logic tumbles into it common sense
even warning sirens which should howl
snap out of it stupid--that way's disaster!
it's the black hole devouring my galaxy
the shifty bermuda triangle I drown in
no matter how hard I try I can't see
the train wreck can't see I can't see
how do I crack the code of nothingness
bless me father for I have sinned sinned
knowing not knowing this heart
blundering and dangerous this heart
unable to leap even the smallest chasm
not in a single bound not in a lifetime
*
THIS HEART, BLUNDERING AND DANGEROUS
No one could ever accuse me of not being passionate and impulsive in my affections. When my heart's engaged, my imagination inspired and my desires aroused, I become obsessive, projecting the most optimistic outcomes on the most unrealistic relationships. Once in the grip of such self-delusion I throw caution--not to mention common sense--to the winds.
This happened again just recently when I tried to rekindle a connection I myself had severed many months before. Nevertheless, I could not get the person out of my head. Lonely, frustrated, looking for someone special to love, I rationalized away the reasons I'd ended the relationship in the first place--even convinced myself the mistakes, the issues, were mostly all my own. Yikes! Did I ever get slam-dunked--emphatically rejected so fast and furiously I'm still feeling bruised.
What did Pogo say? "We have met the enemy, and they are us." I brought this minor but painful emotional catastrophe on myself, because I still hadn't bridged the dangerous divide between the intensity of my passions and the vulnerability of my soul. Additionally, I permitted my extravagant imagination to overwhelm my careful attention to the cold, hard, elementary facts. In short, I got pulled off my spiritual center, skewered out of psychological harmony. The universe responded with a sharp and virtually instantaneous correction.
Have I learned anything--finally? Can I now avoid making the same addictive blunder in the future which I've made so many times in the past? Surely, even the densest personal blind spot can be penetrated if we become desperate enough--battered into surrender from beating our beings bloody over and over again against the same, unbudgeable brick wall. What's the secret to transcending this excruciating impasse?
The only answer that comes to me: balance, Balance, BALANCE--finding the essential balance between my emotion and my action; my imagination and my perception; my desire and my intelligence; the freedom of my spirit and the imperative of my flesh.
Like everyone, I have stronger aspects of my personality, and weaker ones. Like everyone, I tend to over-invest in the former, while shortchanging the latter. Seeing with unvarnished clarity just how and why these imbalances play out in my own psyche is one crucial step; taking effective measures to correct these imbalances as a result of such illumination--that's the next.
I have to face it--I'll always be a romantic idealist, believing against all odds and repeated adverse experiences that "love conquers all." My heart will always be eager to plunge recklessly ahead, following its deepest longings and keenest visions, all flags flying. This will never change. What must change however, is my assumption that just because I'm wired that way--through the convergence of inherited nature and parental nurture (or lack thereof)--I can unreservedly charge forward on those terms. I can't. I've tried. It hurts too much.
With this realization, won so dearly, I reach the threshold of a greater wisdom. The pivotal point where everything pouring out so uniquely from my inner universe encounters everything unknown and uncontrollable approaching it from the world outside--that's my indispensable locus of true balance, adult empowerment and realistic transformation. It's the only arena where this particular romantic idealist can both meaningfully influence, and sensibly adjust to, the indisputable facts of life.
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