Fear of Insanity

There was a time in my life when this suddenly hit me as a very sudden revelation:
I had been afraid for most of my life that somewhere inside me, there was a kernel of "crazy" and if I just laxed off for one minute to let it out, I would never be able to stuff it back in again.  I later heard this feeling described quite well as Fear of Insanity.

I think this feeling has always been most noticeable when I'm angry, and  afraid I might react in case I seem a little...well...irrational.  It's often stopped me from responding to someone in the heat of the moment....take a deep breath, don't answer , you don't want to seem like a nutcase.  Being the kind of person I am, I have often been more inclined to stay quiet, then later on my own I'll be re-hashing the whole sequence in my head..."this is what I SHOULD have said".  But I believe the extent of this irrationality goes much deeper than an occasional overreaction.

I've been reminded of that this week because a relative of mine has been faced with the undeniable irrationality of their own actions.  For the past 5 years, every time they have tried to book a particular journey, they have made a mistake and had to re-arrange the journey at the last minute and at some expense.  This person is ordinarily very organised and to the best of my knowledge only has this difficulty with this one particular journey, which they make approximately 3 times a year.  It might be noted that the idea of this journey might involve some stress for the person - there might be some reasons for them to feel differentlly about making the journey in their subconscious mind than they would be willing to admit consciously.

While I think they are still struggling with the idea, I can easily relate both to the bizarre nature of the 'faulty action', but also to their genuine distress that it seems to happen over and over again.  I myself got to a point in my life where my own behaviour was frequently and undeniably irrational...I could no longer pretend that all was right in my world.  Shortly afterward I was very intrigued to read the 'Psychopathology of Everyday Life'...Freud's work on those irrational but meaningful acts that betray the illogical, unsound nature of our true mind.  This experience was very humbling, but it also brought home to me the reality of the science of mental health, the need for a cure of the soul.

Up until this point I, like many other people I know, was always intrigued with psychology but saw it in some ways as the study of 'something else' - something out there.  Being faced with my own irrationality, the kinks in my own mental well-being, the stains on my own soul...well, it forced me to look inward and, in so doing, I believe I gained a deeper insight into the nature of the mind and soul...and the nature of these so-called 'conditions' which had always been so intriguing, yet slightly mysterious.

Perhaps Insanity is a little like death in the way we view it.  We spend an awful lot of time trying to stave off something which is inevitable, something which is with us right from the moment we are born. It is something to be feared, right up to the point when I realize it is already here.

I don't mean to sound like an exhibitionist - one who behaves in an attention-seeking way then proudly proclaims "I'm crazy, me!"  Neither do I mean my declaration of Insanity to be an excuse for poor behaviour.  Instead, I think it is wholly rational to accept and learn to work with the unsound and irrational nature of my own mind.  To accept that I am less than 100% sound of mind seems perfectly logical.  To fight the idea that I am less than perfectly sane seems....well insane.

I have no doubt in my own mind that much undesirable human behaviour - the kind that causes damage to our fellow man, or discomfort to ourselves comes precisely from this need we all have to project an image of perfect sanity, or to stave off the fear of our own 'demons'.  Insanity, while not necessarily something to be wallowed in or absorbed too deeply, is certainly something to be embraced and accepted as natural.

But don't take my word for it.  I am, and always have been, as they say a "sandwich short of a picnic".

The Stuff of Nightmares - Part 2

Where did he come from, what does he want and WHY does he want to come in??!!

The Stuff of Nightmares - Part 1

The Man in the Glass

So I'll speak on a slightly more personal note today. This week has been very uncomfortable for me. I don't mean to sound dramatic, nothing particularly awful has happened, I just mean that for one reason or another the experience of being me has felt quite painful. Even writing about this has been difficult, I suppose I'm reluctant to admit it or talk about it even to myself. Every time I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), I feel as if I am saying the wrong thing - I feel as if I am exposed in some way. While I feel this way, my thinking is a little self-involved and that certainly makes me more nervous about saying exactly what is on my mind, but I'll try to be as honest as I can.

At the risk of sounding like a wistful poet, I have been plagued by the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. How is this linked to fear? Fear of self I think is a good way of describing my current experience. Guilt becomes Shame. Regret for what I have done becomes fear of what I am. This makes me want to retreat into myself, an experience I'm very familiar with.

What started this chain of events? Something and nothing - a few things. I've fallen behind on some bills. I've fallen out with a friend. I've been on an unsuccessful date (or more accurately a string of unsuccessful dates). In truth, I think my current emotional state has been building for a while but these are the things that seem to be in focus.

