Giving Thanks for an Epiphany

“Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.  It is out of the formlessness of the neutral zone that new form emerges and out of the barrenness of the fallow time that new life springs.  We can support and even enhance the process, but we cannot produce the results.  Once those results begin to take shape, however, there are several things that can be done.  The first is, very simply, to stop getting ready and to act.  Getting ready can turn out to be an endless task, and one of the forms that inner resistance often takes is the attempt to make just a few more (and then more, and again more) preparations.” “Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes,” by William Bridges

I had a foul epiphany the other day.  Well, actually, it was more like a fowl epiphany.

I stopped off at a mall close to my house to run a few errands.  Being as I live in California, it’s an open-air mall, irrespective of the fact that it’s Northern California and several of the months here are more often than not, cold and rainy.  Anyway, the first thing I noticed was this twenty-foot high orange and brown wooden turkey with a bobbing head.  Now I wasn’t surprised so much by the turkey (it shows up every November and doesn’t depart until after the New Year) but I was surprised by the whole “Groundhog Day” effect that it had on me.

You see, this turkey is hollow.  It has a door in its side that opens up so that you can donate canned and dry goods to the local food bank.  It’s something I do every year.  Only this time when I saw that damned turkey I could have sworn it was only a couple of weeks ago that I had been shoving boxes of pasta and tins of tuna into its hollowed-out butt.

Now, here’s the thing.  I’ve been starring at that mechanical turkey every holiday season for the past twenty plus years.  I’m sick to death of that Turkey.  And it was a stark reminder of how boring my life had become.  How risk free.  How safe.  And I swear to you, the second I laid eyes on it I vowed that it would be the last Thanksgiving I would ever have see it.

I’m an East Coast person.  Born and raised.  And though I was transplanted to Northern California more than two decades ago, my roots never took.  Every year I vow to move away, back to New York or Boston.  Back to someplace that makes me feel more alive.  And here was this gigantic three-dimensional reminder that another year had passed.  Another year spent daydreaming instead of taking action.

“When the time comes, stop getting ready to do it—and do it!”

What is it about the familiar that keeps us so chained to the status quo?  Why would we rather suffer in a toxic environment than try something new?  It’s one of the reasons (I repeat, ONE of the reasons) people stay in abusive relationships.  The “known,” no matter how detrimental, feels like a safer choice than the unknown.  I’ve seen videos of children screaming to be returned to their parents, even though their parents were abusive to them.  We crave, (consciously or un) sameness.

I had some relatives from South Florida visit not too long ago.  They borrowed my car and drove up to Napa for the day.  They were rather disappointed by the trip.  Seems that they stopped and asked several people if there was a “Bennigans” around.  There wasn’t.  They were 3,000 miles from home, in an environment that is nowhere near theirs, and yet they wanted to duplicate the same experience they have in Palm Beach.  They wanted the familiar.

Now, I’ve never really been one to play it safe.  Or so I thought.  But to tell you the truth, the idea of actually implementing a plan that would take me far away from that turkey, that would uproot me from everything I know, regardless of how boring it is, scares me to death.  Why is that?

But like I said in my last post, there are two different kinds of learning, and this one was the experiential one.  I got it on a gut level.  I would rather die doing something new than live forever doing the same old, same old.

And like they say in “Pippin,” “I want my life to be something more than long….”

“Corner of the Sky” from “Pippin”

Everything has its season

Everything has its time

Show me a reason and I’ll soon show you a rhyme

Cats fit on the windowsill

Children fit in the snow

Why do I feel I don’t fit in anywhere I go?

Rivers belong where they can ramble

Eagles belong where they can fly

I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free

Got to find my corner of the sky

Every man has his daydreams

Every man has his goal

People like the way dreams have

Of sticking to the soul

Thunderclouds have their lightning

Nightingales have their song

And don’t you see I want my life to be

Something more than long….

Rivers belong where they can ramble

Eagles belong where they can fly

I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free

Got to find my corner of the sky

So many men seem destined

To settle for something small

But I won’t rest until I know I’ll have it all

So don’t ask where I’m going

Just listen when I’m gone

And far away you’ll hear me singing

Softly to the dawn:

Rivers belong where they can ramble

Eagles belong where they can fly

I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free

Got to find my corner of the sky.

