Choices

Every start is also an end.  Every choice made is the death of hundreds of other choices, some considered, some as yet undiscovered and now perhaps buried forever.  When it comes to some choices, the sheer variety of options is so staggering that I sometimes wonder how anyone manages to pick in the first place.

Have you ever thought about the mind-boggling glut of greeting cards in a drug store?  How is one supposed to pick the best one out of hundreds of equally appalling saccharine options?  I didn't get a card for J for an occasion I normally would have because the sheer number of available bits of dead trees depressed me beyond my ability to get over it and just pick a damn card.

So, how does anyone manage to decide in the face of a myriad of options? Of course, not all choices are as numerous as greeting cards.  Some choices are simple - what to have for lunch?  Maybe I feel like a salad or sushi.  Easy, I know exactly where to go to get it.  Some days though, everything sounds equally plausible and satisfying and as a result nothing does.  On days like that I'll usually force myself to settle for something that begins to lose its appeal the moment it lands on my plate.  And occasionally I'll decide that I just can't be bothered to spend the energy on this decision and go without.

I've been picking that latter option quite a bit lately.  I'd skip lunch or dinner.  And if it's dinner, then I'm so hungry the next morning that the idea of settling on a single item for breakfast is laughable and so I skip that too.  Then lunch comes and I am past being hungry.  I'm at a point where the mere thought of food makes me slightly nauseous.  And that's when it happens.

The power to just not eat is intoxicating.

I try not to abuse it, but it's so appealing that I'm afraid I don't try too hard.  I choose to exercise that bit of control that's normally so elusive.  Because to be honest, I love food.  I love eating, I love cooking, I love trying new foods.  I've never been good at setting limits in food or anything else.  If I actively try to not eat or eat less or avoid certain foods, I fail more spectacularly each time I try.  The surest way for me to gain weight is to go on a diet.  It's a daily struggle.

And then, in the face of those never ending battles, come these glorious, accidental days.  Days when the more hours tick by without food entering my mouth and feeding my insatiable hunger by sliding down my throat, the more elated I become.  It's less a countdown and more a game of stretching the rubber band; how much more before it snaps?

This high isn't one I can chase, though.  It doesn't come through effort.  It can't be gained on purpose or by design or by choice  The only choice I have is to enjoy it when it comes and I do enjoy it very much.

Of course as with any choice we make and any freedom we exercise, there comes a price.  The exhilaration of a stomach so devoid of food that you can feel its hollowness even without thinking about it is accompanied by the fear of loss of that pleasure.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not out to starve myself and frankly, while not overweight, I have plenty of padding to ensure that these occasional jaunts leave no lasting effects.  I know I have to eat and I know I will, but just in that bubble of momentary starvation, I really wish I didn't have to.  I wish I could prolong that sensation of emptiness, that slightest touch of lightheaded vertigo, the feeling of the waistband of my jeans shifting in ways it normally doesn't.  But most of all, I wish I could prolong the sensation of feeling the bones slide underneath the skin when I place my hand furtively just above the navel and let my fingers span across my side.

So, what is it about this experience that's so appealing?  In D/s, I would refer to this state as being in "headspace". This is a pale imitation of headspace, but it's the closest I can get to it at the moment.

Being in headspace has been compared to the endorphin rush of a runner's high.  It's an almost floaty feeling of straddling the world of reality and fantasy.  When I'm in headspace, I'm able to selectively focus some senses and shut off others.  Unless I am required to watch, my eyes close and vision is eliminated.  One distraction down, more to go.  Hearing is also usually muted or at least tuned to a very narrow frequency of sounds.  I hear things that directly relate to what I am experiencing, but music, sounds from others, anything not directly related to me is gone.  Touch is there, but smell often isn't.  And so it goes.

And when everything is off except for the raw physical sensations then it is as if the skin is scrubbed raw and every touch is magnified, the muscles are moving, twisting, and expanding in ways they normally don't, and the brain is floating, struggling to cope with the overload of sensations.  Breathing suddenly becomes something you have to think about and devote energy to, because it no longer happens on its own; because sometimes you can't breathe even if you want to.

Being in headspace is dangerous because there is always a chance that you'll come out of it a different person from the one who went in or you won't want to come out at all.  The re-balancing of senses, the return of missing ones and the dulling of the ones that were a focus, is like being woken up by having cold water thrown in your face and kicked to the floor.

It's traumatic and it's unwelcome. 

It's like taking the first bite of food after six, ten, twelve hours of going hungry and feeling your jaw clench and lock up because while your body has been waiting for that first bite, your mind has been dreading it and the loss of control that comes with it.

Imagination v. Reality

First, let me set expectations for what this post is about.  I'm not talking about the "I'm twenty pounds lighter and about to get a starring role in a major Hollywood production" kind of imagination.  That's fun and all, but first, that's not where my imagination goes and second, like I said, not that kind of imagination.

I'm talking about imagining reality and then living that reality.  We all do it every day.  We have to, otherwise we wouldn't be able to plan for anything.  We imagine the series of events unfolding and figure out whether they will get us to the desired end state or not. 

"If I leave work at 4 o'clock instead of 4:30, I will gain ten extra minutes because the traffic will be lighter, which means that I'll get to the grocery store by 4:15, grab a few things for dinner, then rush to the childcare center and still make it home in time to make dinner before it's time to work on homework."

Imagine the reality of all those steps and then live them.  And you have some basis for that kind of imagination because presumably you've left work at 4 o'clock instead of 4:30 before and presumably you take the same route to and from work and you know the lines at the grocery store, etc.  There is a series of previously experienced bits of reality that help you construct that imaginary chain today and lead you to have a certain level of confidence that your imagined reality is not all that different from the reality you'll face when you get on the road at 4:05 (because we all know that you'll never actually leave at 4 o'clock... that's just plain fantasy).