So firstly, the bills. This is a recurring problem for me, and I could have been a little more proactive. However, rather than simply paying them and moving on, I found myself caught up in a peculiar sort of daydream...more than an oversight, this became an indictment of me. "What is wrong with me?", I asked. "Why at 34, can I still not manage my own finances? With the opportunities I've had in my life, why am I still struggling to make ends meet?". This discussion has at times been continuous and quite loud. It's like having a "nagging partner", except this partner lives inside my head and absolutely nothing can silence them.

Secondly, the friend. Some weeks ago, I had a fairly serious argument with a close friend of mine. I put the phone down on him and haven't spoken to him since. In situations like this I can be quite childish...I find it hard to forgive or make the first move and feel somehow I'm "in the right". But of course, there's a comedown...whether I'm right or not I'm still left without a friend. I seem to shrivel spiritually and find it hard to reach out beyond myself.

My failing here, I think is my unwillingness to forgive. My FEAR of offering out the olive branch, of making myself vulnerable to manipulation or rejection. But the critic in my head is more damning; this is just more firm evidence of my undesirability. Why do I find it so hard to maintain close friendships? Why are there so few enduring relationships in my life? Why am I so unlikeable? For one reason or another, it is true to say my close friendships are often relatively short-lived, so the critic in my head is offering some pretty compelling evidence here. As always, when I'm critical of myself, I take the accusations very seriously! They certainly seem to reflect very real failings on my part.

Lastly, if the fear of being unlikeable weren't enough, I've been facing the fear of being unloveable. I've always been a little bit vulnerable in this area...from fear of rejection, I've spent much of my life away from intimate relationships. Now I'm not a monk, but I think it's fair to say I'm much less active in this area of my life than I could be. So recently, I decided to force myself out of my comfort zone and get in to a little old-fashioned dating. One way or another, this has been enlightening but painful for me. Facing fear of rejection, fear of seeing myself through other peoples eyes, exposing myself as embarassingly needy and vulnerable, all the things I've tried to avoid doing for most of my adult life. Monday last week, I again made myself vulnerable and faced a little rejection. I'll just say that the circumstances this time seemed a little ridiculous - the young lady in question shot me down in an almost comical way. I found myself wondering why this has always been so difficult for me. It's as if, I tell myself, there is something so fundamentally wrong with me that the more a person gets to know me, the more repulsed they will inevitably feel.

Add to all of this an argument at work, a general feeling of awkwardness and now I have a knot somewhere at the centre of my stomach...a gnawing sense of inadequacy that has been quite difficult to tame. The slightest thing serves as a reminder of my general failings as a human being. I'll be going about my business when all of a sudden I am hit with a reminder that, unlike most humans, I am deeply unloveable. It's curious, I would never allow another person to be spoken to the way I am speaking to myself. I think the only reason I normally allow it to go unquestioned is because it is very rarely this loud...occuring as it does just below the level of consciousness. Being so quiet it manages to be ever-present but go unchallenged. Why it has suddenly come to the fore is a mystery. A painful mystery.

So what is the answer? How can I live without this fear of the man in the glass? Without paying mind to the constant critic who lives within me? Very, very difficult to answer for me, especially right now while I am still so close to the problem. I know that this feeling will subside, I know that I will survive. I suppose that I must try to ignore this voice for now, to live with the discomfort that it brings without taking it too seriously. This doesn't mean to stuff it down or pretend I cannot hear it, I've made that mistake before. But live with the pain and learn to take it less seriously. Attempt to remain open to life despite the urge to retreat within myself.

I also find that a perfect antidote to spiritual pain like this is to take it as a cue to grow as a person. Living in pain and growing beyond it is character building. I can even learn to take responsibility for some of my failings. These feelings sometimes come from a sense of shame, of failing or falling short of a mark which cannot be helped in the short term. But at other times, the may come from a sense of guilt, breaking a rule or falling short in an area that could easily have been rectified. The beauty of finding such transgressions is they can easily be put right, amended. What better way to address a sense of inadequacy than to correct a mistake and to act differently in the future. Spiritually cleansing.

Painful living this week. I'll try not to take myself quite so seriously over the next few days(!). In the meantime, I hope I can grow beyond this...I've felt terribly...well small and pathetic this week. Fear of self I believe causes us to shrivel...we feel impoverished, not loved enough and our capacity to love is diminished. Not how I choose to live my life today, but nevertheless this is where I am today.

