Pendulum Theory

So this wasn't exactly how I was hoping to follow up everything I felt good about last week.

It's been a rough one, to be sure, where my Yang threw a whole lot at me and my Yin, which is still in the thick of rehabilitation, wasn't really up to handling all of it.

Not that I blame it, either. It's a whole hell of a lot to take even on a really good day.

I've had this theory which I had to have picked up from somewhere, because it's way too logical to have come out of my head. But it's helped me through many a time like this, and I'm hoping it will do so again.

It's a derivative of the Pendulum Theory, which states that when a person goes through a particular traumatic or energizing experience, they tend to overcompensate by sending their personality in the opposing direction. So therefore, a depressed person goes out of their way to give the appearance of happiness and contentment, and an overly happy person may feign humility so as not to appear narcissistic or egotistical.

My take on the Pendulum Theory is this. The pendulum represents the self and it is always somewhere in the perpetual arc between positive and negative and if it strays too far to one side, it must inevitably come back the other way and remain for the same duration of time.

While that does mean that a life transition from good to bad, it also means the same in the opposite too. Let's face it, good luck is no more constant than bad luck and at different phases in our lives, the pendulum moves back and forth with very little, if anything, we can do to control or manipulate it.

That's not to suggest that such things are left to simple fate or chance either. Rather, it's more about karma and the idea that if you done something so wrong to warrant the pendulum swinging away from you, maybe the only way to get it to come back in your favor is correct it. So when it does come back you'll be able to reap the benefits which you've rightly earned.

Like I said, it's a theory I have, and the first time I came up with it, I was sitting in an 8 x 8 box with a cage door on one side, wondering how the hell I could've ever gotten myself into it, and what was I going to do when they finally let me back out.

That was nearly 20 years ago, and my pendulum is still hanging out there, hovering on the edge of that long, plodding arc, just waiting for the slightest ounce of opposing momentum to start bringing it back my way. I know it's going to eventually.

It has to, because sooner or later I'll have built up enough good karma to outweigh the things I've done wrong. I just have to be patient and hope.

One Little Victory

There was a time where I wasn't as ashamed to say this as I've been for the last few years, but it's still a fact nonetheless.

I'm a born and bred New Englander, which means I'm a guy who likes sports, especially when the hometown teams are winning.

The reason why it feels a little shaming to me is because a lot of the people I know aren't sports fans. They're young, sophisticated, educated people who spend their time immersed in pop culture, literature, music and other stuff.

Admitting I'm such a rabid follower of the Red Sox, or Patriots, or Celtics...or Bruins...gives me the impression of being an uneducated cro-magnon who just likes being part of the mob.

But my beloved Sox won another World Series last night. Their third in the last ten years. When I was a kid, I was like every other loyal fan who dared hope beyond hope that somehow, some way, THIS would be the year Boston did it. And every year, they came up short.

When they finally did it in 2004, I cried, like a lot of other people I know back home did. That may sound really silly to those not attuned to the world of sports, but for us Boston faithful it was the culmination of a lifetime of shared and passionate hope capped by unbelievably frustrating disappointment and heartbreak. But ultimately, our collective faith in a group of men we hardly know and will likely never meet, who represented us in the game we'd all played as kids on sandlots and Little League fields all over New England and across  the country was finally and gratifyingly rewarded.

And in that moment, we all knew what the sweet taste of victory finally felt like.

The crazy thing is that it's not just the Red Sox who've been to the top of the mountain either. Every major team with it's roots in my hometown has won at least once in the last 15 years. In the matter of proper context, that is truly unheard of for one city to be on such a hot streak. If it's not the Sox, it's the Patriots. Not the Pats then it's the Celtics or the Bruins. I have often said and will forever cling to the proposition that if the Boston College Eagles, whom I've followed since a little guy named Doug Flutie threw the mother of all Hail Mary's 30 years ago, should ever win a National College Football Championship, then I'm done.

I will issue my retirement papers and gladly walk away from ever being a sports fan again, because I will have achieved the equivalent of total nirvana.

