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shhhh.. Carolyn is not supposed to notice this link.
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Richard
6:30am Even with a few clouds, a solstice picnic should be fun. Something keeps pulling me in first though.
9:14am Variations on a theme. Jeeez. Last night's meanderings through loneliness [Did I really use that title? Wow.] lead to another person writing truly heartfelt empathy at the same time back to me. And this morning I received her letters, bounced through an old email account which I had been thinking of renewing anyway. Moody me indeed.
The easily accessed record of my own lessons and hurts speaks to me clearly. I understand myself. And even though perhaps I use myself to enforce the same thing in me, it is better to have some self stories rather than to use only others'. A lesson froma year ago speaks to me now when I need it most. Arbitrary? Could I really be living the same life over and over every year. ???? What a world. With a memory, I could pattern recog this. Without it, my secondary system has kicked in. Why indeed did I choose to look at one year ago, and not .5 years ago?
Bah... numerology. Bicker about it some more. Take confidance in what works. You know that what works does so because you allow it to. It is not numerology to take wisdom in from where it arrives. [I wonder to myself now who I might be with a memory. Damn amazing to myself, I'm sure.]
10:30am And yet, I've been writing all morning. Last night's meditation on my fucked up brain, and on loneliness, brought something out. A sense of responsibility is in me now. Rciahrd was right about htis. It is 10:30. I awoke at 6:30 this morning and have been writing and repotting plants and petting cats ever since.
10:55am Good. Richard told me, "People do stay home sometimes." Yes indeed. I was wrong to respond that they do so because they have tvs. They have creativity, and that really is the source of entertainment, not the television. Even Roseanne is boring if your own insides have nothing to bring to the situation she creates for us to input.
11am. Have I learned the art of the revisionist from Richard? I hope not.
11:49am. Netscape crashes the computer. Memory parity error. Yikes.
Solstice party awaits. Cherry Park at 2.
Ambiguity in language makes conversation interesting. I thin I'll go off to the office now. Get some work done for awhile.
Yesterday: Cherry park was interesting. Lots of people who disagreed on the to start a conversation. :) I enjoyed the tension. I'm funny... a memorable event becomes labelled enjoyable to matter experiencing it first hand was like. It was good for me, and hence threfore enjoyable. Cool.
And then Amour Blue. Hmmm. Venue sucked. Peter's band, The Shattered Spectacles, was in bad form, and still they look very cohesive. Haven't seen that before. Their act is together. I do love Peter. Of course, I know nil about music. And apparently artwork.
Athena was welcoming. To the point of trying to crack the little bones in my hand. Youch.
Allison and Richard both came too, and glared at each other. My nose was called a marriage counsellor. Ooops. I'll have to be circumspect. I had thought of Allison previously as a direct sort of person. Now I suspect that either wears out or fluctuates. I still like her very much.
My adventure out into social space is moving along. Alright.
I suspect that I like two states of the universe with other people. The situation where they enjoy each other and generate intimacy I can join in marginally. And the other where either I am one of the intimates, or no-one is. I don't enjoy situations inwhich everyone is formally trying to interact with everyone so as not to slight everyone else's feelings. I think there ought to be more publically spoken conventions about this. Tracey is cool in speaking the ones she knows out. I admire this. But not all like a little bit of why recurrsion. I suspect that was what happened at the picnic: a few why people and a few why people are geeks people. Sigh. Us why people end up calling htem how people, or sheep, or .... nice Carolyn. Yeah. Retransmitting disapproval and discomfort. Not the right direction.
To work...
Many forms of symmetry exist. Choose your axis. You are there. What then is a rational way to treat another person if not this arbitrary notion of symmetry? I hold, as I tried to explain to Allison and Richard yesterday, that I give to another what I have in excess that they may want or need, and I expect from another what I need when they have it in excess. Short form: I am a hypocrite in that I do not give what I want in return. My policy is symmetrical however, but only on the abstract level. Object level has it that I am a hypocrite.
