Thursday, January 15, 2009
not feeling pretty
my posts have not been very lovely lately. usually when I write, I am feeling a stirring in my spiritual gut and what pours out may be challenging to write, but is comfortable to read when I look back at it. what is coming out of me as of late is not comfortable stuff. I am playing with the possibility of letting go of comparing myself to others and just letting whatever is in their come out. there is this feeling that I shouldn't feel things if others don't, that I am not being "normal" or "appropriate" if I find all sorts of negative thoughts and emotions inside myself and don't hide or quash them. we are a society that equates the quashing down of negative emotions with ridding ourselves of them and maybe that is effective, but I have not yet experienced it that way. I've been accused of being an angry person before and that may be true. I've spent a lot of time in my life trying to evaluate if I seem angrier than the average person and trying to push my anger to fit only into the allowed boxes. lately I've speculated if maybe everyone is a lot more like me when it comes to anger, they are just better at the quashing than I am. and then, this morning, I wonder if it matters. it is hard to stop caring what others think and how we measure up to them. we talk all the time about how we shouldn't care but there is a human instinct to do so that is hard-wired into us. yet I think it can be overcome. I use to think it was overcome through becoming all spiritually detached. I now contemplate that it is reached through delving into and accepting who we are, which is not the poetry-ride self helpers try to make it sound like it is. my last post was angry, without a doubt. why? because I've been being lied to by society, myself, and a large number of people around me who are also lying to themselves, for years about something that has caused me a great deal of self-hate. there are layers to us, and a layer of me is now convinced that obesity is not a food issue and that it is not useful to think of it as an addiction issue, but perhaps it could be of greater use to think of it as a life deficient in connection to healthy community. while I am blessed to have a great deal of community around me, there are parts of me that still feel deeply isolated. these isolated parts, these parts that feel rejected and that they will make me unlikable or unlovable to others, I suspect they are at the root of my sense of hopelessness, and my eating a self-medication of the hopelessness and despair. and the despair may be far from logical, but it is very real and very there. living in me. eating me.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
the straight truth and pass the ice cream
Time to talk about food.
It never ceases. Everyone you run into, doing what I do, want to talk about dieting, eating "healthy", new year's resolutions, etc. Not the customers, I mean the product reps, the ad reps, the people from other local orgs I network with. Even coworkers occasionally. They slip in comments in casual small talk conversations about watching what they eat or how we're all avoiding all that candy after the holidays and trying to eat only salads, ha ha, and they just say it inclusively out of habit. And then, they get a bit unsure of themselves, a little uncomfortable. Because all you need to do is to look at me to get a hint that I might not be avoiding that after holiday candy one little bit.
And the truth is, I am not. The reason behind that truth is more my point, though. The idea is, we are all trying to "eat healthy" and workout and lose weight to be "healthy." 95% of people in our culture think about it all the time, many of them completely obsessing, and most of them are disappointed in their own efforts. Its an on-going game - must eat healthy, must eat healthy, must keep weight down, must work out three times this week, ohps didn't do it I suck, must not eat yummy fatty food, must not eat . . .
See, its all about the "must not." And I've watched you people, the 95%, and its clear that the only way to win this quest you are on is to be ever vigilant, to be ever worrying over it and attempting to do what's "good for you" when it comes to food rather than what is pleasurable or enjoyable. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the pleasure and benefit that comes with being healthier, I've been there, I get what you are saying there. But if I get on that kick with you, it will never ever end. To play this game you have to work to deny yourself things you want pretty much all the time, for the rest of your life. If you get good at it, you might get the prizes of thinness and "health." I put that in quotes because the definition of that is not something I understand, I don't know how that is measurable. But I digress. If you don't play the game particularly well you will continue to deny yourself what you desire as often as you can and make yourself feel like shit when you fail to deny yourself, which piles more unpleasantness on your life.
And it is so assumed that we are all playing this game, that we all need to play this game to be decent people who are not lazy and gross people who can be judged lesser that we all talk about it as if it is a defacto truth, not just one way of looking at things. It is the only acceptable way.
I would like to shed some reality on this. 90% of people that made new year's resolutions to eat healthier or work out more or lose weight will be off the wagon within two months. Period. Maybe it is just our time and our culture, but I strongly suspect that humans suck at self-denial. It seems that whenever white people have been rich enough to have food on demand and lots of it they have gotten fat. I don't know too much about this in the cultures on ancient people of other races, but you can see it in the history of those of European ancestry pretty clearly. As I said, I can't prove it, but I reeeeeeeeally suspect it is true.
It is assumed, though, that we must all subscribe to this idea that will power will cure what ails us and that we all must apply it or are horrible slobs that just don't care about ourselves - how shameful, and embarrassing. But I have recently unsubscribed and I have not yet heard the argument to spur me on to renewing my subscription. Any program of self-denial has little chance of success. Also, I have tried that way of thinking and living before and never, never had success for more than four months. Never.
