Synthesizing the self
“It is perfectly possible — indeed, it is far from uncommon — to go to bed one night, or wake up one morning, or simply walk through a door one has known all one’s life, and discover, between inhaling and exhaling, that the self one has sewn together with such effort is all dirty rags, is unusable, is gone: and out of what raw material will one build a self again? The lives of men — and, therefore, of nations — to an extent literally unimaginable, depend on how vividly this question lives in the mind. It is a question which can paralyze the mind, of course; but if the question does not live in the mind, then one is simply condemned to eternal youth, which is a synonym for corruption."
James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
How much analysis can a psyche bear? After a while there is a wholesome urge for synthesis, a dimming of self-related thoughts, a dimming of the flashing light of self-scrutiny one can shine on the perks and margins of one’s mind and habituations, a relaxing into the body, an incorporation of feeling and higher quality thought processes, a slowing down of developmental urges and a sinking into the flow of choices directed by an anew appreciated and refined inner knowing. I can only resist for so long, resist this sense of direction with respect to the creation of an everyday rhythm and routine and, in the midst of these caring acts, the growth of a grander scheme of actions born out of courageous imagination and previously guilt inducing decisions with respect to time and space, attention and focus. I can resist for long, but not forever, or this would bring about a tremendous lack of vitality.
It keeps on raining here. There is no end to our worlds changing weather patterns, can our emotional regulation keep up? Relational conflicts on micro and macro level will appear and disappear, but they cannot be at the center of my attention chronically, or continuously. An inner knowing is also an inner ordering. An inner emotional ordering with a practically worked out plan. The word ‘plan’ triggers that annoying and demanding resistance again. But the story attached to the resistance doesn’t do me any good, it is firmly rooted in by gone experience, I should only extract wisdom from these reappearing sensations and not dwell in their appealing sentiments.
These last years, I thought this house was broken and my home lost, but it was the first time I was building one with an emerging sense of togetherness, timelessness, and spaciousness. Having the experience of being (with) everything and everyone at once – nothing and no one to embody in the eyes of the frightening, distanced other - felt crushing at first, but it molded into the acceptance of the ebb and flow of life, the cherishing of what is aware at any moment in time, and a listening to what emerges instead of a pushing against reality.
A synthesis of reality and imagination now lies in the realization of caring deeds. Everyday. At some point the analysis slows down, all the questions can be kept awake without posing them repeatedly aloud, and one ‘lives in the answer’, as Rilke might say.
My mind is made of soundscapes telling it how it is, emotionally and existentially. Cultivating calmness, love, awareness, presence… is of upmost importance. The world is crying. Stress is triggered easily; I have seen and see it in our homes. Slown down even more and act with clarity and determination from that spacious place, Lot. The emotional spectrum of life is not integrated in me yet. Until that day I will be writing about it, no question about it.