I must not fear...

From one peculiar little Kyle MacLachlan/ David Lynch collaboration to another today...

I remember watching the David Lynch adaptation of Dune (and later reading the Frank Herbert books) when I was younger and being greatly affected, in particular by a scene where Paul Atreides (again Kyle MacLachlan's character) uses a neat little mental conditioning trick to overcome a moment of intense fear. "Great!", I thought at the time. "Where do I sign up?"

In case you missed it, Paul Atreides recites the Bene Gesserit "Litany against fear" at a crucial point in the story:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Very inspiring! I must admit, as a younger man I went to the trouble of memorising this quote and tried to recite it at times of disturbance. I know today I have always had a great imagination and perhaps a strong desire to find and rely upon...well shall we say the more 'magical' end of the spiritual spectrum?? I hasten to add this ritual did at times seem to be a comfort to me. It helped me, at times, to deal with intense fear. However, perhaps my experience of this kind of mental conditioning stopped me from seeing anything deeper or more permanent.

In fact, my earliest dabblings with Zen Buddhism were similar. I began to see meditation purely as a mental conditioning tool, a way to train my mind not to experience anxiety and discomfort. Having achieved this, being as I imagined without fear (or without a FEAR RESPONSE) I might then be more capable of achieving the goals in life I wanted to achieve - unimpeded by my irrational fears. This, I'm ashamed to say was essentially my view of the spiritual path for several years...enlightenment I saw as a process of detaching oneself from emotion and fear, becoming more-than-human.

I will say at this point that this view did NOT serve me particularly well over the next 15 years(!). In fact, let's say it caused me some psychological difficulties...either way it has now been replaced with something I like to think has a little more depth to it...

So what am I saying? In effect that I have noticed and experienced two distinct methods for dealing with fear in the spiritual literature I have read. One involves mental training and conditioning, and one involves (for want of a better word) transcending fear. Perhaps they can be used together but it seems to me important to note that they are two distinct approaches. The Litany against Fear tries to quiet my emotional response, to dull the emotion while the stimulus remains very real. It is in effect an attempt at great Mental Discipline - Mind Over Matter. Transcending fear, or Stepping beyond the Board meanwhile seems to me to do something different...to remove the cause of the fear, or perhaps more importantly bring in a more powerful and over-riding force to counter-balance it...to allow me to act in the presence of fear, usually because I have a compelling reason to want to take the action, whatever the consequences. The objectives of the "bigger game" compel me to risk losing a few rounds at the smaller table, so to speak.

So to condition my mind against fear, I need great mental discipline. I believe today there are several problems with a solution that requires this of me. In order to transcend fear on the other hand, I need to have a Greater Spiritual Purpose in my life, and this is where the conversation becomes intolerable for some. This is where we have to start to talk about God, or Altruism, serving others or any other entity or term that might be seen to have a greater authority than the single human being that stands in the centre of most of our lives. This kind of talk bruises the EGO of the average human being. How dare we suggest that I am not the most important thing in MY world??

But such a purpose is, I think, essential to the development of a solid spiritual life. The real basis of all spiritual paths is that we are following something that came before us, something greater than ourselves. Any spiritual life that relies too heavily on ritual or mental training can lead to a peculiar ego-trap...because I am doing this, there is something special and powerful about me. That way lies Spiritual Pride, Narcissism, and ultimately, I believe self-defeat. When we think that in all things we are to rely on our own power, we sooner or later realize that our own power is insufficient. We puff ourselves up, and then life starts to prick holes in us. We start to suspect there must be something very wrong with us because we can't cope, even when we have a handle on this 'spiritual angle'.

So today I believe there is more to meditation than mental conditioning. I certainly believe if I am to continue to grow and change, I will need more tools than this in my armoury. And I believe that above all, the most powerful tool in my armoury is to have a Higher Purpose. What is that Higher Purpose?? Well, that's between me and my new employer. I'll just say that the game he wants me to play lies out beyond the edges of the board...

Coopers Wisdom - Part 1

Fear, Courage, an Uncommon Perspective and the best damn cherry pie this side of Nirvana...

So I was watching re-runs of a strange little show from the 90s called Twin Peaks and I came across this. It says quite a lot to me about living in fear - or more importantly stepping back and deciding not to live in fear.