The example was that I warn people that I will be late for things if other things come up. This is less true of late, but still a major fact. However I do expect other people to be on time with me. Also a fact. Hypocrite. Or, symmetrical on a different axis, in this case one of creating easier exchanges with higher payoffs. I've chosen my axis for now.
A diary, a reflection of what it is like to be me, is something I can give easily and in honesty. I wish only that it could be about many people internally and not solely me. If all are experiments, how fascinating it would be to dissect a significant sample.
Start: Five hours sleep later, I awake to nothing much. Its 7 am. [I've lost 'its' again... someone else wrote to speak of them and they spun around in my mind to blur once more in confusion.] The nesses, both beautiful and playful, lie beside me in black fur dreaming of a mouse, one I freed outside for them to meet again.
Waking to the sound of an airconditioner droning and humming, I smell the possibility of coffee in my future. A big client meeting. New furniture almost arriving today. Apartment hunting. So many other things.
End: Where once were butterflies in a field now are butterflies everywhere.
| "All I have ever done is filter fed," perceives the critter from the ocean bottom. | "Hmmm, that doesn't seem like enough for a wonderful and worldly person to have engaged in." | "Ah... Now I have reviewed my life and filter fed." happiness satisfaction accomplishment |
My life has simpy proceeded in the other order.
What it is is that I am I think doing ok today. Good. I feel a bit rushed around because I have had meetings everyday this week, and no time to do other interesting things. But alright.
Rush rush rush. Gotta buy stuff to make office moles happier. Sigh. Why am I the only anarchist around?
Wait, isn't that what every anarchist ends up saying?
So I win the biggest nasty of the year award. Richard really and truly is happier when he has a woman around then when he doesn't. But he picks ones that are so ... shall I be honest? Ornery? I don't get it. What is it? Must I be treated as such an outcast just because his mating dance is so uptight? Geeez.
I'd like to see people learning to understand that everyone comes with a life already intact when they meet and get close to a new person. As does the person they have met.
I must sound ridiculous saying that it isn't me, its something else. I have a tendency to want certainthins in people I meet. So does Richard. The thing he wants is the stuff that makes him see for himself what a wonderful person he is. The people around him have to be outstanding at a collection of things. As do the people around me. My friend bristle at each other, their worldviews diverging away from mine in directions vastly different from each other. Do Richard's? Or is it more a matter of their playing similar roles in his makeup? Does he have room for diverging people? I think this is the worng tangent to explore though.
I am pissed that he can't be happy and be my friend. I think this should be incredibly easy to accomplish. Long term thinking though. I've seenhim look for either long term or short term relationships. This one can only be long term if it is a go. I hope it will be, and that many years from now, my own behaviour will be seen more as a friend's than as a competitor. Now I think I seem threatening - for I apparently have not done the mating dance. As Tracey claims, I have the image of a mistress type because I am not husband hunting and because I do not want children under any circumstance in any way. YUCH!
I compete if at all only by doing alternative things inthe world that might alternatively attract people into involvement. I create businesses and organizations and communication structures. I create websites and networks and picnics in the sun. I create opportunity for a better future in any way I can think of. Damn it. I am misunderstood once again totally and vastly.
And at the same time, this is not about me but rather entirely about Allison. I wish her happiness and I see her face. I see what she does not want to. miau. How can I not see the silence as punishment, silence as a way of dealing with what one does not like. I've seen it a lot. I will not be like this even though that was my predetermined destiny. And yet I speak of me again because I wish to hide my real reaction from...
Am I doing something so horrible with my life that my friends cannot find wonderful people? Can writing a diary this way cause that many problems for the less publically sincere? Or is it me personally? Or is it simpy nothing to do with me? Is Richard the hard to befriend person with high standards and headstrong ways that I already believe him to be? Yup. They are on their own.
The real story is that I was not wrong, just impatient.
There are some of the those meetings again today, and another opportunity to socialize both tonight and then again tomorrow. The newly married Steve and Sab want to go cat sniffing and thought I'd be a good expert to bring along. Tomorrow, I am off with a new Tracy - not Tracey - down to the beaches.
