Failure is an option, and not necessarily an orphan

Some poetic thoughts after reading this very interesting column.

Failure IS an option

I am not a failure,

And I am not the sum of my failures

But I am a person who has failed, and will fail,

Many, many times.

I am also anxious, fretful, and pessimistic –

A toxic brew.

Accepting that failures are not moral faults

Is not always easy to do;

Even harder to accept

Is that because of luck and the actions of others

Failure says little about my skills in many cases.

But self-flagellation

Is a means of trying to assert control

Rather than feeling powerless from its lack.

But that’s not reality.

The truth?

Many of my actions

Have countless outside tangential influences.

But even that is not all of reality.

Even my most important actions, most consciously decided

Have many subconscious influences

From chaotically driven, chaotically competing subselves.

Kennedy and others were all wrong here.

Failure has just as many fathers as victory,

Even if they scurry for dark corners

After the lights of the mind are turned on.

Work-related ... and the dreams get weirder

I've been having more vivid, to much more vivid, and more remembered, dreams again the past couple of weeks. Only problem? They're generally not pleasant.

They're not nightmares, exactly, but they're all about work.

But, only in a general sense.

They're about working at my current job, but the actual day-to-day events have zip, zero,  bupkis to do with my normal work.

I don't know if part of it is summer heat (we're not scorching, but we're a few degrees above normal for this part of the world and I'm very sparing on AC use) or what. But, it's making sleep less restful, that's for sure. And, since I had an earlier, but less vivid and less work/but not work bout of this ... wondering why it's back, and back in worse condition.

Could it be the recent loss of our one staff writer?

Emotions - the iron mask, part 1

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK PART I

I hate myself,

I tell myself at times,

But do I really?

I hate who I am,

I hate some of who I’ve become,

That much is true.

I feel a failure,

Lazy, weak, spineless, empty

A faker, to boot.

No adult inside;

Rather, a 16-year-old

Who’s not yet grown up.

And doesn’t want to be

So he says, “Leave me alone,”

Even to his ego-self.

He hates adult life;

Duties, decisions, stances,

And hates even more

Missed teenage life,

No wild oats sown, no fearless fun,

No adventurousness.

No bits of playboy

For the man in the iron mask

Of caged emotions.

Of course he’s angry

And angry beyond that, too

For all those reasons.

And now? He’s at

His emotional break point

Sans guarantees.

In the iron mask.

April 28, 2012

I hurt my thumb

I HURT MY THUMB

For perhaps the first time today,

Something usually semi-conscious

Became fully conscious.

Something usually a free-floating reaction

Was done in response to a specific situation.

I hurt my thumb today.

No, not in the sense of banging a knuckle,

Or something like that.

Rather, this was totally self-inflicted.

I pick at myself.

Call it a milder version of “cutting.”

I bite my fingernails the quick,

And occasionally below.

And when I go that far

(I would say “too far,” but it obviously isn’t,

To at least a part of “me,”

Because “I” keep doing it)

I hurt. And I bleed.

If it’s not biting nails that deeply

It’s picking at the skin around those nails,

Eventually, with the same result.

Why?

Is it a genetic predisposition to anxiety?

Or various abuses of childhood?

Obviously, it’s a mix of both,

And, even on a case-by-case basis,

Who knows which predominates, and when?

I don’t, because I usually

Not fully conscious of this.

Today, at least as to the moment, though,

I was.

I was being yelled at by my boss

For something that was a complex mix

Of who was wrong, or not, and why,

And what background there was.

And I picked.

And then I hurt, and bled,

Even more than normal picking.

No, it didn’t feel “good.”

But, it “felt.”

I “felt.”

I felt the pain of suppressed anger,

Of feeling that whatever I might say

Would only make things worse,

That because of the background there was

Of him, his boss, of me,

Of their perceptions of me,

Of my perceptions of them,

And of my knowledge

Of my coworkers’ perception of them,

That whatever I might say,

Would only make things worse.

He would get angrier yet,

Making me more afraid, more on edge,

More anxious,

More suppressed-angry.

And, given the situation, the relationships,

And the power dynamics,

That, if not even that,

That what I might say

Wouldn’t change things anyway.

So, I picked.

A small psychological victory, perhaps,

To be fully conscious, fully in the moment,

Of why I was doing it, when I was.

And, another small victory, perhaps,

To see that I had done it worse than usual,

And to make me wonder

If I really, really, feel that way.

– Feb 28, 2012

He died at fifty

HE DIED AT FIFTY

That’s what a memorial said aboard the old-time train.

No cause of death listed.

Just that he died at fifty.

Did he feel old? Worn-out?

Or did he just … die unexpectedly?

Sometimes, at age forty-eight

I feel “older,” at least,

And definitely worn-out on occasion.

Especially recently.

Internalizing criticism,

When it’s not totally valid

Or overblown relative to the situation,

Can do that to a person,

Especially one sensitive in general

(Though not perfect

About being sensitive to others)

And sensitive to yelling in particular,

As well as sensitive to crazy-making.

What if he, too, finally just wore out?

It’s one thing to die young, or younger,

It’s another yet to die younger

With the end of one’s life

Becoming one massive burden.

And nobody noticed, and he said nothing

Until too late.

What if that’s me?

– Feb. 26, 2012

Opinions, passive-aggressiveness and more

First, passive-aggressiveness isn't necessarily a bad thing. Often, it's the personal relationship psychology equivalent of asymmetric warfare. People lower on a power scale fight with the weapons they have.


