soapboxdiner

Definition by way of question

For three days now I've been wandering through this same old familiar discomfort that by this point bores even me. This questioning of what defines me, where I am going, who exactly is leading me, what I'm going to do with it and about it. Because in a way, I am not leading myself. Rather, by inaction I have allowed myself to become this passive kind of victim.

Nobody likes the passive victim, not even me. As if the world understands that the victim will continue to be the victim who blames the world rather than taking a look within, rather than taking a stand, rather than facing whatever reality about themselves that makes them that victim.

I think in the last three days, I have finally seen the quality in myself that makes me a victim. How I loathe calling myself that. It goes against everything I believe. To at last see that that is the very thing I am is ugly and distasteful; nauseating, really.

I am almost positive that there is more than one characteristic in my character that I use to victimize myself, but there will most assuredly be other brick walls I slam myself against before I see those ones.

In these three days of anxiety and fear and illness and anguish, I have replayed the past week, year, decade. In me, I have seen this enormous entity that sits atop an outpost wall and watches for trouble. It's waiting to sound a battlecry. "Protect, protect!" it shrieks.

I've seen that I have listened to that entity for so long, all other voices have faded, and cultivated in the wake is an imbalance. I am yin without yang, if you follow.

Yes, Diaryland. I discovered I have a very bad attitude. Not because I want one, not because I like it. But because I've been waiting for one "bad" thing after another for so long, I've forgotten to look for "good". Inside me is this kind of metaphorical wound that each disappointment reopens to let fester. That attitude has become a poison.

I know that for this to change, I have to exchange bad for good. The only thing left to do is to learn what "good" is. I don't remember what that is anymore. Which doesn't mean that I give up, it just means I have to find it. It's a part of me that I misplaced, and I don't know where to look. I fear that I will make many false starts, looking in the wrong places first.

As George Carlin says, "Of course it's always in the last place you look, you big idiot. Who keeps looking after they find it?" or something like that.

I think of the Buddhist philosophy of acceptance. I think of Erin Brocovich. I think of Norma Rae. I am moved to activate each of these within myself, but know they oppose each other. So what do I do first?

10:32 am - 02.09.03
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