But what I couldn't help but think about last night, while I listened to the celebration on the radio and pined for being back home in the thick of it (with the jovial, civilized people and not the idiot rioters), was wondering how it felt for the Sox themselves. The 25 guys who six months ago started this journey which culminated in being rewarded as the best. Knowing that all the hours of work put in, both on and off the field, the sacrifices which were made was worth it at the end, because no one can ever take away from you the fact that you were the last ones standing while everyone else tried like hell to take you down.

I can be a fan and live vicariously through my teams and feel like I somehow contributed to and earned the right to celebrate along with them, but I've never really known what that euphoria must feel like. To know, beyond any hesitation, that you've achieved and earned everything you've ever set out to do in this life.

I hoped that feeling would finally come three years ago when I finally earned my two college degrees, ten years later than I should've had to get it. I wanted it. My whole life I'd known I wanted it and I'd eventually figure out a way to get it. And for as great as it felt to finally have it in my hands and be able to proudly display them on my wall, the victory was both short-lived and painfully hollow because of what followed in its wake.

And as I sit  here and write this out tonight, I can't help but think about how I would feel if I could ever reach the point where I actually got everything I ever wanted. The thing is, I never wanted to be rich or famous. I just want to be happy with my life and I wanted someone special to be happy with. I still do...very much.

Just once, I would like to know what a victory like that would feel like. To have all the hopes and dreams I have for myself finally come together. I'd like to think that after the frustrating setbacks and painful heartbreaks I've gone through in this life, that's not a whole lot to ask.

Brainstorm

The end of October is here, and as I had no Halloween plans again, once my work for the night was done, my focus shifted to what has been one of my favorite times of the year.

November. Not because of Thanksgiving, but because it's National Novel Writing Month. That's NaNoWriMo for short.

I made my first run at this in 2005, and despite the protestations of my ex-wife of my investing 30 days into the act of writing a book, I was at the point in my life where I figured if I didn't try something to get the ideas I had out of my head and down on the page, then how could I call myself an honest writer.

After all, the ideas are useless if you don't put them into effect to create plot, dialogue, emotion, action and characters.

In the ever-expanding stacks of notebooks I have in the box by my couch rest every idea for every book I've ever thought of writing. Under normal NaNoWriMo circumstances, I would just crack another one open and get started on it. Only problem is I have a story I started writing last year and got about halfway through before ended up in the typical corner with a need to find a way out.

The great cliche for novelists, or any writer for that matter, is to write what you know. The story I'm working on now is one I know all too well as I'm using it to try and make sense of a great many things about my life I've never really dealt with.

It also dives headlong into this world which I don't know as much about as I'd like, and more than I should, depending on your point of view. I think it can make a good backbone of the story, but it all depends on how I can pull it off.

The one thing about writing which can be liberating is through the avatars we create, we can vicariously confront and get past our own daemons. What's been holding me back in mine is still the issue of both not knowing how and not being willing to confront them as fully as I need to.

As it stands, I have the next 30 days to figure it out and get the first draft done. I have no idea how I'm going to feel when it's finished, but I hope I feel better about a lot of things than I do right now.

I'll never know until I sit down with the manuscript and start punching the keys.

Tally Ho.

Gunshy

A couple of years ago, my surrogate sister-in-law made an observation of me that I was genuinely surprised about at the time.

"You come off as a pretty shy guy, Dev, at least until you feel you can click with someone and then you open up a lot more easily," she said.

It was surprising because until that moment, I hadn't really thought about how I interact with other people I'm not familiar with. I also never really thought it was a bad approach to just sit back and get a feel for someone before I start interjecting whatever quasi-intellectual gobbeldy-gook comes out of my head.

I didn't mind being shy, but there's a downside to it which must be addressed.

I haven't met anyone new or made any new friends in three years.

Why? Because the thought of going back out into the world and trying again honestly scares the shit out of me.