No, passive-aggressiveness isn't good in a more equal relationship, like an intimate one. And counselors are right to point that out. But, something like an employee vs. employer situation, especially if the employer is putting the energy in the "versus"?


And, isn't it passive-aggressive of an employer to berate an employee for not being able to do something that was at least partially beyond his control, then admit to a third employee just that difficulty with the issue while never fully apologizing to the original employee?


Specifically, the issue of photography.


No, I'm not Ansel Adams. But, I can't make silk purses out of sow's ears. And, I know enough about photography to know when I'm faced with little more than a sow's ear to work with. And, if not a total sow's ear, at least, no better than synthetic velour -- and an employer who should know that in advance, from having been around a while.



That, then, gets to the issue of opinions.


Is it passive-aggressive, even, to not bother offering opinions, or, a better word, ideas, in the first place, if you know they're going to be ignored, rejected, or not listened to?

And, is it really people pleasing to not speak up more, either? Might it rather be an acceptance of reality, or how reality is perceived at the lower end of the stick by someone who's not a stereotypical Type A male?



Of course, from my point of view, these are offered up as largely rhetorical questions.


But, they reflect larger societal issues related to income disparity, job outsourcing, and, some industries (creative-type ones) becoming ever tighter with the dollar and expecting more for less.

Anger, parents, and emotions

I'm in the middle of reading the book "Obama on the Couch." While I disagree with the author's neo-Freudian psychiatric stance, I do think he has some valid, very valid insights insights on dissociated emotions, especially anger.

To be honest, I'm realizing now just how dissociated I still am from a fair amount of anger toward my parents.

And I am realizing how much I may be like Obama in "swallowing" anger, avoiding conflict, etc. as part of the fallout from this.

Meanwhile, last week, I had another insight about emotions in general.

Long ago, in my early days in AA, I heard about an "attitude of gratitude." I eventually realized one did not have to be grateful TO anyone, including not needing to be grateful to a divinity.

Last week, I realized that's true of other emotions, but not necessarily in just a "free floating" way.

I can have anger at my current state in life, without it being "free floating," yet without it being directed at some particular person. I hope to let this sink in more in the days, weeks and months ahead.

And, to let myself feel more fully more of this deeper anger at my parents, without getting fixated on it.

Did I make a mistake?

Three weeks into a new job and relocation, I feel like I'm in a PTSD shellshock free-fire zone.

I'm making mistakes at work, and getting yelled at, and this past week, have made more. And, a couple of them have been kind of big. And have had domino effects.

I knew, when I was considering coming here, that my ambivalence was in part not due to fear of change but due to past perceptions of the place when I interviewed for anther job with this group of small papers in 2009 and for this job.

But, wanting to get near a big city, having fears of being "stuck" where I was and other things ... led me to think that some of my ambiguity was other things, like general fear of change.

And, some of it was fear of getting more and more stuck back in Odessa the longer I was there as I got ... older.

But, I'm awake, alive, reasonably sane ... and sober. And ... I still have a reasonable possibility of saving my hide, if I don't let the stress get to me any more, or the idea of stress.

Sometimes the 'trouble' does never happen

Mark Twain has a famous quote, which has been botched a bit here and there, but which I believe is authoritatively rendered as, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened."

Well, I can personally relate to that.


I had a notice from the Postal Service in my box Tuesday night, to sign for a certified letter at the post office. My mind was racing.


Did my old apartment complex suddenly decide it wanted additional money from me somehow? (Even as I have two noncertified letters, one from the complex, one from the parent company, both of which came in the last week, on my table. But, I know what I signed, and signed for, when I moved.)


Did that traffic ticket I got lawyered out of two of three counts, but paid the remaining one, have the money order incorrect? 


Something worse?


Well, it was from the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, which made me more nervous at first, since they're the folks who pulled me over in 2009.


What was it actually for?


I had a applied for a PR job, public information officer, with the office. I was being notified I didn't make the final cut - notified by certified letter.


I've played Twain's quote in my head many a time, but never before have I had this concrete of confirmation.

Poem: Too soon to tell

TOO SOON TO TELL

A new job.

New bosses. New responsibilities.

Not-so-new computers.

Anger. Antsiness. Impatience. Control issues.

Was this the right decision?

Did I choose wisely in coming here?

Per Zhou Enlai,

When he was asked about the success

Of the French Revolution:

“It’s too soon to tell.”

It’s too soon to tell.

My mind will be a jumble

And even a bit shell-shocked

For more than a month.

Will weekend visits to Austin help?

To the degree they do,will they be worth the price?

It’s too soon to tell.

Was it just fear of change?

Or was my intuition correctly ringing out

A blaze of three alarms or more?

Should I have suffered

Through yet more feelings of being trapped,

Through low-grade ongoing anxieties,

Rather than the potential of high-voltage unknowns?

It’s too soon to tell.

When I left Dallas for Odessa,

The first domino of moving to fall in this chain,

After two months of unemployment,

Anxious over job hunting,

And recognizing the severity of the recession,

Yet loath to move

And depressed as I drove across the Permian,

Was it good or bad?

It’s too soon to tell.

Good and bad are relative, and utilitarian;

I did nothing “wrong” any of these times.

But I made decisions

In uncertainty, without knowing even

Rough percentages on outcomes.

And, so, in that utilitarian sense,

As to whether these choices were good or bad?

It’s too soon to tell.

December 26, 1963 – was it good or bad?

It’s too soon to tell.

            Jan. 3, 2012