It’s really something to reach a point where I can look back at my own life and just be amazed. I’ve been in love, homeless, worked an assembly line, written for an international magazine, made the cover of a magazine, met some of my heroes, crossed the country alone more times than I can easily remember, helped to build a community and a hell of a lot more in my time so far. Someone once even wrote to tell me I’m his musical hero! For someone who expected to be wiped out in nuclear war before ever reaching puberty, this is nothing short of remarkable.
My wont is normally to kind of kvetch and crack wise here, so this is a conscious effort not to do that. Doesn’t mean I’ll succeed, but I always figure I don’t know what I can do until I try.
And there have been avenues I didn’t tread, too. I was offered work in the porn and escorting worlds. I had a chance to audition for one of the biggest bands in history. Though offered the chance, I never shot heroin or snorted coke. Although I’ve worked in them, I’ve shied away from becoming a full time studio musician. Could have married younger or jumped on a freighter bound for the Caribbean.
Life is all about choices and consequences. Cause and effect. Living with what we decide and not carrying the kind of regret that makes us constantly ask, ‘what if…?’ So while these last years have probably been the quietest in my few decades, the quality of them and the ways I’ve spent my time have been good. I may have been taught not to be proud as a boy, but I feel like I’ve accomplished more than my healthy imagination could have predicted.
That’s more than a little cool.
So when I step back and think that not only am I still alive but there’s more ahead, it’s mind-blowing.
Had you told juvenile me that I’d be described at different points as a pioneer, a cult leader, a lothario, a svengali, a role model, an inspiration or infamous, my response would have been
incredulousness, shock or most likely uproarious laughter. Which is why when I look back, I still sometimes think I’m looking at someone else’s life.
Along the way there have been things that were tougher to learn or accept. Understanding I can choose to be happy was a big one. Truly grasping that I can be or do anything, well, there are times that one hasn’t fully sunk in, but the biggest thing I carry with me is that I don’t have to be as hard on myself as I historically have been. I don’t fully understand the mechanism, but the cutting of slack is not easy. Not for me. For much of my life, I’ve held myself to an impossible standard and beaten the snot out of me when I all but inevitably failed. I was well into my 40’s before I could even seriously call myself an artist. I’ve been one of those people who accepts all the negative I hear or read when it comes to me and would probably receive uranium before a compliment. So getting word that I’m talented or talentless strikes me in very different ways.
Thus it’s been kind of a revelation when I’ve spoken with those I’ve looked up to only to have them tell me they only see the mistakes and shortcomings in what they do. Some of these are individuals considered iconoclasts and legends, but trailblazers across the board. It’s even more inspiring having seen them do what they do with such (seeming) confidence and facility. One of the things I hear most among creative types is that this constant questioning and demand for more and better keeps one honest but also striving. One of the things I hear from the rest of the planet is that this is commonly called beating oneself up.
Contradictory input seems to be a recurring theme in my life and in my posts here.
So maybe it’s just that lines are blurrier for humans than for most other critters. Maybe, as a friend points out, there is no truth or that if there is, we aren’t destined to know it while we walk the earth. I don’t know.
But I know that it’s seldom too late to learn. If we want to grow and change, we can. Where we’re blind to things about ourselves, we will have occasion to see. Whether or not we do anything about it is personal choice.
Again, choice.
These things to which we’re blind in ourselves are often also the same things that rankle when we see them in others. This has got to be one of the strangest things in human nature. People who cheat on their partners are often the most jealous and demanding. Those who bloviate are aggravated hearing others get on a soapbox. The intolerant criticize this same behavior in others. Or as the Russian proverb holds, don’t blame the mirror for your ugly face.
But it isn’t that we’re ugly souls so much as the fact that we assume we are where we aren’t and gloss over the things about us that are. An absolute gem of a line popped up in an otherwise bad film: “He’s a prince who thinks he’s a frog.”
And this is the beauty of aging: gaining perspective when we let ourselves. There are so many things that are hard to see or accept, but once we acknowledge simply that we’re human and imperfect, once we accept something less than glorious in the mirror, we can begin to accept more. We don’t have the power to change everything about ourselves, we can change a lot. More importantly, we can change how we feel about things. While we can’t change circumstance, we can change how we react to it.
I was thinking the other day about some past relationships and partners who chose to walk (or run) away rather than work through problems. I’m not excusing myself from issues in those relationships and have certainly been complicit or denied that problems have been there, but these are individuals whose patterns I’ve watched repeat again and again. What a horribly glaring way to see one of those childhood cliches proven: those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
As a stubborn cuss who is anything but enlightened, I offer you some small hope at this point. It isn’t impossible to cast ourselves in a different light, see some of those things and then work to change them. Find good friends who you trust to give you the truth and ask about this stuff. There are professionals paid for this. While your friends love you, there is some real benefit to talking with someone who’s not only trained to navigate the psyche but whose concern is your wellbeing. If finances permit, it can be a good choice. But as is the case with all relationships, not all therapists are a good fit for all patients just as there is no one method of teaching that can be applied universally.
All that written, and as I pointed out recently, it’s definitely time for me to start doing some of this more assiduously. Working on the book has shown me just how far from the person I want to be I am now. But I know I can change. I know that while it’s not fun to see those parts of my character I don’t like, it’s about having the will and dedication to metamorphose. I’ve done it before and will do it again. If I can do it without sagotaging the process or making myself feel bad for not succeeding immediately, then I am indeed learning.
I’ll take that.