When I went back to school in 2007, one of the major reasons why I wanted to aside from getting my education finished, was I wanted to meet new people and make new friends. It's not that I didn't appreciate the close friends I had to that point. To the contrary, they're the most important people in my life and they know (hopefully) that I would do anything for them if they asked me to. But life is about having new experiences and meeting new people who can enrich those experiences. There's nothing wrong with forging new friendships.

At least, that's what I told myself at the time.

I graduated in 2010 with some of those new friendships in place. After my divorce the following year, though, virtually all of those people were gone and after going through that demoralizing process, the idea of just going back out there and trying to find replacements for all the really cool people I got to know in those three years and then lost truly seems like a waste of my time.

When I was in high school, my favorite place to be at the few parties I was invited to was in the darkest corner of the room, where I could just sit and be invisible while everyone else enjoyed their collective revelry.

Nowadays, my favorite place to be is not even to be out in public at all unless I can slip quietly in and out of wherever I am. My shyness has become so severe that while I love photography, I don't dare take pictures of myself anymore. I also have retreated from being a part of the online world in many ways with the main exception of this blog, really.

It's devolved from simply being shy and awkward to a feeling of total misanthropy and that's not good.

We are a tribal species and cling to the sense of belonging to a community we can call our own. The truth is I haven't felt like I've belonged anywhere in a long time.

I wan't to. I really do. In my head, though, it feels like I really just don't know how.

Patience

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a big believer in astrology or the Zodiac. I'd like to think we as human beings cannot be categorized with such broad, overarching strokes as it belies our own complexities and intricacies which makes us all different.

However, were you look at where I sit at the astrological round table, I seriously doubt many people would debate that I am, beyond shadow of a doubt, a Bull.

I'm not entirely sure how good of a thing that is, to be honest, but as I said, I don't take too much personal stock in it for a simple reason.

Tauruses are supposedly known for their ability to exercise patience, and I am FAR from a patient man.

At some point, I'm sure I had to be able to not be so demanding that things happen right away. When I was a kid, I understood that if there was something I wanted, be it a toy, book, whatever, if I was patient and waited then in time I would be able to get it. Even now there are times when I realize I need or want something but I can't get it immediately so I have to wait a week, a month, or maybe even longer. I may not like it in the moment, but I can accept that level of patience because I know I have some level of control over the situation and it's just a matter of practicing self-discipline until the goal can be met.

Where my patience dissolves into complete nothingness, however, is when it comes to myself or other people. Why? Because it leaves things in the hands of someone else and I can't always trust them to make the choices I'm hoping they will make. More often than not, that decision also comes at the end of a drawn-out process of thought and consideration, when I would rather be just told straight out, Yes, this will happen or No, it won't.

Having to wait for those answers is excruciating and while I understand and respect the need for potentially deeper introspection and having the patience to let that process play out, when the final decision comes back and it's not in my favor, what I feel is that I wasted the time completely, no matter if it's a day, week or even a year.

So I push the situation and the person on the other side because I want the answer, and like all of us, I want the answer that which benefits me, makes me feel better. I'm not saying it's right that I do it, only that I recognize that I do it.

In the last three days alone, I've been told probably ten times from ten different people, "Dev, just be patient. Things will happen if you just let them happen on their own and don't try so hard."

Obviously, I need to learn how to be more patient and just slow down in crucial situations, rather than forcing the issue, because I can't control people and what they are going to do. Not everyone is going to see things my way and are within their right to disagree with my point of view. I wouldn't have it any other way, to be honest, because I don't want to be known as someone who's manipulative of others.

I need to learn and practice patience. If I possess the other qualities (and some of the flaws) of a bull, then this is something I can do.

Having Purpose

When it comes to books and movies, I guess I'm a considerable non-conformist in that I don't go for the hot title everyone's reading or watching at the moment.

I've never read The Da Vinci Code or any other Dan Brown novel. It took me nearly ten years to read a Harry Dresden novel and to be honest, I didn't find Storm Front all that great.

And don't get me started on the Twilight series. The only way you'll ever get me to watch or read those is to institute methods a la A Clockwork Orange.

*Editorial Note: I still need to read that one, btw. Duly noted.