I suck with a big capital "S" at self-denial. My few attempts at it have born fruit, but they have been terribly short lived and the entire time I am dreaming of only two things that never happen - reaching some "goal weight" and reaching a point when eating and working out like this just feels like my life instead of regime I am on and only kind of enjoying. I cannot subscribe to a belief system that means I will be working hard to deny myself and/or guilt myself for the rest of my life. That's not going to work and I am old enough to know that. And its not just for me that it does not work - over 90% of those who lose weight on diet programs regain it and *more* within two years. Will power is not working, folks. As a nation we are getting fatter and "less healthy" all the time and the cult of will power only gets stronger as well. Does anyone besides me see a correlation?
I have not been able to buy into such an unpleasant belief system that gets me few results beyond feeling more like shit about myself than I already do. That's an awful sales pitch for anything at all. And while I know 99% of the rest of those in my culture are jumping off that cliff, I just can't swallow it any more.
People talk to me about denying themselves this that and the other food and I realize, not only am I not doing so, but I am sick of feeling guilty for not doing so just because everyone else things I should feel ashamed of my inability to do so. I am working hard on not being that lemming because, indeed, that's what it is starting to look like to me from over here. When everyone gets into group mentality and keeps following the leader over the cliff even when it has been proven that it is not producing positive results for the vast majority of people, that's just lemming behavior. And its damned hard to resist, but the alternative is terribly unacceptable to me.
I don't like being obese. I'd like to be thinner and "healthier." But the method is useless to me and its not just me. This way of going about it is fucked up. Its not working. I don't know what the alternative is, I don't have the answers, but until we admit what they are not we are not going to find answers.
So, since I am going to fail anyway, since simple willpower is generally useless in the long term on this issue and I don't yet know the alternative, I am done playing. Yes, I eat ice cream whenever I want. And yes, I did have half a pizza for dinner. Food addiction is a bitch, but I am working on knowing in my bones that it is less painful to allow the addiction we are all never suppose to admit we are powerless before to be seen by others for what it is than to torture and deny myself in an attempt that will only cause more self-loathing and unhappiness.
Doesn't mean I've stopped looking for the answer or wanting it, just means I am admitting that your answer is never going to get me there, its a false solution. Two plus two are just never going to equal five, no matter how many people are brainwashed to believe it is so.
It never ceases. Everyone you run into, doing what I do, want to talk about dieting, eating "healthy", new year's resolutions, etc. Not the customers, I mean the product reps, the ad reps, the people from other local orgs I network with. Even coworkers occasionally. They slip in comments in casual small talk conversations about watching what they eat or how we're all avoiding all that candy after the holidays and trying to eat only salads, ha ha, and they just say it inclusively out of habit. And then, they get a bit unsure of themselves, a little uncomfortable. Because all you need to do is to look at me to get a hint that I might not be avoiding that after holiday candy one little bit.
And the truth is, I am not. The reason behind that truth is more my point, though. The idea is, we are all trying to "eat healthy" and workout and lose weight to be "healthy." 95% of people in our culture think about it all the time, many of them completely obsessing, and most of them are disappointed in their own efforts. Its an on-going game - must eat healthy, must eat healthy, must keep weight down, must work out three times this week, ohps didn't do it I suck, must not eat yummy fatty food, must not eat . . .
See, its all about the "must not." And I've watched you people, the 95%, and its clear that the only way to win this quest you are on is to be ever vigilant, to be ever worrying over it and attempting to do what's "good for you" when it comes to food rather than what is pleasurable or enjoyable. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the pleasure and benefit that comes with being healthier, I've been there, I get what you are saying there. But if I get on that kick with you, it will never ever end. To play this game you have to work to deny yourself things you want pretty much all the time, for the rest of your life. If you get good at it, you might get the prizes of thinness and "health." I put that in quotes because the definition of that is not something I understand, I don't know how that is measurable. But I digress. If you don't play the game particularly well you will continue to deny yourself what you desire as often as you can and make yourself feel like shit when you fail to deny yourself, which piles more unpleasantness on your life.
And it is so assumed that we are all playing this game, that we all need to play this game to be decent people who are not lazy and gross people who can be judged lesser that we all talk about it as if it is a defacto truth, not just one way of looking at things. It is the only acceptable way.
I would like to shed some reality on this. 90% of people that made new year's resolutions to eat healthier or work out more or lose weight will be off the wagon within two months. Period. Maybe it is just our time and our culture, but I strongly suspect that humans suck at self-denial. It seems that whenever white people have been rich enough to have food on demand and lots of it they have gotten fat. I don't know too much about this in the cultures on ancient people of other races, but you can see it in the history of those of European ancestry pretty clearly. As I said, I can't prove it, but I reeeeeeeeally suspect it is true.
