Well, that was an interesting experiment. Thank you for every comment. Thank you for bearing with me. Thank you for sparing me your judgment regarding my yawning chasms of insecurity, narcissism, vanity, and confusion.
Just moments ago I had a poignant nanosecond of insight: I suddenly saw that over the past short while I'd been in a sort of complementary state with respect to one of my pals. This came about as I was thinking about posting something, as I was getting a bit embarrassed about my transparent and extortionary demand for flattery. First I thought about this passage from Pride and Prejudice Emma (thank you, Tam. Yes, I'm a fucking illiterate moron):
And then whispering — 'Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They shall talk. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is, presides,) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking of.'
Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great deal; Mrs Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse's presiding; Mr Knightley's answer was the most distinct.
'Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all thinking of?'
Then I was thinking about what I learned about the 'eight worldly dharmas' teaching from one of my Pema Chödrön books. 'Eight worldly dharmas' is about how we get caught up in four kinds of grabbing/running away ... we grab pleasure and run away from pain; grab praise and run from blame; grab honor and run from shame; run from loss and grab at gain. Every kind of suffering in our lives comes down to one (or a combination) of these ways of rejecting our experiences:
When we become inquisitive about these things, look into them, see who we are and what we do, with the curiosity of a young child, what might seem like a problem becomes a source of wisdom. Oddly enough, th is uriosity begins to undercut what we call ego pain or self-centeredness, and we see more clearly. Usually we're just swept along by the pleasant or painful feelings. ... Before we know it, we've composed a novel on why someone is so wrong, or why we are so right, or why we must get such-and-such. When we begin to understand the whole process, it begins to lighten up considerably.
We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off-limits to others. ... Yet despite all our attachment, we know tha the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the times comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.
This letting things go is sometimes called nonattachment, but not with the cool, remote quality often associated with that word. This nonattachment has more kindness and more intimacy than that. It's actually a desire to know, like the questions of a three-year-old. We want to know our pain so we can stop endlessly running. We want to know our pleasure so we can stop endlessly grasping. thensomehow our questions get bigger and our inquisitiveness more vast. We want to knwo about loss so we might understand other people when their lives are falling apart. We want to know about gain so we might understand othe rpeople when they are delighted or when they get arrogant and puffed up and carried away.
So I was thinking about this because it hadn't occurred to me that one of my pals and I had been caught for the last little while in opposite ends of one of the 'worldly dharma' pairs. My ego house had installed 'central vac': I was driving a powerful engine of neediness, and without reflection I was heedlessly preoccupied with sucking ego-fortification from all quarters. Hence the FOR THE GOOD LORD'S SAKE WILL EVERYONE JUST CEASELESSLY OFFER PROOFS OF MY EXISTENCE AND KEEP IT PRETTY post. You can easily tally this one up in the 'grabbing praise' column. I had thought that the post was just a lark, but those who see well knew better and more than one person called me on it. My pal, on the other hand, has been feeling tormented about coping with feeling unjustly blamed, which can sound like something easy to shrug off until one just stops for a moment and realizes just how deeply we depend upon the friendly mirrors of ourselves formed by those with whom we are most intimate.
There ya go, all wrapped up with a bow on it.
I was observing to a friend not one hour ago that I get no hate mail. I am perfectly aware of why I do not inspire vicious attacks. It's because next to no one reads this blog. That is, except for a very choice, elite crew of thoughtfully selected readers ... who happened to show up one day and then kept coming back. Look up the phrase 'preachin' to the choir' in a dictionary of American idioms and you'll see my url. I am not controversial. In fact, I'm not interesting. But I am not hated with enough energy to draw fire.*