Wednesday, February 13, 2013
#nowwatching The Sessions
In one session, Cheryl asks Mark to think about himself as a six-year-old boy. "Do you blame him for getting polio?"I think of myself as a child, and all I feel is, I am sorry you were in such sadness. Sadness that numbed, you barely even recognised was there all the time, because it was such a perpetual emotion.
It is like breathing, you don't realise you are until you aren't, or until you try to control it. Everything was shrouded in grey. like the earth was already at its end like it is now, every air space polluted periodically. There was no one to blame, no causal relationship to define it; it just was. Why did you grow up in sadness, Elaine? Now that you know what it was, you realise you missed it completely.
Was it worth it, to have serotonin balanced finally. to feel those two instances in your later life what happiness feels like? Now that you know, you know what you didn't. It was such a primal feeling, happiness. You knew it the instance you tried to define what you felt, because our brains are wired to recognise the emotion. But it never returned and it can never replace all those years of loss. The childhood without happiness.
I need to come to terms that I will never naturally feel happiness, and that it is okay not to. "You are trying to be mainstream when you are not mainstream," says the good doc. Happiness is mainstream, and I am not, and I should not strive to achieve it anymore. I need a new framework. Perhaps the old one, which is not to try and feel happiness. but to not feel sad. That in itself will already be a lifelong mission. The new framework should be to try and live out my life's goals while carrying this eternal companion of sadness. Even the most ferocious dogs can be great friends.
Numbing, ignoring, soothing: things one can do to sadness for alleviation of it. Embracing it even, for it is the muse of the artist. It is the bedrock of the compassionate arts, and I am a compassionate artist in the making even if I have not much further to live.
And perhaps one day, I could make another person's childhood experience the happiness I never did in youth, to make up for all those years without in mine. From chaos came creation, so from sorrow and pain, shall come forth joy.
Sadness, I acknowledge you as my friend, at last. Perhaps I have regarded you with too much disdain, or ignored you until you poured words onto canvas through my pen. I recognise that you are my source of compassion in so many ways, and that you will propel me to change this world I live in. If enjoyment brings motivation to the mainstream, bring me the same in this offstream world of mine. Without you, I would have no pain, but without pain, I would not see the same in another.