Pippin: Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Toxic Cleanup

“Mastery of some of the most extraordinary things has to do with just being willing to do the dumb, boring stuff over and over again and to like it while you’re doing it.  That’s how anyone becomes great at anything.”  “Choose to be Happy; The Craft and the Art of Living Beyond Anxiety,” by Swami Chetanananda

 

I had one of those “Ahh ha!” moments recently.

There are two levels of understanding.  There is the intellectual level and then there is the gut level, the level where you actually experience knowledge in a new and enlightened way.

I save things.  I accumulate stuff.  I’m an information junkie and a bibliophile.  Then there’s the whole abundance issue where you can never have too much of anything because at one time in your life you never had enough.

Now, I’m not in any danger of Oprah showing up at my home any time soon with a cleaning crew and seven dumpsters, but it’s all relative.  Are the stacks of books sitting in piles around my house any less toxic than the bags of clothing or the boxes of canned goods lying around in others?

Anyway, I was on vacation recently.  Ten days away from home with only two suitcases and a carry-on.  (Of course I always over-pack because abundance issues apply equally to hotel rooms as they do to living rooms.)  But, it wasn’t until I returned home that I realized how stressful my environment had become.

Because of my mood disorder it’s hard to be “present.”  At home there are always things to do, projects to tackle, books to read.  The list is endless.  Those things gnaw at you without you ever really knowing it.  It works on a subconscious level.  Even if you think you’re enlightened enough to “know” that that’s what’s going on, there is a huge difference between knowing and experiencing.

It occurred to me that whenever I go away on vacation I’m a lot less likely to get depressed or to have serious mood swings.  Although I must admit that trips away from home do make me more prone to mania, if only by virtue of the stimulation to be found in new situations and in foreign surroundings.

But here’s what I discovered: the limits of a hotel room are not really limiting.  They are empowering.

At home I have what seems like ten thousand shirts.  On vacation, seven.  (Okay twelve, but who’s counting?)  And most of the shirts at home aren’t ironed, because, well, I hate to iron, and I have ADD, and anyone who has ADD knows what I’m talking about.  So whenever I go to get something to wear, I’m overwhelmed by the choices and then depressed and angry at myself for my lack of discipline (for not having ironed most of them) and for my lack of motivation (for not having the energy to iron them.)

I never leave the house without a book in hand; so then I am forced to make another decision.  Which of the thirty books I’m in the middle of do I take with me?  (Hint: it’s usually a lot more than one as well as a few more I want to start.)  On vacation, if only by necessity, I’m limited to a few (okay, six, but that’s not really the point.)  Same thing with food (too many items in the fridge and too much energy required to prepare any of them.)  Don’t you just love the brevity of room service menus and the simplicity of preparing breakfast by making a quick phone call while still in your pj’s?

So, three things happen repeatedly at home.  I am overwhelmed by choices, I am reminded by those choices of why my life isn’t working, and I chastise myself for my inability to limit, maintain or prepare my stuff.

Now, I know it’s a lot bigger issue than just a little de-cluttering of my environment.  I know that it’s going to take a huge amount of energy to resist bringing more and more stuff into my house.  I know that I have to hold myself accountable for each and every decision, for each and every purchase, for each and every justification I make to warrant those (reactive) choices.

I don’t think I’m alone in beating myself up for such things, for thinking I should know better, be stronger, work harder.  And I’m not alone in placing blame on a mental state that makes even the simplest of tasks (like making coffee) seem insurmountable.

But I do believe, as I have said before, that most us are guilty of accommodating our disorder to some degree.  We make room for it.  We justify it.  We let ourselves get lazy and complacent, which only adds to our discontent.

But perhaps that’s just me.  One of the hardest things about this disorder is knowing what’s real and what’s imagined.  What I’m capable of and what I cut myself too much slack for.  But I digress….

Oprah, if you’re reading this, have your producers e-mail me so I can tell them which address to deliver the dumpsters to.

 

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me….

“A few observations about the complexity of an illness that is so much a part and parcel of one’s temperament.  But most importantly [about] the role of love in recovery.  Love as sustainer, as re-newer and as protector.”:

“After each seeming death within my mind or heart, love has returned to re-create hope and to restore life.  It has at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest.  It has, inexplicably and savingly, provided not only cloak, but lantern for the darker seasons and grimmer weather.

