Emptiness of Self

And life proves to be good, yet again, revealing all my woes to be attributable to my own silly neuroses and overanalysis of nearly everything. I have been reading "thoughts without a thinker" by Mark Epstein, a psychotherapist and Buddhist who incorporates Buddhist philosophy with the western notion of psychotherapy. I will try and be brief in summarizing the gist of the book. So far, he has argued that Freud's ideas of the self which exists deep beneath layers of childhood and relationships with parents are oddly similar to Buddhism's Wheel of Life used to teach about the concept of karma, "the notion that a person's actions in this life will affect the kind of rebirth he or she will take in the next." I don't necessarily believe in reincarnation and neither does Epstein. However, he uses the teachings of each realm in the Wheel of Life to explain a different aspect of psychotherapy, viewing the Wheel as more a categorization of psychological realms, "points of self-estrangement" he calls them, where we experience ourselves through our reactions to different things we find lacking in our sense of identity. The part that is echoing to me throughout today and this past week is the Buddha's idea of self as empty. If the self is empty, then we do not experience the tensions based on what we lack or what we cling to as images representing the self. I have learned that the act of defining oneself and attaching labels decreases the capacity for change and adaptation by requiring that if one makes a statement or opinion or even encounters something which clashes with these labels, the mind is confused and must accommodate for the change. If these labels do not exist, the self does not need to accommodate or overanalyze the process. It is found that a person who understands the "emptiness of self" is very similar to what Westerners expect in a person with a highly developed sense of self. The search for self is not regressive nor is it a manifestation of a true (buried) self, says Epstein, but rather a "crumbling of the false self" through "awareness of its manifestations" without sensing a need to create new ones, a very relieving experience indeed. I found myself saying in the shower something along the lines of, "I am not ashamed of who I am, I am not ashamed of my opinions, interests and desires which are free to change. I am not ashamed of me." This type of statement may be a no brainer to some people, but for me it has not always been.

And that is why I find life good, because everytime I step out of my brain, I see how good it can be and how the psychological realms of the Wheel of Life can reduce us to neurotic, narcissistic, jealous, greedy and grasping personalities, heavily burdened with varying images of the self.

Disgust of Us

I don't usually latch myself onto and become a hard core fan of friends' bands just because I'm friends with them. Groupies scare me. In fact, when I meet someone and they invite me out to one of their shows, I'm incredibly wary because I hope hope hope they don't suck or sound completely boring and typical, leaving me in a quandary as to how to respond. When I first saw my friend Cheryl's band, Disgust of Us, it was in a tiny cramped space with bad sound, and yet I heard something unique. I wasn't crazy over it, to be honest, but I could definitely hear something new and creative and the sense of cynicism was raw. If you didn't leave the show with much, you at least could strongly feel the "disgust." I've known Cheryl and her boyfriend PJ (co-lead guitar and vocals) for a good long while, and our friendship formed parallel to the band's progress. All the while I saw them get better and more confident with their creativity. Even with a bass player switch, they caught up quickly to where they'd been, Laura's skills increasing greatly with every show and Sam getting more precise and crazy (if those two things can happen together!!) all the time. So, to be honest, I formed a friendship with Disgust of Us, too, and have been impressed by their ability to fine tune their cynicism and even bring in some soft, all the while completely immersing themselves in their art every time they play.

They are also a band that has their shit together. Last night, at their record release party, I noticed for the first time this enormous sense of professionalism and entertainment. Cheryl has been able to really think business when it comes to spreading the word, while still keeping it casual and unobtrusive. And they are always expressing gratitude left and right, near and far, for everyone who helps out, shows up, and goes away from a show telling their friends about it.

Art communicates. Perhaps a reason I feel so much closer to C & P (and many others whom I've met through them) is that their music communicates honestly what they think and feel. It is not just a performance; it is also like sitting down with them for a beer (or standing in most cases! :-P) and listening to them discuss what heavies their hearts the most, and that too me, is grounds for bonding with a band as though it in itself is a friend. Please check them out. They have quite the story to tell in their music.

www.disgustofus.com

www.myspace.com/disgustofus

Please share

I keep sitting down at this screen trying to think up something interesting to write about. Truth is, not much interesting going on these days, just trying to stay afloat financially and mentally. I twitch a little when I think of writing down all my frustrations in a blog post, as though it's something unique to talk about, as though millions of people aren't feeling this frustration. But I know I'm not so unique, and I know that I am not alone in how I feel.

I feel unmotivated without a job and as if all my other volunteer activities at times are "optional." I feel I go through much of my life viewing "appointments" and even dates with friends as optional. Part of that may have to do with my social anxiety that every so often comes out to bare its teeth threateningly at me, telling me I'm not likeable, not productive enough, not using my time wisely enough to go share myself with others. Part of it may have to do with being broke the majority of the time, so that when a friend says "let's go grab a pint!" or "let's do dinner!" I regretfully must decline.

It's true that I feel happiest while traveling, while seeing new places and trying new things, but life, I guess, isn't about being happiest, it's about balance. It's about hard work, suffering, awkwardness, discomfort, embarrassment, rejection, but also about elation, excitement, awe, joy, love, comfort, and achievement. In the past I may have had ideas about why life has to necessarily be hard, why it can't just all be a meadow of hippie love, but it's clearer to me now how important balance is. I feel it when I turn down an invite after I've spent a week feeling being unmotivated and unproductive and not leaving the house a great deal. I feel that I don't deserve to reward myself with something fun, because I haven't been doing anything particularly hard other than feeling sorry for myself (and YES that is a particularly hard thing to do, especially when you'd prefer not to and feel like you have no control over feeling that way no matter what).

This is why I have waited so long to post. I was in a very low place for a long time and did not feel I had the perspective to express myself clearly. Believe me, I have typed and deleted a number of words in the past few months, trying to think of what to share, but nothing seems appropriate. I have internalized for too long, losing light of the lives of people I love and how they experience joy and suffering, too.

These moments are always the clearest for me, the moments just after awakening out of my depressed sleep. It is in these moments I have the clearest memory of depression, and also the clearest glimpse of how I may alter it. More important than that, I have the purest motivation and am reassured of my decision to become a school guidance counselor. I recently started my volunteering at Berkeley High School as a Writing Coach and though I was nervous and intimidated before hand, the two sessions I have had so far with two students of very differing abilities have gone much more smoothly than I expected. My coaching can still use some work, and I continue to try different methods, but it was really something to feel as comfortable as I did. The only thing on my mind was putting across the information in a way the students could understand, being patient enough for them to process it, and really just listening. The syntactical part of coaching writing should be as important as just plain listening and nodding and smiling and saying "Thank you for sharing your ideas with me. Please continue to share more."