a counselor told me many years ago. she meant well, to not feel that whatever i was feeling was final. and she's right. if i just had the patience, the momentary distress or happiness would transform itself, often into it's opposite. they now call that bi-polar, which means nothing to me. i grew up with manic-depressive, a much more truthful phrase, the roller-coaster of existence might be even better.
okay, if i agree i'm not my feelings, do i still exist, what am i? ah, decartes, i think, therefore i am. and actually, experience has taught me thoughts create emotions, they're first. if so, the old intellectual is right. and to back this up, every eastern religion says, "Escape yourself. Be between the thoughts. Let the damn things go and be the universal nobody." so, according to east and west, thinking makes it so.
now, i can ask more clearly, who am i? Obviously i'm an organism struggling to survive amidst other organisms who hate me. Oh, not all. i've more bacteria in my mouth than there are people on earth. they seem happy, though they like to gnaw away at my teeth as well as help me digest food. on the other hand, outsiders like to invade, to take over, to devastate the good guys. aids, pneumonia, whooping-cough.
let's face it, as an organism, i'm too damn complicated. sure, i've red and white blood cells to keep me going. my liver works harder than it should have to, purifying whatever i throw at it, 500 operations i think. my heart ticks i don't know how many millions of times in a year. i like these fellows. all their efforts contribute to thoughts which cause feeling which i have to fight like hell to control.
how do i survive? hmm, my parents taught me to look both ways when i cross the street, the first absolutely basic lesson. my mother taught me to tie my shoes and my father silenced me when i interrupted his sermons. the latter helped me stay clear of the police and to not stand out in polite society. yes, i guess i became a mole of sorts, above ground, but not above suspicion.
true, i haven't mentioned my social roles: fire lookout, bottom feeder, eternal student, traveller, poet, photographer, artist. yet i can't help feeling these covers for terror, ie. the rotating of the earth, i could fall off. the darkness, i might be snuffed in an alley. the light, it might blind me. and what about rodents with ticks, and lovers with worse?
today, we can't trust our food. these pesticides they try to preserve us with simply screw up our self-renewal. considering i'm a completely different body every seven years, hard to believe a little lead or plutonium won't corrupt the healthy process. death really is just a potato who came to stay!
here are the skills i need for survival: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/skills
here my escape into immortal fantasy: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/halls
and finally, the dream of a literary extension of the ineluctable modality:
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/bloom