I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons.  Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is.  And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces.  There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist.  It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and color to one’s loves and friendships.”   “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness,” by Kay Redfield Jamison

I was brutally and viscously attacked this weekend.  Granted it was only a verbal lashing, but it was by a “supposed” friend while he was a guest in my home.  But it was the intense animosity and the volume at which it was hurled that has left scars far greater and deeper than any he might have tried to inflict physically.

I share this with you because of what it means to me as someone who suffers with a mental disorder.  Because, while his outburst about my mental state failed to make me feel stigmatized, his behavior did (does) make me feel marginalized.  And that is unacceptable.  Bordering on unconscionable.

No one has the right to stand in judgment of you or your mental capabilities.  Least of all someone who acts self-righteous, who professes moral superiority, who thinks they have the right to determine what is and what is not acceptable behavior.  Especially when they themselves act hypocritically, because, for the record, accosting someone while a guest in their home and then sneaking away without leaving a note or saying goodbye to the other members of the household is not acceptable behavior.

The truly sad part of this story for me is that I lost a 15 year-long friendship that I cherished.  Not with him, but with his wife who stood by and said nothing while he repeatedly insulted me. Would his behavior have been tolerated had he attacked someone in a wheelchair?  Someone with mental retardation?  Someone with anorexia?  Is abuse leveled on someone who suffers from a mental disorder any less reprehensible than an attack on someone with a more physically apparent disability?

But, even as I mourn that loss I am left with the feeling of being empowered, renewed, reborn.  It has reminded me of two of my favorite (and empowering) phrases: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and “Consider the source.”

I present this video as a gift to him.  To enlighten him.  Sadly he will never see it because as far as I know he has never read my blog.  If he had, he might have seen my mood swings for what they were, the unfortunate influence (or deficiency) of certain chemicals in my brain.  But the truth is, I make no secret of my disorder and he is well aware of (or at least he should have been) the fact that my mental state is compromised.

Personal Reflections on Manic-Depressive Illness

I can only speak for myself, but I have no doubt that most of us who struggle with a mental handicap (be it bipolar disorder, chronic depression, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc.) struggle with low self-esteem.  The one thing that I feel is my saving grace is the gift of self-respect.  It doesn’t completely compensate for my disorder but it certainly makes it tolerable at times.  While I may not be the most successful or accomplished person, nor the smartest, nor the most humble, nor the bravest, I am a human being who deserves, no DEMANDS to be treated with respect.

And so I declared at the end of his tirade: “You and I are no longer friends.”  I chose the high road and did not stoop to his level of name-calling, etc.  Although I did slam the door rather aggressively on the way out of the room.  I’m bipolar, hear me ROAR.

That is my gift to you today.  Own that for yourself.  RESPECT.  Challenge anyone who dismisses you in any way, shape or form.  Confront anyone who dares suggest that your role or your contribution to life or society is any less valuable than theirs.  Do not take any slight or insult lightly.

Whatever your own personal handicap is, I guarantee you that you have other gifts that more than make up for any shortcomings or challenges you might face.  Stand up for yourself.  Refuse to be stigmatized or marginalized.  Never, ever, under any circumstance, allow someone to disrespect you.  Never let their ignorance and small mindedness affect how you feel about yourself.  I honor you.  Please honor yourself.

A mental disorder is biological.  Ignorance is not.

To all of my good friends and followers who remain loyal, who take the good with the bad, who love unconditionally, I am thankful.  I am humbled by your humanity and forever grateful for your acceptance.  Please feel free to add your comments here.  The support of my family, friends and readers has meant the world to me, and has been another, not so small, saving grace.  Please know that I am here for you as well.

A Show of Hands: Who Doesn’t Have a Mental Disorder?

“…attending to…deliberately selected targets, or even making a conscious decision to “veg out” for a spell, you would have had a far better experience than many of us have much of the time, captured by whatever flotsam and jetsam happens to wash up on our mental shores.  In short, to enjoy the kind of experience you want rather than enduring the kind that you feel stuck with, you have to take charge of your attention.”  Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life,” by Winifred Gallagher.

Is everyone bipolar?

Glenn Close PSA

I used to think I was unique.  Yes, a mental disorder is not something to be proud of, and I would give it away with no questions asked if I could, but it was one of those things that made me the individual that I am.  Now it feels like I’m just one more voice getting lost in the crowd of commercials and PSAs that make mental illness seem like the chic new accessory this year.