I look forward to these events - I am in need of rest and relaxation. These past days with new and highstrung people all over the place have been wearing. My finger tips, wiser than me, are numb.
I need to meditate here... but first a morning shower.
............................................................
And now I'm rinsed and pampered. Hmmm. Meditation instead of procrastination.
Not today.
Suddenly I think of zillions of biz errands, and make a post it note of 20 of them. They're out of the way now.
Time to really try to write out where I'm at. No: Get dressed first. :) Alright focus.
Focus. focus. What's really going on in my mind?
Flower smells. I need some exercise. I wish I was exactly who I wanted to be - low self esteem today. Why? I keep trying to escape from that which I want. Why do I flee? And where to? Easy answer: back to where I have been. Let go. I am not acting on silly pair bonding energy. I am exploring the world, getting out and into a social life. Riding the possibility space without fear. With fear.
Why does the social world hurt? It has too many people in it. I can't read what each is wnating thinking doing. Only some. Should I limit myself to a fewthen as I have done before? In part yes. In part there is the creation of what the future shall be and in this I want to causally activate the possibility space of the future myself.
Trust again. When I know that those less close, outer circle people, are not trust2worthy, how should I take them? When I can read, and correctly, that someone will make a move contrary to the good (of my plans anyway) what to do about it. Announce it? Defect first? Manipulate the situation to keep the balance even with this predicted event's happening? Talk about it? Pretend not to know about it, and speak instead of bad luck later? Watch for awareness in their eyes and deem that sufficient to leave the decision up to them? Where is it at?!
So back to the few friends I have and trust2. No list: I do not think they are in on whether and how I trust them. It varies over time, but is nevertheless mostly stable. My creations require certain types of people currently, mainly because they have been created withthose type of people as participants and benefactors. Why do I so quickly try to cut my losses these days? This is obvious: they are losses. I've accepted losses for years, and no more. Not unless they are positive investments that I make proper interest on during the interim.
Peter called to invite me for lunch. Wonderful!
I had a great time last night with Steve and Sabina, although we did not get to sniff any cats. We shall try again. And the saft I am off to get some exercise and have fun with yonder cute guy. Is this my life?
Later Further. There. My two terrible starting points in writing. Gone and over with.
I'm having a great weekend. Lots of people, social outings, private wonderfulness, and I feel just good. Toronto was full of parades and celebrations all doay today, and all weekend. It's nice to feel the vibes of celebration even if it is a false and organized occasion. False, and yet looked forward to, and even enjoyed. From the outside such events seem to be so anyway. I will probably never truly know if such can be. I'll never be insider enough in others' institutions and traditions to feel the excitment if such there be.
But I shall instead have my own fun and games. Cool.
Coming back to an old thought, intrinsic value, I realize how well I have accomplished this. Operationally even. Generally I thought this was merely an argument tactic, a way of uping hte standards on both sides of the negotiaiton. Now I see also that in fact there is more meaning to my desire for people to recognize my intrinsic value. People around me end up with a warm and understood feeling or they learn things about themselves they would rather not ever face. These call me insane, evil.
Cool. I don't mind being a learned taste. I don't mind the learning process some must go through.
I am feeling up and down in the heat of the day. Physically exhausted. Throughthe sounds of another long weekend, the smells of small explosions, and the vibes of people who are officially partying, I try to think. To no avail.
I wish I had another creative outlet besides writing here. Words words words. With nothing to learn about me. An arrogant phase of knowing too much to even implement now. Tired in the heat.
Out of sync. Have I nothing more to say about who I am? Are my thoughts event driven, or agony driven? If I write to know myself well, and now I don't write about myself, what am I doing here?
Myself. I believe I am acting for a greater good in order to make the spaces I will encounter in the future more enjoyable for me. Self driven focus with a twist. I believe that I am good at creating strategies to get there, but that this takes some momentum to get going - not a constant or continuous outpouring. Right now I am in a lull but with good future potential building. I believe I understand more than most, and can implement more than most in some indirect way.