It's a dialogue between "our Hero" and the folks life sends to get in his way...or maybe the folks life sends to help him?? Special Agent Dale Cooper stands accused of something he hasn't done. Suspecting a set-up, and suspecting other, greater (spiritual) forces are at play, he decides to step out 'beyond the edge of the board' and refuse to play this particular game by the expected rules. He refuses to live in fear and to allow his actions to be dictated by self-protection. Against the expectations of his colleagues, he decides not to defend himself; having done no wrong he will let whatever happens, happen:

Special Agent Dale Cooper: I have no defense. I am completely confident in the rightness of my actions. Some of it occurred outside of Bureau guidelines, and I will pay the price for that. But I am innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. If they wish to charge me, I will defend myself in a court of law.
FBI Agent Roger Hardy: Dale. There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. And the first thing we expect is for a Bureau man to stand up for himself. A man who can't, who doesn't even try, well, he may be packing feathers where his spine is supposed to be.
Special Agent Dale Cooper: Roger. I know the moves I'm supposed to make. And I know the board.
FBI Agent Roger Hardy: So?
Special Agent Dale Cooper: I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I've started to focus out beyond the edge of the board. On a bigger game.
FBI Agent Roger Hardy: What game?
Special Agent Dale Cooper: The sound the wind makes through the vines. The sentience of animals. What we fear in the dark and what lies beyond the darkness.
FBI Agent Roger Hardy: What the hell are you talking about?
Special Agent Dale Cooper:I'm talking about seeing beyond fear, Roger. About looking at the world with love.
FBI Agent Roger Hardy: They're liable to extradite you for murder and drug trafficking.
Special Agent Dale Cooper: These are things I cannot control.

Now call me dramatic, but I think this exchange is one of those neat little moments with DENSITY. By that I mean, I could read it (or watch it) on any given day and see something different.

Today, in part, it reminded me that taking a decision to side-step, or go beyond fear is actually a very simple thing when it comes. It sounds baffling and mysterious until then. The concept of living beyond fear is very Zen, very "out there", something to be achieved after a lifetime's work, at the culmination of some great epiphany. But ultimately, in reality, it can be very simple, almost mundane. Inevitable, even. Agent Cooper made a decision to stand by his principles, serve a higher path and all of a sudden things become very simple. This is something I can relate to.

Now, please understand me. I am not saying that today I live beyond or without fear. That would make me superhuman. No more do I claim to be an 'enlightened being' (I think these two ideas are linked though, they are equally misunderstood in terms of some kind of 'spiritual attainment', as something to be achieved in some way - more on this in a later blog, perhaps). But I am saying that I have faced similar moments in my life, and decided at various times to live beyond fear, to look to the 'bigger game'. The smaller game - how do I protect myself and survive in a hostile world - can be transcended by acknowledging and stepping in to a larger game...or so I believe, and so my experience tells me.

The problem with such moments, besides their lack of permanence, and lack of universal effect (they often only seem to work with one thing at a time), is that they involve decision and action. A decision taken in the face of fear and, almost invariably, action I do not wish to take. In fact, from a 'spiritual perspective', the most important and decisive moments in my life, I believe, will almost inevitably involve the most fear. Like Agent Cooper, in order to step out 'beyond the board' and live my life under different terms, I will ALWAYS have to step through the veil of fear that keeps me locked into this 'smaller game' that I spend most of my life playing. So throughout my life, I have made less progress than I might have because fear has kept me locked into the smaller game. I believe this is a common experience and the greatest bar to human progress.

So in the face of self-interest, laziness and fear, why would Agent Cooper choose not to defend himself? I think that's an interesting question and one that I won't try to answer. I believe he drops us some clues though; "I'm talking about seeing beyond fear, Roger. About looking at the world with love". Why on earth would one choose to do that? To look at the world with compassion, whatever the personal cost, even though there would be no obvious benefit to anyone? Unless one were playing by a different set of rules, in a bigger game. A game with higher stakes, I like to think...

This kind of thinking, this kind of action, always used to baffle me - impress me, but baffle me. Like the admonition that Gandhi apparently never made - to "Be the change you want to see in this world", it sounds great but how?? And why should we let THEM get away with whatever they're getting away with in the meantime?? Because I never understood, I had never stepped out beyond the limits of what I knew, or the limits of my own perspective and experience...

So that's roughly what this blog will be about...a few musings, a lot of rambling and my own experience of trying to look out to and play beyond the edges of the board...pardon me in advance if it's a little self-indulgent. I can be a little wordy sometimes and I can be a little self-important, I'm working on them both. If you will indulge me though I HOPE it might be useful to someone else out there. And of course, comments and criticisms welcome!