I’m all for removing any stigma attached to it, but quite frankly, I don’t feel stigmatized.  Maybe that’s because I’ve been in therapy for thirty years.  Maybe that’s because I’ve tried every drug (unsuccessfully) as soon as it hit the market.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always been more concerned with “getting better” than I have been about what other people might think.

Or perhaps I just live in a bubble of educated, liberal people out here on the west coast where I feel comfortable discussing my illness, writing about my disorder and sharing my challenges in conversations, without feeling the need to withhold my condition.  Without feeling the need to pretend to be “normal.”  In some ways it’s good to be “out of the closet” about your condition.

I’m also torn between the idea of talking about the disorder and trying not to think about it at all.  There’s a saying: What you think about persists.  The more I think about my disorder the more I’m aware of it.  And the more inclined I am to use it as an excuse for not accomplishing what I want to in my life.  It becomes a crutch.

Like the quote above from “Rapt” implies, your life is about the things you focus on.  Does focusing on being bipolar help me discover ways of dealing with it, or does it keep me mired in it?

The more I talk and write about mental illness, the more aware I am of it.  The more of a focus it has in my life.  I don’t want my life to be ABOUT being bipolar.

Do these conversations do more harm than good?  Perhaps not if you’re someone like Glenn Close’s sister who doesn’t have a diagnosis yet for what you’ve been suffering with.  In that case, disseminating the information is a good thing.

That being said, I do think it’s important to have the dialogue with our loved ones. They need to understand what’s happening with us as much as we do.  I’ve discovered that it’s a dance.  A dance very few people are capable of engaging in.But families need to not only understand, but accommodate our disorder, and that can be very difficult for many reasons.

So for now, I’m happy to be part of the conversation as long as it’s helpful.  But as usual, I don’t have any answers, just more questions.

Remembering the Fallen (Part Two)

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet,

a pawn and a king.

I’ve been up and down and over and out,

and I know one thing:

each time I find myself, flat on my face,

I pick myself up and get back in the race.

“That’s Life.”  Lyrics by, Dean Kay & Kelly L. Gordon

Ok, so I’ve reached rock bottom.  I hope.

Needing a respite from rejection I stopped sending out novel excerpts and short stories to literary magazines and agents.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t put an end to the negative responses.  Yesterday I received another form letter from Berkeley Fiction Review.  It was a lovely little missive submitted to me in response to a story I sent them on December 1, 2008.  Ten months ago.

That’s not the worst of it.  The rejection that’s been the hardest for me to take is one that never came.

Several months ago I volunteered to teach prisoners at San Quentin.  I sent them cover letters, resumes, a detailed suggested syllabus and numerous e-mails, and in return I received nothing.  No acknowledgement.  No “thanks, but no thanks.”  No “message undeliverable.”  Nothing.

What little self-esteem I had left was shattered by the realization that I was being rejected by the California prison system.  By virtue of their non-response, I was being told that I was not even worthy of teaching writing to convicted felons.  Here I was, willing to risk my life working side by side with individuals incarcerated for crimes they’d committed against society, and I, a law abiding citizen with a MFA and a desire to do something positive with my free time, was being told by the University Prison Project that I wasn’t even worthy of a dignified response.

My bipolarity is a blessing and a curse.  In some ways I believe it is partially responsible for my creativity, my desire to write in the first place.  But it’s a challenge because of the inconsistency it causes to my attention, to my ambition, and to the very source of my creativity.  So, here I am, trying to navigate the biochemical fluctuations in my brain without pharmaceuticals, while still being plagued with the emotional/ego issues that affect every one: fear, stress, rejection, etc.

I never know if my reaction to something is nature or nurture.  It would be ideal if I could separate them, study them independently, but I can’t.  Is the hopelessness I feel relative to the situation?  Is the despair triggered by the rejection or does the rejection merely amplify feelings that were already there?

I can be overly sensitive, susceptible to depression from even a simple (and perhaps unintended) slight.  So how do I forge ahead when I can’t be sure of what’s real?  Are others just insensitive brutes incapable of recognizing my significant talent?  Or is my wavering ego incapable of coming to terms with the fact that I don’t have any talent, that they are right?