Tracey likes to emphasize my down sides. Fair enough. Who'd want to forget about those? Well.. How about a kid who felt misunderstood for years and years while being shut of of both the language community and the social community (even if the reasons were those of choice as it seems to have turned out). How about a young woman who had never been invited out for a date, or flirted with except by crude creatures on the street? How about me? I'd like to live the opposite for awhile now that I have the option to. I agree withTracey principle, but not in the application right now. I feel a need to think so incredibly positively about what I've managed to create in my life that I don't have any room for Ontario humility. Maybe next year I will!
And nevertheless I've been thinking here using only humility, talking about my problems and sadnesses, airing out my troubles. Time to shift gears and explore with more pleasure what is possible. What haven't I thought of because my life was too miserable for too long?
What haven't I thought of?
............................................................
8:45pm. God. Was that this morning, only 12 hours ago? 13. Yes. Today has been a day of tales and woes. Luckily none of them were mine. Unluckily, they were of my friends.
Things are busy, confusing. Organization takes as much time as simply doing the things right now, and yet, it would speed up things in the future. Must I sneak behind peoples' backs to convince them that I need things untangled inorder to have them help themselves? Easy answer! Yes.
With gifts of roses surrounding me, and a beautiful poem in my head, I try to see that things are not crashing into dust. They are not. And yet, the energy of the day feels that way. We need an infusion at the office of happiness. Or better intraoffice vibe shielding. Even better still, wisdom permeating the organics.
Yes it is still today.
And now a party beckons, an in thing with Steve and Sab. This is very cool. And Peter said he'd drop in much later on this evening to smile with me. If only the whole world could email their thoughts on bettering everything to me. What would the consensus be? What we have already? Yes.
politic body and mind
As I wonder through the halls of thought,
I reach out my hand towards the pillar of naught.
I breath in the rain truly blood of mine,
hold on the rail tight theirs and thine.
Through ashes and mud the thoughts travel with us,
where are the birds of life flying thus.
Sheep looking up slowly take all I have,
forms and schedules fluid modern rave.
As I wonder through the halls of thought,
my heart beats the rhythm of all that is naught.
The walls's ears are perked reaching ecstasy,
gathering information to create the reality.
We see what we see as we travel a far,
backlash politics open Pandora's jar.
Home coming brings the walls closer in,
mum serving cookies, steak knives, and gin.
As I wonder through the halls of thought,
my arms reach out embracing naught.
The closer I come to missions of grace,
the longer it takes to win rat race.
Muscles screaming dignity before death,
bent knee breaking for the king of sabbath.
I pray fortune takes me spinning fine tales,
the end is not.
audition piece, allision, angela, tracy, many cats, and watermelon
Technology helps people. Just technology confuses people. People technology is also needed. Mundane.
I'm awake too early, another sleepless night. I'm growing exhausted. Tonight I think I'll take a bath first, and perhaps go out with Peter for awhile just to feel good inside. He makes me smile.
The reasons for part of the way my life is. I am trying to do what I thought I could not a year ago.
At some point it seemed apparent to me that although I could manage living fully while running a company, Richard did not seem likely to try to. It seemed to me that too often he would want to do stuff together or want to come along with me on my outings. About a year ago, a social disaster took place, one in which at a party here several people ended up truly fighting. Richard was in on this. I don't know if I wrote about this.
I wieghed many reasons and outcomes together, and decided that Richard's happiness was more important than my social life at the time. I did not expect this to become a permanent way of being, and it hasn't.
When Allison arrived in town just under a month ago now, I saw the change I had been waiting for in him. I didn't hear from him for long periods of time. He went out to parties, and for dinner with her.
