Unpacking from yet another move, and with it, finally doing some long overdue filing, I stumbled across my old military journal. Flipping through, I landed rather fortuitously on this 1983 entry:
| 14 MAR - |
I FEEL UP TO WORKING PAR TODAY.
[...]
I FEAR FUTURE HINDERENCES IN MY SCHEDULE; MY ROOT CANAL PROBLEMS HAVE, I BELIEVE, DEVELOPED INTO AN INFECTION. BUT THE MOTRIN AND MY TYLENOL ARE KEEPING ME SALIENT [sic] -- I WILL WORK AS LONG AS I AM ABLE. |
|
| * |
DENTIST RELIEVED SOME PUSS-PRESSURE AND BREECHED [sic] A HOLE FOR FUTURE PUSS REMOVAL. TOMORROW I GET THE CEMENT INTRUSION SURGICALLY REMOVED. NO LOSS OF WORK DAYS EXPECTED. |
|
Soon afterward, the entries in the journal become increasingly sporadic, with longer and longer gaps in the log, culminating with a final entry in June of 1986. Many blank pages after this point sat nearly a decade waiting for ink, a thirst which was not, and never will be, satisfied.
Little did I know this would be the beginning of 28 years of Hell involving chronic sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, heavy use of antibiotics, development of numerous allergies, loss of sleep, loss of focus, loss of energy, and an ever-increasing dependence on pattern living.
In short, I let my sickness be stronger than me.
When the source of my chronic illness was discovered 26 years later, and thus defined it as, in fact, a chronic illness, I had long since become a wastrel, squandering the many gifts given me in this life, and instead living very nearly as lazy a lifestyle as I could manage within the barely-perceptible confines of my rather expansive good fortune.
Upon discovery of this illness, a year of attending to it, and a year of recovering from attending to it, I also discovered for the first time in my life just how much I'd permitted myself to get into a rut of existence. I had developed and accumulated an entire framework of oppressive patterns for 26 years in order to survive, and passed quite willingly, if unwittingly, into the that pit of slavery I'd built for myself.
No longer trapped in a mind working at partial capacity, I rebelled against the very patterns I myself had created. Confident that I was a thinker, a doer, a man of inestimable strength and aptitude, I tossed aside the yoke, stood tall, and proclaimed myself a free man.
Ah, such blindness is Arrogance. I really thought it was that simple.
My ego was to get a series of crushing blows as I discovered I was not actually as strong as I'd always thought myself to be. In my arrogance-induced blindness, I stumbled repeatedly, flailing about, trying to control everything, confident in my abilities to analyze, formulate, and adapt. But without the tools upon which I had allowed myself to become dependent, nothing I did reached conclusion. Not that I had previously been the poster child of accomplishment, but now even the simplest of tasks seemed incomprehensively beyond my reach.
Nearly everything I held dear was torn from me, because I lacked the strength to hold it. I was falling into an abyss, the likes of which I had, despite my arrogant assessment to the contrary, never actually previously faced. And I was quite earnestly shocked to discover I was not up to the challenge.
In this tailspin of failure, a new realization slowly forced itself into my obstinate sense of awareness: I am weak.
All my sense of high self esteem, high confidence, and perpetual sense of kingship were all built on the flimsy foundation of a heavily biased and poorly filtered set of observations about how the world worked. How my world worked.
And then, I committed the ultimate sin against kingship: I surrendered into thinking of myself as a victim. There are no bonds of slavery more firm than those which a victim mentality brings. For in that mode of thinking, you truly surrender all hope of anything but taking what is handed to you.
I'm not sure how or why, but I did finally pop out of that state. Since then, I've been looking around me at a world which exists much as it has always existed, but now I see it with new eyes. While I am no longer deluded that I am fit to rule any part of that world, neither am I surrendered to the idea than I cannot be made so ready.
There's a lot of work to do. I am disabused of the notion that I've mastered the basics. Honesty and integrity. Knowing yourself. It's time to rebuild Self.
Luckily, I am blessed with an abundance of honesty, so integrity is where I need to focus -- actually adhering to the ideals proposed by my honesty. And along the way, rebuilding my sense of who I am that I may more effectively Change into the person I'd like to be.
Where will this go? I do not know. But I now know this -- I am no victim. No more than any of you. We all face challenges in our lives. We all face crises. What defines us is how we handle them. And I won't even go into how most of my crises were, in one way or another, created by me. This is an important point, but a distinct one.
The point here is that comes down to this: Do I let my challenges be stronger than me, or do I stand up and overcome the challenges presented to me? Because this, and nothing else, defines me. To steal a line from Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do.
Thus far, I've pretty broadly defined myself as a weakling and a slave.
No useless words proclaimed now by me on this blog have any meaning. The only thing that matters is getting it done.
And so, on that note, I return now to unpacking. Because that's what I said I would do today.