Castastrophe Catalyzing Change

I was inspired recently by a recent post of a friend and fellow blogger (as well as fellow Elma High School alumnus), Colin Thiel.  Please bear with me on this one, as this post will certainly take an indirect path to answering today's questions. 

In Colin's post, he describes the idea of forced renewal.  Through the metaphor of crashing a car, the reader is drawn to consider the cleansing power of complete destruction.  Now, the car crash fantasy, if it can be called that, is one that I've had very frequently through the years.  It isn't necessarily a wish to end my life or even inflict severe pain.  Rather, I interpret this fantasy much as my friend Colin, as a chance to renew.  


What I'd like to do is extend that idea a bit.  Those close to me know that over the past 3-4 years, I've done a complete 180 degree turn in my lifestyle.  I credit these changes to several significant losses and their profound impacts on my outlook on life and my control over it.  What I realized is that while I was miserable, day in and day out, the melancholy was familiar.  I stuck with the shitty parts of my life (almost entirely the results of my behaviors, mind you) because I was comfortable in them.  I knew my place in the lives of those around me, specifically, as a bystander, watching life go by without a clue as to how to engage in it.

Now, I won't drag on with my story of change.  Instead I'd like to explore that unproductive and disastrous complacency that I wallowed in.  I think we get into these patterns of being and acting that seem impenetrable.  We get locked into a routine, however unsatisfying, and get stuck in its familiarity.  I think the allure that Colin's crash provides is a method of busting out of that routine without being forced to choose.  I even find myself at times internally seeking disaster simply to compel myself to throw out the routine. We don't like acknowledging that we create the vast majority of the miseries from which we suffer as a direct result of our inaction.

When catastrophe strikes, we instinctively recognize that the status quo cannot be maintained.  It's a brief opportunity to reinvent ourselves and our lives with a "get-out-of-jail-free" card.  It's like a vacation from being you.  When we encounter a tragedy, we don't respond with cool, calculated, future-oriented decisions.  We respond with that which we know will serve our needs and keep us from hurting.  In other words, we do precisely what we want.  Wouldn't it be incredible to always interact with the world in this way?  If we could spend a bit more time focused on doing what we actually want to do and a bit less on what we feel we ought to want to do, can you imagine the freedom?

I think crashing appeals to me on several levels.  Primarily, however, I think it speaks to my desire to take risks, shake things up, and make decisions about my self-interest without respect to potential consequences.  I'm going to meditate today on taking such steps without catastrophic loss.  I'm going to spend some time evaluating 1) How much my daily life demonstrates my will for living, and 2) What steps I can take to increase that last thing.

Uncorking

The past few weeks have been a serious reminder for me of how difficult it can be for a man to feel. I don't mean to say that we don't have any feelings. Quite the contrary. In fact, these past few weeks have served to throw in my face just how much I do feel, and how difficult that is. Allow me to ramble a little.

This is Ozzie. He's been living with Kayley, Hank, and me since this past July. As you can clearly see, he's a really cute dog. He's just turned two years old, and as most of those around me know, Ozzie is dying. He was diagnosed with an aggressive lymphatic cancer two weeks ago and is really beyond effective intervention. Shitty, right?

The experience has obviously been difficult. Anyone who knows Kayley and me also knows that our dogs are our family. They get Christmas presents, sleep on our bed, and have never been to a kennel. Watching Ozzie fight against something we know he can't beat has dredged up many years of feelings buried deep in the sticky sediment of my emotional avoidance. Again... Shitty.

However, a interesting side-effect of this admittedly shitty situation is that I'm in a somewhat heightened emotional place, something new for me. As boys and men, society takes a clear stance about the role of emotions: Don't feel them. Feelings are for women and gay men. Any self-respecting straight man would not cry, especially not about a dog. Unfortunately, I apparently missed that memo, as I've had more crying sessions about this dog than I ever (and I mean ever) remember having.

This development seems to me a double-edged sword. On one hand, I am studying counseling psychology, so one could assume that having a visceral experience of a range of emotions would lead me to be a more empathic therapist. However, the shame that we're taught at any expression of feelings outside of anger is inseparably linked to my sense of masculinity. Do I know it's bullshit? Yes. That doesn't change the fact that I'm terrified that with this sense of affective awakening that I'm going to unexpectedly burst into tears around my friends and coworkers and thus lose any sense of control over myself, leaving me with unending work to prove that despite my "weakness," I'm still manly. (Please see William Pollack's Real Boys for more on the shame of male emotional socialization. I've only just started but it's really cool.)

In any case, I admit that it's been somewhat relieving to exhale and cry out some of my years of anger and frustration about sickness and death. Even if this uncorking has left me feeling at best unstable, I am on some level grateful that I'm getting to develop a more complete understanding of myself and the process we're going through with Ozzie. Maybe someday we men will cry without shame. Not today. But today I'll cry anyway.