Apr 8, 2016
Presence 1.1 - Universal Everything Abstract forms created from motion-captured dance performances
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Presence 1.1 - Universal Everything Abstract forms created from motion-captured dance performances
Everything becomes so problematic because of basic faults: from a discontent with myself.
It is often strange to look at myself and my life. I can look at who I was and who I have become. Sometimes I am proud of all that I have accomplished. Other times, I wish that I could live in one moment for all of my life. Over the years, I have often contained much that I was feeling inside of me, and away from prying eyes. I had had enough of that in the past. Which then leads me to my sexuality, and how my life has been shaped as a result of that. I must confess that I do not like to talk about it much, but I have been thinking about it recently, especially being around my father in such a setting as this one. Plainly, I am a lesbian. I know that there is no shame in that. It is a part of who I am. And yet, my father could never accept that. There was no real coming out to him for me. He analyzed me. For a long time. Years. And he had me tell him about my fantasies and my longings, and... It was the most humiliating thing for me to have to tell him, my own father, about my sexual desires, every night. For him to look at me the way he did. He refused to accept it. He thought that there was something wrong about it, and that I was mentally ill. He thought it was his fault and that he had to cure me of this terrible illness by psychoanalyzing me. It was torture to me in so many ways. I love women. It isn't an illness, but a part of who I am, and yet, it is unacceptable in his eyes. There were times when I hated myself for it, that I cursed myself for those traitorous feelings that caused him to look at me in that way, when all I wanted was to please him. I eventually realized that I could never do that, though I suppose I never stopped trying. At some points in my life, I wished that I could just be normal. I wanted to be the way my father wanted me to be. I tried to have relationships with men, but I just couldn't do it. I wanted my father to be happy with me, but I finally was able to see the limit of sacrificing my own happiness. And then I felt ashamed. Of myself. For what I was feeling, but mostly because I was trying to suppress it. I couldn't pretend that I wasn't feeling what I did anymore. If I couldn't be truthful to myself, then I couldn't be a psychoanalyst, or even an independent adult woman. I think that this is what helped me to finally understand who I was and that I was not my father and that I didn't have to be him. I had my own interests to pursue and my own mind to use. Even so, I don't think that I will ever be truly free of my father's judgment of me.
Blogging and Loneliness
I don't know yet how I feel about blogs. They are peculiar in that they are a diary of one's thoughts and life, and yet, for some reason, people will read the blogs of other people. Are they lonely and looking for something to make them feel better about themselves or their lives? I sometimes can understand it, and other times, the purpose is unclear. I have been keeping a sort of journal/diary myself, but a personal one, just for me. In it, I can write my thoughts, my dreams, and whatever I am feeling at the time. Later I can revisit what I have written, but I usually don't do that. The journal is just a way for me to get out of my system what is inside of me, and release it. Everybody has a different way of doing this. Some people do art, others use their work, and others write, but somehow, what a person feels has to emerge from their body at some time. Otherwise, they cannot function. The difference between a blog and a journal however is the difference in privacy. Anybody can read a blog, and that is allowing one's inner thoughts and words to be subjected to criticism and judgment. In that case, a person's mood can be entirely defined by the response to their blog. But the reason for writing a blog in the first place, that is also an interesting topic. There are many reasons for doing so, but I feel that the most overwhelming reason is loneliness and feeling as though one's life is not being given enough credit, that it is being taken for granted and is always passed over. People believe that no one sees them and they feel small, so they want people to read their thoughts. They want somebody to take an interest in their lives. I often think that loneliness dictates a lot of what people do. It has certainly dictated a lot of my life. Perhaps that is why I am writing this blog. Living with my father has often made me feel that I cannot express what I am truly feeling in any way, but especially not aloud. I don't want my father going into my head. Often, when people go to see a therapist or psychoanalyst, they are seeing a stranger, so it is not as personal, and it can be helpful for them to get into their mind, but for me, it is so much more difficult because it is my father looking at me and observing me and passing judgment on me, and that terrifies me. I don't want him of all people to see inside of me and know me when I do not even know all of myself. But the worst part is that I can see him doing it. I know that he is doing it because I do the same thing that he does. Sometimes, I try to analyze him. Sometimes I think that I know what he is thinking. Sometimes I do know that, and that can be even worse. Then, there are the days when he is analyzing me and I am analyzing him, and we are each watching the other analyze us, and we know that we are analyzing each other, and it is during those times when I just want to take a step back and look at the simple things in my life.
I've always wanted to ask Papa, What do you see when you look at yourself? And then I want to ask him, What do you see when you look at me? Observing people is a part of the job of an analyst, but how can you not simultaneously be looking and observing yourself? And when you do, does it unnerve you as much as it does me? I have made my life out of getting into the why and how of a person's mind, and in doing that, I am able to see all of my shortcomings. Every way in which I try to evade something, I can see myself trying to avoid it, which means I cannot avoid it. Papa, are you lonely? Is that why you work so much? To fill the loneliness? I don't think that works for me. I still feel lonely. Do you think that if two people who are lonely are sort of stuck with each other, but they have a similar loneliness, that they might not feel the loneliness so much? I don't know.
How one can live without being able to judge oneself, criticize what one has accomplished, and still enjoy what one does, is unimaginable to me.
The mind truly is a wonderful thing. It is difficult to understand, but beautiful. It works in the strangest ways, and becomes a sort of art form. Everything that we think and do as human beings, it all stems from something, somewhere, or someone, and it is the most mind-boggling but fascinating practice as a psychoanalyst to map it out, to trace everything back to its origin and to understand why people think and say and do what they do. It is also a terribly trying and frightening experience, because you start to see your life, your everyday life and your past and your present through these glasses that allow you to see everything incredibly clearly, and yet there are multiple times when you wish you could just take the glasses off, but if you do, then you end up walking around blind, bumping into everything, and that is even scarier.
Vangelis - Movement 5 Album: El Greco