I don’t profess to know why other writers have chosen to take their own lives, but I do believe on some level it had something to do with either the process and/or the business of writing.  You see, the thing with writing is that there is no right way, no one-way.  It is (to some extent) subjective, even to the author.  The brilliant sentences, the beautiful metaphors, the inspired alliteration that made it to the page yesterday, today sound flat, tired, clichéd.

That’s life

and I can’t deny it

many times I thought of cutting out

but my heart won’t buy it

but if there’s nothing shakin’ come this here July

I’m gonna roll myself up

in a big ball

and die

For various and unknowable reasons, the following authors died at their own hands.  Gifted individuals who had managed to make a name for themselves, support themselves doing what they loved, at some point decided that life wasn’t worth living.  The thought that these artists had come to such a conclusion even after they’d achieved success (and became the basis by which others would be measured), scares me to death.

“The lion still stood looking majestically and coolly toward this object that his eyes only showed in silhouette, bulking like some super-rhino.  There was no man smell carried toward him and he watched the object, moving his great head a little from side to side.  Then watching the object, not afraid, but hesitating before going down the bank to drink with such a thing opposite him, he saw a man figure detach itself from it and he turned his heavy head and swung away toward the cover of the trees as he heard a cracking crash and felt the slam of a .30-06 220-grain solid bullet that bit his flank and ripped in sudden hot scalding nausea through his stomach.  He trotted, heavy, big-footed, swinging wounded full-bellied, through the trees toward the tall grass and cover, and the crash came again to go past him ripping the air apart.  Then it crashed again and he felt the blow as it hit his lower ribs and ripped on through, blood sudden hot and frothy in his mouth, and he galloped toward the high grass where he could crouch and not be seen and make them bring the crashing thing close enough so he could make a rush and get the man that held it.”  “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” by Ernest Hemingway.

“Once in a while Chance would turn off the water and sit on the grass and think.  The wind, mindless of direction, intermittently swayed the bushes and trees.  The city’s dust settled evenly, darkening the flowers, which waited patiently to be rinsed by the rain and dried by the sunshine.  And yet, with all its life, even at the peak of its bloom, the garden was its own graveyard.  Under every tree and bush lay rotten trunks and disintegrated and decomposing roots.  It was hard to know which was more important: the garden’s surface or the graveyard from which it grew and into which it was constantly lapsing.”  “Being There,” by Jerzy Kosinski

“By this time the drink was beginning to cut the acid and my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level.  The room service waiter had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, but I was no longer seeing huge pterodactyls lumbering around the corridors in pools of fresh blood.  The only problem now was a gigantic neon sign outside the window, blocking our view of the mountains—millions of colored balls running around a very complicated track, strange symbols & filigree, giving off a loud hum….” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” by Hunter S. Thompson

Like the song says, “I’ll pick myself up and get back on my feet.”  Or, perhaps, “Roll myself up in a big ball and die.”  Only time will tell.  But for now…I’m still writing!!!

Shades of Gray

“We do not want to admit our lack of substance to ourselves and, instead, strive to project an image of completeness, or self-sufficiency.  The paradox is that, to the extent that we succumb to this urge, we are estranged from ourselves and are not real.  Our narcissism requires that we keep the truth about ourselves at bay.” Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective.”  By Mark Epstein, M.D.

I haven’t been able to focus on any one thing for a while.  Everything is a shade of gray.

But I did have these thoughts the other day while trying to get back into an exercise routine.  Feast or famine.  All or nothing.  That’s how it is with me and my disorders.  I go to the gym every day for three months and then stop going all together for the next six.  So there I was, back in my tee shirt and shorts, trying to jump-start my fitness routine once again.

I did my weight routine.  Easy enough to cut short.  This is something you want to ease back into.  Then on to the treadmill.  I punch in “random,” “forty minutes,” “weight,” (wouldn’t you like to know?) “level 15,” “speed 3.2.”

Ten minutes in: I am bored but determined to stick it out.

Twelve minutes in: I am bored and tired.

Fifteen minutes in: The rationalizations start.  I’m bored, tired and depressed.  It’s okay to stop.  No one will know.

Nineteen minutes in: That’s enough, isn’t it?  I’ll do twice as much tomorrow.  An hour and twenty minutes.  I’ll be in a better mood and get more out of it.

Twenty-one minutes in: How much benefit am I going to get from another nineteen minutes anyway?