I foolishily and immediately (one doesn't take chances with rare opportunities) kicked my social life into high gear elsewhere. I've been going off to parties and weddings. I'm spending time with a cute guy. I've received phone calls from people I barely know following up on the brief contacts I've made at other events. The point is that I've been ready to play in the social world for quite some time, but I have not had the ability to do so. Richard doesn't support the social structures I wander into well. His social behaviour seems designed only to meet beautiful women, and not to socialize. I want to believe it goes beyond this, but I have a hard time of it. I cut out inviting him along a year ago - he doesn't even like the people, some of whom are old friends from university days.
When Allision came along, he took up this slack and without a second notice, played with her. My immediately spring-like jump into a social life caught his attention. I explained that I have been waiting for him to get his social life together, and I explained to him very carefully that when she left again for Mexico, and whether or not she and he remained an item, I was remaining sprung.
We'll see what happens now that she turned out to be the wrong person for him. She wanted to nest too strongly and didn't bide her time with more tempting carrots. Richard is quite the comfirmed bachelor after all.
There is a reason both for my having allowed meself to be somewhat cloistered, and for my wanting to truly dive into a social life. Both are for things I want in life and center around FSC's success. I need Richard to be happy, and to not work as hard as he naturally does. His own happiness and satisfaction with his life, his learning and growing, his accomplishing, are all fed into a higher plane when he has a wonderful social life too. He just doesn't spend the itme or energy to develop this. He seems to think that he should not have to work at thsat if he was working hard at FSC.
Furhter though, I personally need tolearn to relax and be comfortable in larger groups of people. I need to polish my charm away from simple shy flirtation to something more in line with my own personality and interests. I was ready to do this a year ago, and I insist on it now. It hurts me. And I insist on it. I no longer want the weakness of being uncomfortable amongst many good-willed strangers. I am ready for this lesson - have been for a year or more already. And I need this lesson to become comfortable leading people. Right now I back off a little because I know I lack some of the polish. Time to change this.
I hope Richard learns to tlak to lots of other poeple and not just hte beautiful women. I think he'll be surprised at how interesting and wonderful other people can be too. I know he knows. But I also know he forgets.
I won't forget.
Another thing. Richard told a wonderful story to Allision the other day, one about how we live. I have an apartment. Tracey does. Peter has our house with various creatures living with him. Richard has an apartment. Various other friends live in various other places. But we all have email accounts in shared places. When I wake up, I flip on the computer system, grab a cup of instant and a shower, and when I arrive back at the terminal, there are some telnet sessions running, Eudora kicked in, and email pouring onto the screen. I instantly say morning to whoever is awake already, although Peter and Tracey keep different hours. Richard wakes up an hour or two after me, and logs on. We chat a bit, ask about the other's welfare and breakfast state. Richard's story was that we all live in a virtually shared huge old house, with many bedrooms all over the place, and a central kitchen and living room. Each bedroom is an apartment, the central areas connected by Internet tech. We each sit with our own cats, our own loved ones, our own furniture, and our own thoughts, and share them every morning and throughout the day. The Spot has nothing on us.
A note to Peter:
Act beyond yourself for the longer good and appreciation of yourself from other people. Keep your mind open to t he longer term appreciation that will happen. Implementation of strategy takes time for fruits to ripen. It is not like implementation of a how thing - a tactical maneuver which pays off instantly, but with no long term buildup. Patience is your lesson, and satisfaction at planting strategy seeds successfully.
A note to me:
Smile more often, and with confidence hold out personal strength as evidence of inner harmony. And get more sleep.
A note to Richard:
You're doing great, so love yourself already.
A note to Tracey:
See above note. So tell other people how wonderful you are.
A note to my future landlord:
Whoever you are, I hope you know what you are getting into. :) And I look forward to the amazing space as a place you have to let as a place to learn and grow and develop friendships.
6:30 am... A meeting in a couple of hours. And media attractions. I need to get that tv finally. Business details: contracters, consultants, clients. Getting our sign on the building, the stairwell renovated. Rumour has it that our furniture will arrive today only 3 weeks late. Curiousity about my social life. What have I done lately to encourage it? Ah, and finding a new apartment. I've taken on an agent who asks that I give her a week. It turns out that was being too flexible on the price. I am willing to take something that costs less than I can afford. Most people just name their maximum possible amount to pay and then find something in that price. I varied it down to half of what I can pay to find I'd still be willing to take something that was interesting. Heh. Like usual I vary my own parameters.