But what happens when we try to imagine a reality that never previously existed?  What if you try to imagine what it would be like to do something you've never done before? And what if you have to agree to doing it based solely on your imagining of that reality?  What then? 

What do you rely on to gain a level of confidence in those imaginings if you have no support for them from reality as you know it?

Or worse, what if you are imagining a different reality from one you've already faced?  Which do you trust?  Your new imagined reality or the one that you've already lived through?  Where do faith and experience cross swords?

And when they do, who comes out on top?  That's what I'd like to know.
  

Writing under the influence

I suspect that most people seeing that header will assume that the post is about writing under the influence of alcohol or, if they don't know me, then the influence of drugs.  But it's neither...  This post is about writing under the influence of different emotions. 

Right now I am angry.  Actually, that's not quite true.  I am not angry.  I am incandescent with fury.  It's bubbling inside me like thick porridge in a cauldron; spitting its venom as angry bubbles grow and erupt.  I've tried to contain it, to tell myself that it's not worth getting so upset over, but the truth is, it is worth it.  Not to get upset over, but to get truly, properly enraged.  Screaming at the top of my voice, kicking walls, hitting, crying, and more screaming kind of enraged.  But, that's not very grown-up or ladylike, so let's settle for angry. I am very, very angry right now.

I sat down to write an email, but that would be akin to cleaning a loaded gun when you're blindly drunk.  You just know you're going to shoot someone or something, the question is just what and how badly.  So, I'm not going to write the email I was thinking of writing because I'll just end up saying a lot of things that will both hurt the person I mean to write them to and fall on deaf ears at the same time.

Instead, I'll settle for the unknown audience of those of you who read this.  So, writing under the influence...

I have to say, I love writing when I'm under the influence of strong emotions.  Over time I've noticed that it's not just what I choose to write about, but how I write that differs depending on the emotion.  When I am angry or irritated, I write faster, my sentences short and more compact.  The writing becomes less refined, more choppy, as if each sentence is a sharp bite of licorice.  I know I need to do a better job of proofreading when I write this way, but in some ways, it's more honest left as is. 

The downside to writing when angry is that my filters are all skewed by rage and I can and do put on paper things that I should have held back. Or maybe I shouldn't hold back.  There's a recklessness to this kind of writing that is both frightening and liberating.  I don't set out to hurt anyone with what I might say, but I do find that I often hurt myself with the things I don't say.  Undoubtedly there's a fine balance there, but it's not one that I can achieve when blinded by rage so I'll err on the side of caution today and I won't write or send that email...  Although I won't promise that I won't do it tomorrow.

Hopeful...  I can sort of write when I'm hopeful, but it's too close to happy and I absolutely cannot write when I am happy.  Happiness or joy are inspiration killers for me.  I don't know what to write or how to write when I'm happy.  It's as if being happy takes up all my brain's energy and leaves nothing for other pursuits. 

Writing when I'm happy is kind of like talking right after dental surgery - it's still your mouth and your tongue and you haven't forgotten English, but nothing works as it's supposed to and eventually you realize that the effort just isn't worth it.  You might as well wait for anesthesia to wear off and for your mouth to return back to normal. 

It may be a morbid comparison, but that doesn't make it any less true.  Say "No" to writing under the influence of happiness.

I can handle calm and I can write when I am calm.  I don't necessarily want or need to write when I am calm, but if opportunity presents itself, I can.  It's not the most productive or imagination filled sensation, but being calm allows me a chance to really think about what I'm writing.  The result is that what I write comes out so polished and worked over that it's almost bland.  With calm comes endless patience for tinkering with each sentence and even each word.  It's writing by design and just like "Paint-by-number" can produce a Van Gogh masterpiece, when you look at it closer, it's just a bit too neat and a bit too clinical to amount to anything.  So, I can write when I'm calm, but I won't write well and no amount of editing will breathe life into that carefully crafted corpse.

So, what's left?  Sadness and arousal.  Some of my best, most eloquent, heartfelt writing was done under the influence of those two emotions.  Sadness, writing, and arousal are inextricably linked in my mind.  Being sad makes me want to write, writing arouses me, and arousal pushes me to keep writing to keep the arousal alive.  When I am sad or mopey or experiencing a sudden bout of depression, my writing just pours out.  Fiction or diary pages, it doesn't really matter. 

I love the English language.  I am not very imaginative when it comes to other art forms, I can't play an instrument or paint or draw, but I can write.  I can turn my emotions inside out by giving them voice.  I can turn sadness into hope and inspiration.  I can create arousal and keep it percolating through phrases that have nothing to do with sex.  Words have amazing power and I can manipulate them for my pleasure and for the enjoyment of anyone who feels like joining me for the ride. 

So, what is writing under the influence of sadness like?  It's lyrical and it flows from sentence to sentence, like a thin stream of water running down a set of stone steps.  There a moment ago and then gone, already burbling on ahead, leaving behind a hint of wetness evaporating before your eyes.  It's both freeing and frightening because it feels out of control.  As the words pour out, you never know what thoughts will tumble out into the open.  Sometimes, reading what I wrote at these times doesn't feel like my writing.  It's too raw and I am always tempted to edit it.  It's not raw in the same way as angry writing is.  Angry writing aims to strike, to change, to influence and enforce.  Sad writing is like slicing open your flesh and leaving the wound open for the world to see.  It's an act of faith, an exposure of vulnerability and offer of trust.  Picture a cat offering her belly to be rubbed - that's sad writing.

And this?  What sort of writing was this?  This was substitution writing or detached writing, if you wish.  It's writing for the sake of writing.  Not very good, not very bad, just there to take place of what can't be written; at least not right now.