Twenty-five minutes in: Okay, thirty minutes.  I’ll stop at thirty, that’s enough for one day.

Thirty minutes in: Ten more minutes.  That’s all you have to do.

Thirty-two minutes in: I really should take my protein drink now.

Thirty-four minutes in: Okay, just six more minutes, you can do that.

Thirty-five minutes in: Okay, really, what’s five more minutes worth?  I’ll burn what, twelve calories?

In actuality, the rationalizations were closer together, constant.  It seemed like the whole time I was on the machine I was looking for an excuse to get off.  Blame it on the iPod not working, the annoying guy next to me hacking every thirty seconds, the irritating rock Musak.  Now, this isn’t always the case.  Often, but not always.  Sometimes I get on and just do it.  But that’s rare.  There are days when I give in and stop and there are days when I stay with it for the time allocated.

The days I stay with it are the days when I am able to constantly remind myself of my commitment.  I committed to forty minutes (or whatever) and I need to keep that commitment.  EST (Erhard Seminars Training) taught me that.  Our lives don’t work when we don’t keep our commitments.  Even to ourselves.  Especially to ourselves.

But here’s the thing: because I suffer from a mental disorder, there is no way of knowing when I’m in the throes of an episode or when I’m just being “normal.”  You see, with a mental disorder, whether it’s bipolar, depression, ADD, OCD etc., there is no separation between episodes and non-episodes.  For example, if you suffer from migraines, you know when you have one and when you don’t.  Now, there may be triggers, but you either have a migraine or you don’t.  That’s my suspicion anyway.  So, if you call in sick to work, it’s because you actually are sick.  But if you have a mental disorder, you can never tell if you’re just being lazy, or if you’re having an episode (being sick).

Really, who wants to spend forty minutes on a treadmill?  But I imagine most people either do it or they don’t do it.  I don’t suspect they spend the entire forty minutes negotiating with themselves about whether to stay on it or not.

Sometimes there is no question.  I AM depressed.  But most often it’s a gray area.  How do I determine if I’m depressed or just lazy?  How do I know if I’m just aggravated or having a bipolar “irritable” episode?  This is further complicated by the fact that, even if it’s not an “episode,” by continuing to put forth the effort when I’m on the fence, I might actually trigger an episode, and I never want to do that.

I wouldn’t blame someone for spending the day in bed if they had a migraine.  And I don’t blame myself for staying in bed on those days when I’m severely depressed.  But the disorder is such that there’s no way to tell if I’m depressed or if I’m fearful, lazy, frustrated, etc.  When should I try to work through it and when is that futile?

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything.  Have I been depressed?  Or have I been avoiding writing anything because I’m lazy?  Or fearful I have nothing of value to say?  Afraid of being rejected or of offending?

Where does the disorder end and I begin?

Remembering the Fallen (Part One)

“The fiery aspects of thought and feeling that initially compel the artistic voyage—fierce energy, high mood, and quick intelligence; a sense of the visionary and the grand; a restless and feverish temperament—commonly carry with them the capacity for vastly darker moods, grimmer energies, and occasionally, bouts of “madness.”  “Touched with Fire: Manic-depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament,” by Kay Redfield Jamison

I received another in a seemingly endless series of “not for us” letters in the mail yesterday.  One of those impersonal form rejection letters sent out by students and volunteers at literary magazines when they find a free moment to shove an 8 ½’ x 11 guillotine into a number 9 envelope and send it off to me using the stamp that I supplied.  The cut is quick, but it is not painless.

It does however leave me headless for a few days.  Especially when those successive mornings are spent in front of the television watching Nancy (Dis)Grace hawking her novel on Good Morning America and the Today Show.

Is her writing that good?  Is mine that bad?  You be the judge:

“He couldn’t just leave the body lying there like that. There was something missing. It was biting at him. He’d tried to go, walking back to his car in the dark twice now, but the nagging in his brain wouldn’t let him leave until she was absolutely perfect.  He looked at her lying there in the moonlight. Her dead body was absolutely stunning. Before, when she had been alive, sitting in the passenger seat of his car, talking and talking about her life and herself and her journey from Anniston, Alabama, to Atlanta to break into acting, he thought his head would blow up like a bomb. She just wouldn’t shut up.”  “The Eleventh Victim,” by Nancy Grace.