But I also have a somewhat uncanny knack for discovering stories at moments in my life where they hit with the most poignancy and resonance, and such is what I found last night with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Lisabeth Salander is a broken person. She has no family, has had her sanity questioned, trusts no one, is extremely introverted, horrifically abused and disregarded as pretty much a freak. But she's good at her job as a hacker and researcher and that brings her to the disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist's attention.

Mikael has a problem which he cannot solve on his own and in pairing up with Lisabeth, he also, without perhaps realizing it, gives her something much more important.

Purpose.

By the time the story is over, there's no certainty as to what their relationship is. It's been both professional and deeply personal, and while Mikael is able to get on with his life, Lisabeth can't because there really is no next part of her life to move on to. What she wanted, and in many ways needed, was someone like him.

While I was watching the movie last night, I was multi-tasking on both the book I'm getting back to work on, and having a rather heated conversation with a friend on FB. Like most of my friends, she tried explaining to me that what I want most in my life is probably not going to happen, at least not any time soon, and I need to finally come to some level of acceptance with that rather unpleasant fact and find something, or someone, to fill that void.

And my answers were always the same. I can't.

I thought I was past this by now. Given that it's been a few years, I was supposed to be and I know how much it's bugging those around me that I'm not, even if they don't come right out and say it. I finally fell asleep last night far later than I should've, trying to find some rationale for just what it is that I'm feeling and why. When I finally woke up again this morning, my rather sleep-deprived brain picked it back up without missing a beat and has been churning away on it since.

The simple and honest answer is I don't know other than for the very briefest of moments, I had a purpose. Now I don't and I want it back. I want it back more than I've wanted anything in my whole life, but I can't have it, because it was never really mine and I didn't deserve it in the first place.

And I'd be lying if I said making myself understand that didn't hurt like hell.

In my life, I've had bones broken, skin cut wide open, and bruises that felt like they took weeks to heal. I'd gladly take how all that felt over this any day. Any. Day.

Off Day

As Bugs Bunny was fond of saying, "My mudda told me dere'd be days like dis."

I don't really know how to describe what I'm feeling other than...off. And I couldn't tell you why either.

I had a great week last week. One of the better ones I've had in a long time. The sun is still shining here for a few more days and even a little rain yesterday morning wasn't a terrible sign. Work was tough, but I muscled through it and got everything that needed to be done done.

Saturday I got to relax at home, work out, watch some movies and put some work into the book I need to get moving on writing again starting next month, and Sunday was a day spent with friends.

So what the hell do I have this feeling that something is really wrong and I don't know what it is?

It feels like I'm clutching at smoke, trying to understand what is going through my head today, and the main thing behind it is fear.

Seeing where I'm at now, I don't want to backslide to where I started from. I don't want to jeopardize the relationships I've only now started rebuilding or the ones I've had that are set in stone. I'm worried about saying or doing the wrong things when I know instinctively I shouldn't have to and it's better to just be myself, warts and all.

I don't want to write this book, get everything I've had roiling inside my head for years now down on the page, only to be told it's crap not worth publishing.

I feel like I'm standing on a cliff. I can't see the bottom of the abyss below me, and I have a perfectly good set of wings strapped to my back, but I don't trust them enough to know I won't fall.

I hate this feeling because I've felt it too many times in my life, being afraid to just let things go and release the white-knuckled grip on the safety of the ground.

All that is going through my head today is the endless streams of "What If?" scenarios that can lead to a myriad of outcomes and futures for me, and the ones where I get things right, where I get everything I could possibly want at this stage of my life, feel so alien to me that I almost can't bear to think about them. While all the scenarios that end with me having the life I'm used to and in some ways expecting to have, feel far too familiar for me to want to even accept them. I've been down those roads too many times and I don't want to follow those paths anymore.

It's never a fun thing, being so afraid to succeed that you cling to the certainty of failure instead.

Life is feeling really good for me right now. I just don't want to fuck it up.

I knew there'd be days like this. Doesn't mean I have to like them.