are doing, while here am I. Doing what, hoping some orphaned purpose will adopt me?
EFD shows up about once in ten years, with minor skirmishes more frequent. Saying prayers helps at first. As EFD gets thicker, though, prayers get more watery. So do difficult stories in the news, misadventures on the part of my loved ones, minor accidents by the animals around here. Where does this come from? It is said that similar things happen to older people. Insufficient money, energy, or companionship, feelings of guilt over events long bygone, a sense of neglect by family or friends.
I empathize, though I can be responsible for myself only. There are people who inspire me by the way they handle this sort of feeling, perhaps one day I can inspire somebody else... My EFD is brought forth by large changes in life that leave me feeling helpless. Here I am in my big electric wheelchair, pudgy because I was created as an athletic person who ought to be running around burning up calories. For years I swore I’d die before I accepted a wheelchair. From the time I was old enough to understand what adults spoke about, I swore I would die before I would accept any government dole -- and here am I, on disability.
Perhaps the reason why I don’t deeply object to all the banged up doors and missing plaster patches in my house, caused by the electric wheelchair, is that it means that, look, here I am! Not dead, I’m dinging up houses with this thing I didn’t want!
In the shadow lands of the mind negative memories hunker silently till an external event catapults one up to consciousness, where it repeats its message of fear, rejection or pain, tempting one to relive a lousy experience from decades gone by. So I acknowledge these memories and feelings without judging them, let them run their course and be objective rather than reactionary. Let them gain attention and let go, let go, let go. Will they one day cease to pay visits? The goal I have is not to give energy to such dim, feeling-generated memories, nor take any from them.
‘Abdu’l-Baha said that “When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.” There is much to be said in behalf of positive thinking, although to me it does not mean suppressing the difficult memories, just noticing that over time they take up less and less room in the attic.
Rumi wrote a poem where a young man prays faithfully until a cynic asks if he ever gets a response. After that, the young man is confused:
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing
you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the conversation.
There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
Some call the thing mild chronic depression and maybe that’s right. Yet to manage the flat darkness I prefer to dub it my Inner Grouch because the way it first manifests itself is through snappish behavior. After a few days of being rude to the people I like best and wondering why I did such things, that’s when the existential flat dark (I call it EFD) settles down like a tub of jello around me. Funny remarks that would have had me howling with laughter a week earlier barely get a ho-hum. Little physical problems normal for a person with my type of handicap become insurmountable, ceasing to exert their more normal challenge to me to get with the program and figure this out. I expect too much of other people and magnify my importance in my jello filled cloud. Some others have purposes to their lives, and seem pleased about what they are doing, while here am I. Doing what, hoping some orphaned purpose will adopt me?
EFD shows up about once in ten years, with minor skirmishes more frequent. Saying prayers helps at first. As EFD gets thicker, though, prayers get more watery. So do difficult stories in the news, misadventures on the part of my loved ones, minor accidents by the animals around here. Where does this come from? It is said that similar things happen to older people. Insufficient money, energy, or companionship, feelings of guilt over events long bygone, a sense of neglect by family or friends.
I empathize, though I can be responsible for myself only. There are people who inspire me by the way they handle this sort of feeling, perhaps one day I can inspire somebody else... My EFD is brought forth by large changes in life that leave me feeling helpless. Here I am in my big electric wheelchair, pudgy because I was created as an athletic person who ought to be running around burning up calories. For years I swore I’d die before I accepted a wheelchair. From the time I was old enough to understand what adults spoke about, I swore I would die before I would accept any government dole -- and here am I, on disability.
Perhaps the reason why I don’t deeply object to all the banged up doors and missing plaster patches in my house, caused by the electric wheelchair, is that it means that, look, here I am! Not dead, I’m dinging up houses with this thing I didn’t want!
In the shadow lands of the mind negative memories hunker silently till an external event catapults one up to consciousness, where it repeats its message of fear, rejection or pain, tempting one to relive a lousy experience from decades gone by. So I acknowledge these memories and feelings without judging them, let them run their course and be objective rather than reactionary. Let them gain attention and let go, let go, let go. Will they one day cease to pay visits? The goal I have is not to give energy to such dim, feeling-generated memories, nor take any from them.
‘Abdu’l-Baha said that “When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.” There is much to be said in behalf of positive thinking, although to me it does not mean suppressing the difficult memories, just noticing that over time they take up less and less room in the attic.
Rumi wrote a poem where a young man prays faithfully until a cynic asks if he ever gets a response. After that, the young man is confused:
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing
you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the conversation.
There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