It makes me wonder, and I don’t say this lightly, if a world in which Nancy Grace is a published author, a “novelist,” merely because she has “a platform,” is a world worth living in?  This being the same world that offers Levi Johnston movie roles, John and Kate Plus 8 their own TV series, and rewards talentless singers like William Hung with recording contracts.

Now, to cleanse your literary palate and to inspire you, for whatever creative outlet you might have, here are the words of some true artists who died long before they should have.  By their own hands.

“As I was wearing the soles of my desert boots down to a mere sliver of crepe rubber on the old flagstone banquettes of the French Quarter in my fevered attempt to wrest a living from an unthinking and uncaring society, I was hailed by a cherished old acquaintance (deviate).  After a few minutes of conversation in which I established most easily my moral superiority over this degenerate, I found myself pondering once more the crises of our times.  My mentality, uncontrollable and wanton as always, whispered to me a scheme so magnificent and daring that I shrank from the very thought of what I was hearing.  “Stop!”  I cried imploringly to my god-like mind.  “This is madness.”  But still I listened to the counsel of my brain.  It was offering me the opportunity to Save the World Through Degeneracy.”  “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by John Kennedy Toole.

“First, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart expanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked and chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves.  Then, up behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain of white water; and then while one waited for that, one watched, on the pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother of pearl.”  “To the Lighthouse,” by Virginia Woolf

“And dreams.  For months there have been dreams like nothing before: moist and busy and distant, full of yielding curves, frantic pistons, warmth and a great falling; and you have awakened through fluttering lids to a rush and a gush and a toe-curling scalp-snapping jolt of feeling from an inside deeper than you knew you had, spasms of a deep sweet hurt, the streetlights through your window blinds cracking into sharp stars against the black bedroom ceiling, and on you a dense white jam that lisps between legs, trickles and sticks, cools on you, hardens and clears until there is nothing but gnarled knots of pale solid animal hair in the morning shower, and in the wet tangle a clean sweet smell you can’t believe comes from anything you made inside you.”  “Forever Overhead,” from “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” by David Foster Wallace.

True genius often finds reality unbearable.  But the likes of Nancy Grace would never consider suicide.  They are too pleased by the sound of their own voice, however shrill.  Too enamored of their own reflection in the mirror, in the toaster, in the window at Bloomingdale’s.  While I don’t wish Ms. Grace any harm (although I can’t stop smiling at the thought of her being the twelfth victim) I do wish she would just go away.  She is not the type to put rocks in her pocket and wade into a lake.  Her ilk just makes the rest of us want to.  So in effect, she is spared, as WE are the twelfth victim.

There Must Be More to Life

“If there’s more to life than this, I don’t know what it is.”  “The Indispensible Calvin and Hobbes,” by Bill Watterson

My friend, Sarcastic Bastard reminded me today to take life a little less seriously.

So I am putting away all of the books on happiness and bipolar disorder and depression and attention deficit disorder for the weekend and going to the beach.

I will not think about the pharmaceutical companies or the little pink pills or the tiny blue capsules my doctors are always encouraging me to take.

I will not TRY to be, I will just BE.

I will TRY not to over-think every thing.  (I’m afraid “trying not to” is about all I can promise on that one.)

I will try to enjoy myself without the aid of Ketel One.  (But again, no promises)

I will not read anything heavy, or depressing, or self-helping, or motivational.  I will read literary stuff that is meant to be entertaining, not enlightening, not thought provoking—ENTERTAINING.

I suggest you do the same.  Life is short, but if you work it right, it’s just long enough.

My favorite strip of all time

And no, I’m not manic.  I’m just content from spending a few minutes thinking about the good things in my life and for the small pleasures that are unexpected, yet mean so much.  Like Calvin and Hobbes.  Funny AND thought provoking.  The best of both worlds.

Have a nice weekend.  Marco

Distraction

“Back in 1971, when the web was still twenty years off and the smallest computers were the size of delivery vans, before the founders of Google had even managed to get themselves born, the polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote maybe the most concise possible description of our modern struggle: What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. As beneficiaries of the greatest information boom in the history of the world, we are suffering, by Simon’s logic, a correspondingly serious poverty of attention.”  “In Defense of Distraction,” By Sam Anderson (New York magazine, May 25, 2009)

Okay, so I’m a little behind in my reading. But that is exactly what Mr. Anderson’s article is all about.  Distraction.  Throw bipolar disorder and ADD into the mix and you have a mind that can’t stop gorging itself on available information.

