I guess it's important that I relent to the spirit of this New Year's cheer and declare that I'm hopeful. Well, I have my doubts and fears. But how does that cliché go: "once you hit rock bottom, the only way is up;" is that it? Of course the cynic in me would retort back with a snort, "do you really think you've hit rock bottom, really?" God knows I feel like I'm falling, flailing as I go, down the proverbial rabbit hole.
So, yes, therapy is helping me.
No! No, I refuse to go down this path!
That's how I normally would have begun a post. But I want to begin this year with a public execution: Hear ye, hear ye, the High Court of Jacob sentences cynicism and pessimism, the doubts and the fears, the darkness inside of me to death! Yet, the thing is, this, this spirit that I want dead, is a part of me. Execution ain't possible. The best I can hope for is a life sentence. Yes, a life sentence; that's it!
(What a long ass preamble.)
I've been thinking a lot about what I want for myself in 2011. But then I realized that it's not the wants I need fulfilling. Okay, most likely you can follow where I'm going with this, because it's so obvious. Nevertheless I find it difficult to confront it. Over the years I've told myself, both consciously and unconsciously, that needs only bring suffering, so I would go on living as to need nothing. I lived with this fallacy for far too long; I've far too many denials in my grab bag.
So what do I need?
Besides food, shelter, and clothing; or besides Maslow's first two set of needs, which are needs that encompass the physical side of life, I will accept and embrace that I need fulfilling the latter three of Maslow's basic needs.
It's just that I've always known that I needed those needs fulfilled, yet my... pride--was it pride?--that got in the way. The idea that I'm an exception to the rule. That I'm special and unique. I think it was a roundabout way of fulfilling the self-actualization need.
I'm still going about this the wrong way...
Love.
I said it.
All I need is love.
Love is what I need.
Every aspect of it.
The giving and the taking of.
Of self and of others.
Agape, phileo, and even eros.
It's one of life's theme I've imprisoned. It's a part of myself that I excised.
The scary part is how do I let it back, recognize it, give it being, etc., in the every day bane of living in this fallen world? Too existential?
"One step at a time," a little voice in my head is telling me.
I don't have a conclusion to this post. Then again, it's easy to be misled to think that life is about a beginning, a middle, and an end. There aren't clear delineating indicators. Life is messy, my gut tells me. Life is continuation of perpetual beginnings, middles, and ends.
So, my first step is I'm going to love this mess.
***
Books I've read in 2011.
1. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1), by Rick Riordan
I love you.
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