It is assumed, though, that we must all subscribe to this idea that will power will cure what ails us and that we all must apply it or are horrible slobs that just don't care about ourselves - how shameful, and embarrassing. But I have recently unsubscribed and I have not yet heard the argument to spur me on to renewing my subscription. Any program of self-denial has little chance of success. Also, I have tried that way of thinking and living before and never, never had success for more than four months. Never.
I suck with a big capital "S" at self-denial. My few attempts at it have born fruit, but they have been terribly short lived and the entire time I am dreaming of only two things that never happen - reaching some "goal weight" and reaching a point when eating and working out like this just feels like my life instead of regime I am on and only kind of enjoying. I cannot subscribe to a belief system that means I will be working hard to deny myself and/or guilt myself for the rest of my life. That's not going to work and I am old enough to know that. And its not just for me that it does not work - over 90% of those who lose weight on diet programs regain it and *more* within two years. Will power is not working, folks. As a nation we are getting fatter and "less healthy" all the time and the cult of will power only gets stronger as well. Does anyone besides me see a correlation?
I have not been able to buy into such an unpleasant belief system that gets me few results beyond feeling more like shit about myself than I already do. That's an awful sales pitch for anything at all. And while I know 99% of the rest of those in my culture are jumping off that cliff, I just can't swallow it any more.
People talk to me about denying themselves this that and the other food and I realize, not only am I not doing so, but I am sick of feeling guilty for not doing so just because everyone else things I should feel ashamed of my inability to do so. I am working hard on not being that lemming because, indeed, that's what it is starting to look like to me from over here. When everyone gets into group mentality and keeps following the leader over the cliff even when it has been proven that it is not producing positive results for the vast majority of people, that's just lemming behavior. And its damned hard to resist, but the alternative is terribly unacceptable to me.
I don't like being obese. I'd like to be thinner and "healthier." But the method is useless to me and its not just me. This way of going about it is fucked up. Its not working. I don't know what the alternative is, I don't have the answers, but until we admit what they are not we are not going to find answers.
So, since I am going to fail anyway, since simple willpower is generally useless in the long term on this issue and I don't yet know the alternative, I am done playing. Yes, I eat ice cream whenever I want. And yes, I did have half a pizza for dinner. Food addiction is a bitch, but I am working on knowing in my bones that it is less painful to allow the addiction we are all never suppose to admit we are powerless before to be seen by others for what it is than to torture and deny myself in an attempt that will only cause more self-loathing and unhappiness.
Doesn't mean I've stopped looking for the answer or wanting it, just means I am admitting that your answer is never going to get me there, its a false solution. Two plus two are just never going to equal five, no matter how many people are brainwashed to believe it is so.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
I need you.
I am feeling moved to talk about addiction, but I am not quite sure I am ready. I would be just fine with being ready, but I am not sure I am.
These things converged:
- three days of indulging my addiction to various levels from moderate to pretty f-ing severe. More than I can ever remember doing before. And then today, when I am feeling all calm, at the other end of my addiction spectrum.
- going to the Catholic Worker's house to drop off food that had been donated at the co-op that had no home and some warm clothes Michael was wanting to get rid of. going up the steps to the full porch, a mother saying to a child, 'stop messing with me or I am going to choke you! I am sick of your stuck up shit!' and then the maybe five-year-old crying. going up the steps and on the porch, a 2o something young man nervous and trying to hard to please saying, 'no, man, for real, i was on campus and this guy who was just dropping pills left and right, i was like, shit bro, you need to check that!' Going through the door into a lovely old house full of wall to wall people, warm yellow light, the smell of a hot kitchen, folks greeting each other old-friend-like, and a love, unflinching and lacking in naivete, pouring from the walls. realizing i have always been embarrassed in these situations but feeling much less so now. kind of wanting to just stay, to move into the steamy kitchen and start chopping up the vegetables. is it blasphemous to say it felt more warm, community, and real there than anywhere else I could think to be today? not delusional, lots of broken, lots of fucked up, but still warmer. there's a warmth that comes with broken things that aren't pretending to be together anymore. a man in line for food, crowded line i am wiggling through to leave, the man smile so damned big, just as glowing as a person can glow, he's waiting for food, and he gently grabs my sleeve and says, "thank you!" I didn't bring it just for him, i just dumped some bags in the kitchen, and he knows that, just a big "thank you." I get to my car and think i want to go back in there and tell him there is nothing to thank me for because what i dropped off was no skin off my nose, took no sacrifice from me at all, was just unwanted scraps and didn't deserve much of a 'thank you' but then i don't. what would mean more? if i don't know the answer and couldn't give an answer right now that wouldn't stem from a sense of 'I should" then what i just gave is all i got and i guess he's got every right to thank me for that.
