On 29 Sep., 08:13, Ash <[email protected]> wrote: How does one turn their back on > onesself? It is like leaving a most intimate friend. > Ah, but you don't, do you? Our pasts are part of ourselves and, of course, our perceptions of them change because the stories of our life continue, future being lived in present and then passed back into memory. Panta rei in this sense and the river runs on.
In common with most people who have to struggle for mental balance (and I've been there and spent some pretty scary years trying to deal with some fairly heavy issues), you seem to still be looking for the "big solution," the answer, strategy, call it what you will, which will get everything under control, make sense of everything, solve the issues that make everything so damn hard. Introspection can be useful and can even lead us into wonderful worlds and states, but it also has its dangers - you can finish up standing between two mirrors, losing yourself between infinite reflections moving in opposite directions. Is this working? Do I really feel better? Am I missing something? Will it last? Am I fooling myself? Etc., etc. I spent four months in full-time therapy after quitting the booze ten years ago. My initial plan was to follow this up with a longer course of classical analysis to try to get to the roots of the problems I perceived myself as having in dealing with myself, others and life. Towards the end of that therapy period, I decided to leave the therapy - at least for a while - and just live instead. It's a decision I've never regretted. In the past decade, I've had to deal with all sorts of difficult events and situations, things which would have (and did) driven me up the walls or deep into the bottle earlier. My life has taken twists and and turns I could never have imagined earlier but, you know, it's ok - no, it's better than ok, it's good. Advice isn't really my thing, because I think we all generally do what we need to do at the time, even if that isn't good for us, but I'll risk a little here. Go (a lot) lighter on the analysis and the attempts to make sense of it all and develop plans and strategies and just "zen" it more. Let it come and take it with serenity. Life is an adventure and there's no reason to assume that what's waiting around the corner is going to be negative. Unless, of course, we expect it to be but then we're into the realm of self-fulfilling prophesies. The thing is, it all so sounds so trite and cliché-like, but there's a lot to it; Cool it, man, take it easy ... chiiillll. (And, no, I haven't been smoking anything - apart from tobacco!) Francis
