Who Can Understand It?

What’s going on? Why do people do the things they do? Why do I do the things I do? Why do I respond this way or that?

It seems to me, like it or not, that everyone has pieces of themselves they either can’t or won’t share with another human being. Even if you want to, when you’re willing to, there will be things you can’t share, because you don’t even know what’s going on yourself. Some things are unknowable. And these “unknowables” are what often lead us to the water, or the poison, we can choose to drink or leave behind.

Some people want to be “transparent” about their lives. They feel it’s false or fake in some way to hold anything back. But even if you managed, somehow, to totally reveal what you believe to be the “truth” of who you are, you would still be a mystery because you can’t even know yourself completely. How is anyone else going to know you that fully?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s worth trying, at least with some people. But it is futile in many ways and I think we need to admit that up front. We’re all just the tips of icebergs. There is a lot going on below the surface, and even a person who is amazingly dedicated to the art of self awareness and self revelation can be, I should say, “will be,” blind to their own motives and at least some of the realities that cause them to feel and eventually do what they do.

We feel things and then think things, and finally do things, because we have been convinced by some event in the past to respond that way. Sometimes, even long after the event itself is forgotten, the reaction lives on. We have been trained by experiences to respond, and our responses can tell us a lot about what’s going on underneath. But it’s like putting together a puzzle with missing and messed up pieces.

I guess you could say I believe in at least some aspects of behavioral psychology. But doesn’t it just make sense? In fact, I think it’s biblical.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

To change this reality, to “understand” your heart, you would have to remember everything you ever did, every thing that ever happened to you, and also be able to measure and calculate a proper emotional response to all that information on the fly as you move through the day.

Let me know how that works out.

You can’t always “choose” your emotional responses to things, but you can “choose” what to do with it. Where do you let it take you? What do you do as a result? A lot of people want to believe they have no control, or responsibility, for what they choose to do, because they don’t always have control over the emotional responses that lead them to that action. But you can always choose. You are not a cyborg, an automaton, a robot, or a thoughtless animal. You are not. You are a human being.

What you, and I, actually do each day, each moment, is the product of your decisions. And decisions have consequences.

© LW Publishing 2011

Overwhelmed

Everyday this past week, I’d get up and tell myself that I would post something here.

Shows you what I know.

I have been feeling kind of overwhelmed lately. Can’t get things done. Can’t concentrate very well. And I hate feeling this way.

I wrote a song called “Overwhelmed” a while back about being overwhelmed by the glory and beauty of God. That song was a bit of a response to feeling overwhelmed by lesser things and recognizing my need to be focused on the Creator.

Stuff just piles up. Too many projects and tasks and plans. All good and important. Everything seems important.

And people have very real needs and troubles. I feel so much sorrow and pain for the hurting people God has in my life. I want to take them and hold them tight until it starts to feel awkward. Not to feel awkward, but simply so that I’ll know I’ve held them long enough. But I realize that they need to know God is holding them much more. That’s what I want to communicate to them.

To you.


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Flat

I haven’t had much to laugh at lately. I’m not down or depressed, but everything has been kind of flat.

I’ve done some work with bipolar people in the past, and some of them have really hungered for some flat emotions. Most of the time they were either going through the roof or the floor. But then, after getting on some decent meds and leveling out, it's common for them to start missing the strong emotions they had before. As a result, they're tempted to go off their meds, which leads them back into the vicious up and down cycles.

But I understand the conflict. I don’t much like feeling flat all the time. After a while, it's like you’re just floating along, pushed by whatever currents happen to be around you.

It’s also not a very good frame of mind for creativity. Most good art arises out of strong emotion, one way or another, so being “even keeled,” as they say, is kind of an enemy of the creative. At least according to most of the people I’ve talked to.

Some creative people appear to be even keeled, and I think the reason why is that they work out their emotions through their art and craft. If they didn’t have an outlet, many of them would probably have to be institutionalized.

But, whatever. I can’t say I’m feeling particularly strong about it either way. Which makes sense because I’m feeling flat.

Flat as a pancake.
Flat as the bread on a falafel.
Flat as a cat on a hot tin roof.

Sorry. Just trying to be creative. See how bad it is?


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Tired

 Do you ever get so emotionally worn out that you start shutting down? My wife told me I looked tired last night.

Sometimes I get very tired. Both physically and emotionally. I reach a point where I don’t have anything left to feel. I need to feel sorrow and empathy for those who are hurting. I need to feel angry about injustice. I need to feel hopeful about the future.

But I’m tired and I don’t feel.

It’s like I run out of feeling. I get overwhelmed with all the demands and expectations and go numb. I wish I had a greater capacity for emotion, a deeper well, but I don’t. And, when I get to that point of emptiness, I’m like dried up leaves rolling down the street in the wind. I want to connect, I want to empathize, but when I’m burned out of feelings, nothing rises to the surface. It’s like this bit from a Jackson Browne song:

It’s like a song I can hear
Playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
I can’t help listening

And then I feel guilty. People get mad at me sometimes because I’m not always “there” for them like they want me to be. Some have gotten very, very mad. They had no idea what I was going through, and some of them wouldn’t have cared if they did know. They certainly never asked. They were going through their own pain, or loss, and I didn’t respond like they wanted me to, so they condemned me and strapped me to the whipping post. But I don’t hold it against them. I understand.

Sometimes I wish life was a little more like a TV show. A situation comedy. You know, where everything that happens is happening because of all the half heard conversations and assumptions everyone is making about everyone else. Joanie overhears the last sentence of something Chachi is saying to the Fonz and assumes he’s breaking up with her, so she talks to Ritchie, who then goes to the Fonz and yells at him for interfering, which is what Ritchie is doing, not the Fonz. Three’s Company did this for every show they did. Blah blah blah.

In the sitcoms, they always realize in the end how they have gotten it wrong, and they smile and laugh and the camera freeze frames on the big laugh. Credits role.

Life is so NOT a sitcom.

 Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011