- a painting Jason just did of the three of swords that just felt, i don't know. lovely, but maybe not doing it for me, i couldn't get at its soul - a painting of mary passionately pulling open her blue robes to reveal a bursting red heart pierced with three swords, a look of suffering reverence on her face, looking up toward heaven. i am driving away from the 'thank you' man and that painting comes to mind and i see my own heart. addiction is one of those swords and i don't feel like asking 'why?' for once, i just know and i know its a gift and i cry. and i can't explain that any better for you right now.
- the Be Good Tanyas come on the car stereo right then singing "the junkie song."
the streets were full of junkies and homeless
and they all wanted something
they all wanted something
and what am i suppose to do?
there are too many of you
there are too many of you
yeah, sometimes i look you in the eye
say that, "i too am human, i could easily be here'
- i drove next to the Goodwill to drop off the clothes the Catholic Worker house did not need and the place is closed, a "for lease" sign in front and i think of all the crazy real people i have listened to and watched interact there for over a decade now and know i am going to miss it like mad, hope they are just moving but see no signs
and all I could think about on the way home is what it is like to be addicted, how i sincerely wish i could take each one of you who is not addicted to a thing and never has been really and just put you in the heart, mind, soul of addiction for a while. not leave you there, just put you there. there is an insane compassion that builds in you once you've been there.
These things converged:
- three days of indulging my addiction to various levels from moderate to pretty f-ing severe. More than I can ever remember doing before. And then today, when I am feeling all calm, at the other end of my addiction spectrum.
- going to the Catholic Worker's house to drop off food that had been donated at the co-op that had no home and some warm clothes Michael was wanting to get rid of. going up the steps to the full porch, a mother saying to a child, 'stop messing with me or I am going to choke you! I am sick of your stuck up shit!' and then the maybe five-year-old crying. going up the steps and on the porch, a 2o something young man nervous and trying to hard to please saying, 'no, man, for real, i was on campus and this guy who was just dropping pills left and right, i was like, shit bro, you need to check that!' Going through the door into a lovely old house full of wall to wall people, warm yellow light, the smell of a hot kitchen, folks greeting each other old-friend-like, and a love, unflinching and lacking in naivete, pouring from the walls. realizing i have always been embarrassed in these situations but feeling much less so now. kind of wanting to just stay, to move into the steamy kitchen and start chopping up the vegetables. is it blasphemous to say it felt more warm, community, and real there than anywhere else I could think to be today? not delusional, lots of broken, lots of fucked up, but still warmer. there's a warmth that comes with broken things that aren't pretending to be together anymore. a man in line for food, crowded line i am wiggling through to leave, the man smile so damned big, just as glowing as a person can glow, he's waiting for food, and he gently grabs my sleeve and says, "thank you!" I didn't bring it just for him, i just dumped some bags in the kitchen, and he knows that, just a big "thank you." I get to my car and think i want to go back in there and tell him there is nothing to thank me for because what i dropped off was no skin off my nose, took no sacrifice from me at all, was just unwanted scraps and didn't deserve much of a 'thank you' but then i don't. what would mean more? if i don't know the answer and couldn't give an answer right now that wouldn't stem from a sense of 'I should" then what i just gave is all i got and i guess he's got every right to thank me for that.
- a painting Jason just did of the three of swords that just felt, i don't know. lovely, but maybe not doing it for me, i couldn't get at its soul - a painting of mary passionately pulling open her blue robes to reveal a bursting red heart pierced with three swords, a look of suffering reverence on her face, looking up toward heaven. i am driving away from the 'thank you' man and that painting comes to mind and i see my own heart. addiction is one of those swords and i don't feel like asking 'why?' for once, i just know and i know its a gift and i cry. and i can't explain that any better for you right now.
- the Be Good Tanyas come on the car stereo right then singing "the junkie song."
the streets were full of junkies and homeless
and they all wanted something
they all wanted something
and what am i suppose to do?
there are too many of you
there are too many of you
yeah, sometimes i look you in the eye
say that, "i too am human, i could easily be here'
- i drove next to the Goodwill to drop off the clothes the Catholic Worker house did not need and the place is closed, a "for lease" sign in front and i think of all the crazy real people i have listened to and watched interact there for over a decade now and know i am going to miss it like mad, hope they are just moving but see no signs
and all I could think about on the way home is what it is like to be addicted, how i sincerely wish i could take each one of you who is not addicted to a thing and never has been really and just put you in the heart, mind, soul of addiction for a while. not leave you there, just put you there. there is an insane compassion that builds in you once you've been there.
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