Richard seems to have arrived back from Mars finally. He claims that his reaction to fending off Allision's mission of biology was to adopt it himself. :) Richard the pair bonder. Yuck. He seems to have cleaned up his act significantly, enought hat I can bear to talk with him again without wanting to slug him in the jaw. And it takes a lot to get me to resort to even considering hitting a living thing. An awful lot. Pair bonding seems to be in that category. I'm not surprised.
Just imagine a person losing all their communicative skills for the goal of capturing another human for their nest. Yuck....!
I'm no pair bonder. Between my lack of understanding for hte monogamy urge of many others, and my lack of desire to breed and even to pair off in a living arrangement with a member of the opposite sex, I suspect I am simply excluded from feeling a desire to find something I do't lack: a soul mate - my other half. I have all my halves thank you! Who worte the code for this strange species that surrounds me: half people running around gluing themselves to each other until one of the surfcae contacts they make stays inplace long enough to surround them with an appropriate nest for breeding. giggle.
Facetious. Me?
I don't fear being a lone when I'm old. I don't fer being poor when I'm old. I didn't enjoy being a child myself - no responsibility. No wonder most of my generation consists of control junkies: we were all forcibly helpless as children.
But I am bothered by the whole thing. Mostly having one of my close friends turn into a mutant bug I think. He treated me really badly just because I am a woman - a possible pair bond in his eyes - NO WAY! But is there more to it?
I want things so far removed from these sort of concerns. Abstract travels. Power in the external world - the world beyond the family units. I want to play what I enjoy and learn everything. Experience some things only n life, the things most people do not get around to. Those I want to experience first, before the more normal things. The normal things lead innormal directions,a nd there are a lot of people trying those directions out with happiness or at oleast committment to them. fewer travel in directions less obviously rewarding, or with higher payoffs at higher costs. And yet these directions too can be interesting for all to see someone travel on. I offer myself not as a pair bond opportunity to theworld but as a living dissection of what it is like to be on the inside of a human. That is different. And for me rewarding. My experiment of life -me- shall be unique in a non-trivial way and so educational to those who look beyond stereotypes and into my eyes.
Do I still have that crazy drive to uniqueness Yup! The road to uniqueness is travelled easily by simply rebuffing hte well-travelled paths. It is funny that well-travelled is found not where many expect. SO called alternative life styles are very nicely well travelled if not puybliccally. Having an initiation ritual into a life style does not mean that there are few people in it. No. It means that outsiders are not easily welcomed. My life is supporting the surprising details. As I ad layers of conventional camoflage onto who I appear to be, I'll still look inside underneath the bush trimmed shape into the unique branch structure - a structure that will sustain weights in what will appear to be surprising places as a consequence. :) It already does.
As Steve pointed out to me, I don't have any furniture in my living room. I suspect most people would be bothered by this at my stage in life given this comment of his. For me it is as easy as recalling how much my mum was hung up on needing a bay window, a front porch, and .. what was the third ingredient to happiness .. hmmm. I forget. I'm sure she has these three things now with her new husband. These three things serve as a warning t me about being obsessed by a couple of things. Loo to the options, the possible options, and choose the better of the possible. The better of course are the ones that expand the possible options available next time. Of course I don't have furniture. Spending money on consumer goods is exactly the route to limiting iptions that most people go for. I spend money on keeping myself clothed, housed and fed, and on making me seem to be wonderfu uin the public eye. Elsewise, I save it for creating more options! Easy.
This writing stuff sure as hell makes me feel good.
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All non-daughter writings of Carolyn's Diary are not copyright © Carolyn L Burke, 1996, and may not be copied without permission except for non-commercial gain. See what your lawyers can't make of that. |
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