Hypnogogia
Apparently, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I woke earlier than usual, naturally through hypnogogia and into a bizarre state of anger with my alarm clock for failing to wake me up. What the hell was I dreaming about?
Sciatica
I tried to fall back asleep but failed, a rare issue for me. Instead, I spent the hour laying in bed, mad that my room was cold, that I didn’t have enough blankets and that I could feel my sciatic nerve firing through the piriformis in my left hip. Maybe this negativity is from nerve pain?
Negativity
For the last twelve hours, I’ve been agitated by the sensitivity of a good friend of mine. To be more specific, I’m angry that my friend received a benign adventure offer negatively and subsequently chose to share the sentiment. I’m angry that I contradict myself at this point, falling anywhere between believing in full disclosure to projecting only positivity. Assuming we can’t immediately change how we feel about things, how should we choose to react?
Answers
First, this is the real world – get with it. There are rarely, if ever, right and wrong answers. Life is a universe of grey. You’re free to want any shade of grey, but certainly not black or white. Life has ups and downs. Get over it.
Get Over It
I reflected on my own poor reaction to my friend’s honesty in negativity and reflected on the merits of lying, and decided to get over it and get on with my day. I decided to get over it. I decided not to share it. I decided to stomach it. This is my answer for you.
Sharing
Our parents, teachers and coaches did a wonderful job but along with the rest of the world they perpetuate culture and cliches that are fit for children. Life is not so simple. Fat is good for you; eat it or you’ll die. Honesty is not the best policy; I learned that pretty quickly yet went right on attempting to be honest my whole life with a resurgence over the past two years. Sharing is not caring; caring is an attachment to something which allows you to be affected. If you share a sentiment with someone about whom you care, you will feel its reflections. So why would you share something from which you yourself are already suffering?
Why do you have a dog? Why do you have a psychologist? Why do you have God? Why do you have a journal? Why do you have the gym, the mountains, running shoes, the ocean or the wind? Why do you have a blog? Why do you have a career? Why do you have a routine?
Relationships
Relationships need not be had with other human beings. There’s a laundry list of advantages on both sides of that equation. There are advantages to having fewer relationships with human beings. There are advantages to having relationships with things other than human beings.
Advantages
Dogs don’t reflect your negativity the way your friend will. Your psychologist is trained, licensed and paid to receive your negativity and respond in a certain way, and you can walk away whenever you’d like. God has been serving billions of people for the last several thousand years – thank God He’s so endlessly forgiving. Every one of these non-human (sorry doc! (non-standard)) relationships receives our negativity and reflects it far differently than our family, friends and strangers. These range from emotional outlets to fountains of ignorant, drooling love and positivity. So what good are people?
Loneliness
Where these non-human relationships fall short is in satisfying our need for connection, keeping loneliness at bay. Each provides an array of satisfactions and advantages but without intimate relationships with human beings, we’d feel pretty devastatingly alone. And so to come full circle, one question now remains. Is it possible to have satisfying, intimate relationships with human beings without honesty and the inclusion of reflected negativity?
Get Over It
Remember this paragraph title on the previous page? Yep, get over it. Before you run to share your issues with your friends, picture a child and his futile explosion of tears in the face of every challenge. Before you react, before you share your negativity with the world, there’s more than a few steps you should take. One, breathe; are you still having issues? Play with your dog, talk to God, try the journal; are you still having issues? Sleep on it; are you still having issues? You certainly need not go this life alone, but do the world a favor, get over it and share the love.
I’d like to thank this blog and my running shoes. Thank you; I feel better now.
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