Maybe It's OK to be Neurotic...?

“The agnostic, the skeptic, is neurotic, but this does not imply a false philosophy; it implies the discovery of facts to which he does not know how to adapt himself. The intellectual who tries to escape from neurosis by escaping from the facts is merely acting on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” - Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Recently, I revisited Alan Watts through a series of Youtube videos and his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity. A point he makes and often circles back to is that we came from nothing- non-consciousness - before we were born, as we will return to such a state when we die. We had no anxiety about the nonconsciousness of pre-birth, so we should, logically, consider a similar state of calmness when broaching the subject of our death as well. There's nothing to "fear" as you didn't fear "being" into existence. How perfect an idea; though I am still filled with trepidation when I contemplate my own death, as I worry what others will experience. Therein lies the real rub for me - I get death. I don't want to die right now, but I also don't fear dying. The fear and anxiety I feel is more related to thinking about what those close to me would experience. Lack. 

Although I've never considered myself a neurotic person, I definitely have gravitated and empathized, and, in cases, even been enamored with neurotics (it began with Woody Allen in my teens, yes, I know...THAT Woody Allen...and continued through to pretty much every character Michael Cera has embodied on the screen). Someone so filled with self-loathing from being a flawed human that even though they comprehend the "big picture," they're often so focused on the micro-perspective that they become wrapped up in the inanity of the mundane. Pretty much every episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" portrays this perspective. Larry is everyone's superego, but he's such a fundamentally flawed specimen, that the audience nearly always roots against him, whether or not they agree with him on principle. I'm sure the real Larry David isn't as abrasively awful, but his insights into our psychology as humans yields such levity and catharsis that, to me, it must be a sign of acceptance with himself and his own humanity. 

Constantly, I strive for that degree of acceptance with the world around me, those who inhabit it, and most importantly, my own self. But since expectations, desires and reality seldom coincide, I am thrown into the camp of the neurotic more often than I'd like. My thoughts are numerous and hectic - new worries bubble up constantly. However, I can't live in that place of constant fear, so I consider myself a visitor to neurosis and definitely feel a connection to those who do live there. I've experienced anxiety about grades, weight, relationships, job performance - anything evaluative or comparative, so you know, everything (ha!). Then I had a child and dropped out of the normal rat race for a while. No performative measures because, gladly, I could largely avoid them and also chose not to engage or pursue them. Competitiveness dropped away, Liberation from the bullshit, even if only for a short window of time, totally wiped away years of furrows. 

Sure, I'd had breakthrough moments previously, but carrying life and doing something so commonplace, and yet unique, was transformative to my worldview. After years of judging myself for performative acts, there was room to breathe and "be." Abject sadness that life was a simple as it possibly was when breastfeeding a child I had just birthed flooded me. How complicated our modern lives are! And complicated doesn't mean better. That was the real rub. That's what provoked the tears. We did this to ourselves - built layers atop layers. Nothing that we have added to the biological drives really amounted to anything more than just that -complexity. It's like bureaucracy - there's a sense to the system, sure, but the complicatedness of such a system serves nothing more than its own interests. If that system didn't exist, life might be more inconvenient in some sense, but life is life. Inconvenience is a part of life. Knowing such feelings as waiting, boredom, and even ennui, can in themselves be transformative for the human mind. Creativity flows 

The entirety of the human condition is one that provokes neurosis in all of us if we dwell on it for too long. So we sort of have to shed a tear for what we will ultimately lose and what we've already left behind, and own our feelings, good and bad. 

The Hurt Locker of LIfe

Toward the end of the movie, The Hurt Locker, the main character, William James, experiences an existential crisis while shopping for groceries. As he stares at a sea of choices, you can see him trying to comprehend what he's doing there, why there are so many goddamn choices for cereal and whether he'd be better off doing something more....worthwhile. He even admits this to his own son, as to why he's leaving once again, "...But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And the older you get, the fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one." The closing scenes of the movie show him back in Iraq disarming IEDs and even though he's putting his life in serious danger, he's content.

How does a seemingly innocuous trip to the supermarket end up causing a full-blown crisis? What does he see on the shelves - perhaps in between the Cocoa Puffs and the Cheerios - that countless others don't? I think I know. Recently I had a similar moment in a local store. I went food shopping on a dreary afternoon in the late summer. Usually I don't mind going but on this day I was already not feeling it as I walked in. As I was pushing my cart down an aisle, an in-store advertisement interrupted the flow of shitty music that you so often hear playing in supermarkets and retail stores (the kind of music that makes you wonder if the person who composed it was a sadist or on their deathbed or a catatonic schizophrenic...). As the advertisement blared on, I became awash with a feeling that I was actually in a virtual world, like some tv host would burst through a display, shouting, "You're on candid camera!!!!" while twenty of my closet family and friends surrounded me, laughing and cheering, or even worse, that the shelves would roll away to reveal that I had been in The Truman Show all along. Maybe I have read too many dystopian novels or maybe there really is something lacking from our world that cannot be replaced by consumer choice. If I happen to watch too much television, or sit in front of a computer for too long, or are bored through a series of nothing meetings at work, I experience the same feeling.

But what is this feeling? How do I classify it? There's definitely a hint of boredom. A sense of an unknown - what does this all mean? Ennui would probably be the best way to sum it up. I think a lot more people than just me and a guy who disarms IEDs for "fun" feel this way too. Today, during a suicide prevention workshop, the presenter mentioned that one of the signs of suicide is suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide). I had to not laugh and then afterward, I had to remind myself that it's normal to consider your own mortality, having an expiration date, etc. Read this blog. I think about this shit a fuckton. I'm not suicidal. Sure, I think that CAN be a sign of suicide, but our society has some real hang ups about death. We don't handle it well. I think that's why we have shrines set up to youth and beauty (#selfies) and also why we hide old people away unless they have a sense of humor (we love you, Betty White). It's probably why people in the US are so losing their shit over the ebola outbreak that has killed thousands in Western Africa and 1 person in the US so far. 1 person. 1. 1...

What's missing? What is the undercurrent that joins these feelings of ennui? A lack of identity? A loss of community? We're all increasingly alienated - we construct shaky self-images and then categorize any outside force that may cause these to change as "threats." From trolls on 4chan to ebola to communism to...you name it, people somewhere, at some time, have railed against it. A profession as old as teaching falls in and out of favor with the public. Currently we're out of favor. And the insults lobbed at us run the gamut from strange progressives filling the next generation with lies about their "country" to inept and overpaid ("those who can't, teach" - don't even get me started on that straight line of bullshit). Instead of looking for ways to better their own working conditions and to raise everyone's standard of living, people look toward elected leaders and media talking heads to make their decisions for them. But shrewd politicians and media moguls of all political persuasions have been pretty effective at dividing and conquering a populace through those threats I spoke about earlier. Your tax money isn't going to fund my weekend getaways to the Bahamas that aren't happening, nor my yacht, nor my $400 riding boots. In fact, it's going back into your community where I also live and work and play. So I'm down to go cut some noble's head off and shove grass in its mouth when you finally come to the realization that you've been duped all these years, but I don't think we really need to go that far. Locking arms and saying, "NO!" firmly might do the trick, but even then, we're too scared.  Save hate for those who really deserve it.

And what can be done to change it? Well, as always I posit some ideas, but am always looking for input.