That’s also the reason I post less frequently than I would like.  Too much.  Of everything.  The e-mails, the RSS feeds, the Facebook notifications, the Tweets…all keep begging for my attention.

“The Internet is basically a Skinner box engineered to tap right into our deepest mechanisms of addiction. As B. F. Skinner’s army of lever-pressing rats and pigeons taught us, the most irresistible reward schedule is not, counterintuitively, the one in which we’re rewarded constantly but something called variable ratio schedule, in which the rewards arrive at random.”

Mr. Anderson’s likening the Internet to a Skinner box was very enlightening.  Part of how we change behavior is by knowing why we engage in that behavior to begin with.  After spending the morning wandering through a couple of bookstores, it occurred to me that I was merely wasting time, not, as I had been deluding myself, doing research.  I am always waiting for that next piece of brilliant, entertaining, thought-provoking information that will lead to an insight, that will lead to a post, that will lead to…what?  Being cured?  Happy?  Successful?  Rich?  Adored?

Is anything every really enough?  I doubt it.  We (most of us) are hardwired to want more.  Sure, there are some people who can happily check-out, spend their “golden years” playing golf in Boca Raton.  But that seems to be less and less the case these days as the world gets smaller and as we discover ideas that twenty years ago would never have made it past the front door of our suburban home.  With more exposure often comes more desire.  If you didn’t know there was such a thing as an iPhone, you wouldn’t want one.  Trouble is, now you not only know about it, you have one, only you’re not satisfied with it because you’ve just found out that the newer version comes with video.

“The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction.”

 

I don’t have a problem with being unhappy, dissatisfied.  It’s depression, a totally different animal, that I find unbearable.  I have always thought that wanting more is a good thing, you know, like sharks: if you don’t keep moving forward you die.  And by more, I don’t mean “more,” or bigger, or better, or faster.  I mean like learning to speak French fluently, or being able to play the piano, or hike Mt. Kilimanjaro, or win the Pulitzer, an Oscar, or a Tony.  Not having a Pulitzer doesn’t make me unhappy. It’s not like I need one.  But I can’t exactly be completely happy either if I really want one (am striving for one) but don’t have one yet.

I think the best we should strive for as humans is to be content.  Anything more is foolhardy, anything less a waste of what we do have.

But I did finally drag myself away from the bookstore and into the library where I am now writing this.  Okay, true confession; I didn’t start writing this until after I had perused the new books section for some possible unforeseen gems.  I mean, I did have to pass it on the way to the writing desks.  Hey, change is hard.

As Mr. Anderson’s wife reminds him, “You have all the information you need to do something right now.”

And so do I.

Thanks for allowing me to be one of your distractions.

Evan’s Excruciating Choice: A Family Devastated and a Boy Interrupted on HBO

“Bipolar depression is definitely more severe than just depression, and that’s why suicide attempts are more common in kids with bipolar depression.” From “Boy Interrupted.”

I had to pause the film “Boy Interrupted” to make a comment, to take a breath. I see much of myself in Evan and yet I also see things from a new perspective. It’s enlightening to watch someone like yourself be dissected and second “guessed.”  But the film does a remarkable job of capturing (from my experience) what it’s like to be bipolar or to live with someone who is. I started blogging about it back in April of this year, not to expose myself à la reality TV, but as a way of thinking about it in an open forum in which a community is built, stigma is removed, and coping skills are shared and learned.

I attended Stanford University’s School of Medicine’s 5th annual Bipolar Education Day and learned that because of the genetic make-up that causes bipolar disorder, it’s unlikely there will be a cure in the foreseeable future. Drugs are not a cure and the “trial and error” method of prescribing pills simply adds more torment and dashed hopes to sufferers. I believe strongly that films like these are necessary. It’s imperative that the sufferer and family and friends comprehend the dynamics. This understanding gives the bipolar person some perspective and a bit more control (at least from my perspective) and it gives the family a frame of reference so that they know how to handle certain situations and don’t take things (like irritable outbursts) too personally.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Also on Huffington Post: “Boy Interrupted: Interview with Filmmaker Dana Perry”