“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.  That explains the trouble that I’m always in.”

-Alice in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland

I am starting to think that I may be a touch bewildered about myself.  I would appear to understand many things, but my behaviors indicate that I am no wiser at 30 than I was when I started this whole project – perhaps even less so.  I now seem unable even to identify my behaviors as falling within or without the recommended scope of health and responsibility.  I’m like a little kid tripping over herself without really being aware of what she’s tripping on, but having a relatively jolly time of it.  While this method may not be condemnable, I am fairly certain that it is unlikely to yield the woman of “composure, calmness, dignity and self-possession” that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recommends I ought to be[i].  Neither do I feel it lends itself to an adequate realization of the potential God was so gracious to bestow upon me.  I have this anxiety that says, left undeveloped, that potential will evaporate and I will be left an essentially useless burden on the rest of society.  Still, the path feels unclear.  I feel like a person only in theory – that in practice I’m more a jumble of ill-conceived reactions. 

I think my next steps are thus: I have to pay more attention.  I have to be mindful of the presence of God.  I have to remember what I’m doing here.  And I have to request and then trust that God will usher me on my way. 

“Your way?” I hear in play my head.  “Always here are MY ways!”  Only it has a much different ring when the Queen of Hearts is the All-Knowing and All-Wise Creator of the universe. 

Some friends and I were recently discussing the numerous reasons an individual might choose to ignore you.  Of course, the most obvious is that, in fact, they actually don’t notice you.  You simply and utterly fail to catch their attention.  While this can be injurious to the ego, it does, at least, lack the more painful blow that goes along with the second most outstanding reason, which is that you did manage to catch their attention and they deemed you unworthy of it.  Ouch.  Sometimes, of course, we encounter the ignoring that accompanies the advent of unequal affections – either someone is ignoring you because they heart you and know that, were they to pay attention to you either their heart would explode or they would gush their rather embarrassing feelings all over you, or they are ignoring you because they know that, were they to pay attention to you, that is what would happen to you.  In either case, this can, in some ways be viewed as an act of kindness – the avoidance of one of the more awkward situations a person might be prone to end up in in life.  It’s not a very brave or particularly mature way of handling things, but it is understandable, if not respectable. 

Undoubtedly there are a myriad other reasons a person might ignore another person – maybe they simply ignore everybody, maybe they are generally intimidated by you, maybe they are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., maybe they are afraid you will fall in love with them, maybe they are afraid they will fall in love with you, maybe someone told them you have rabies.  The real point is that, for all of the meanings that might be attached to ignoring someone, I suspect a comparable number of meanings could be attached to the various other behaviors we employ in our interactions with each other.  This leads me to believe that when we complain of getting mixed signals, what we are actually suffering from is mixed and probably selective interpretation. 

I think it is generally accepted that, when we have feelings for someone, positive, negative or to-be-determined, all of their actions take on a degree of being somehow related to those feelings and their reciprocation or lack thereof.  Remarkably, we can even make this apply to people who have never once acknowledged our existence.  We begin interpreting their talking or not talking to us, their looking or not looking at us as something that means something from which we can deduce what our next talk or not talk, look or not look should be. 

Intellectually, we know that this is ludicrous, that there is no reason why this person should in any way be affected by the existence of a relationship that they are not even aware of, but we hope/fear/assume that somehow they sense something and must, naturally, be reacting to this consuming sensation we are experiencing because, hello!, how could they not?  Well, they don’t.  Of course they don’t.  

We can therefore conclude that the “signals” we think they are sending are not, in fact, signals at all but are simply behaviors that they would have whether or not we were primed to take notice of them, and, not being signals at all, they can certainly not be “mixed signals”.  This is not to say that, once the relevant truths are exposed, a person might not be uncertain how to react and, therefore, fluctuate in their behavior as a result.  This, however, is still not really blameworthy as we are all just people trying to figure out what to do next.  All this to say that is really not fair to be disgruntled with the unsuspecting object of one’s attention for the confusion that results from our own obsession with someone else’s affections, particularly when our real point of contention is probably something more closely related to the failure of their behavior to match up with our own fantastical opinion of what that behavior should be. 

Thus the imperativeness of detachment becomes manifest yet again, as detachment can allow us at our boldest to be frank about our relationships – developed or not – and, in our more natural state, to acknowledge, accept, and be comfortable with the fact that, most of the time, most people are not sending us subtextual signals, and it is tremendously unwise and irresponsible for us to base our understanding of people and reality on imagined intentions and interpretations of so much nothing.

“The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken.”

What is Wrong With Today
My pants won’t stay up.
My hair is a crown of fuzz.
My eggs are lonely.

Right Now
I am so fertile
I could impregnate myself
With a single sperm.

It’s Not Fun Anymore
Why table for one?
OK, I can be picky.
Still, no one’s offered.

Grumblekins
I start to wonder:
Why is everyone so awkward?
Or is it just me?

Small talk is over
And didn’t go very well.
Can I just kiss you?

Also Grumblkins
I’m filled with longing.
It’s not directed toward God.
I’ll try to shift it?

 This task seems daunting.
And not that interesting.
But it’s in the Book.

i, most appropriately, spent the bulk of my formative years exploring myself, making revisions, corrections, edits, deletions, and redrafts until i came up with a product that i felt good about, that other people seemed to appreciate and that fell as closely in line with the values i pulled from my Faith as i could manage and still be someone i could recognize.  i’ve become pretty comfortable with my nature over the years between then and now and i have thought it proper that i should be satisfied with who i am and what i might become out of that.

But now i seem to be growing restless again.  i suspect i may have become too comfortable with the flaws that really matter while still stifled with insecurity about the ones that really don’t.  I’m getting the feeling it may be time to start exploring again.  To look more closely at some fundamental aspects of my character and determine whether they are really worth keeping, how fundamental they really are, and how they help or hinder me in achieving the actual purpose of my life.

How much of what i do and who i “am”, i wonder, was grown out of a desire to be loved by other people and what might change if i grew now out of a knowledge that i was created from God’s love and that i serve better by loving than by being loved?  Perhaps i can remember or learn anew what it is to love without inhibition.  What is it that has me so reluctant to do things i don’t want to do that i will wast myself inventing ways to want to do what needs to be done instead of just doing it?  Why is it so difficult to feel confident without feeling superior and what happens if i direct my self-image toward humility instead of security?  Why do i have to know why i do things to not do them anymore?  What if i really learn to burn with love for all who cross my path, to put my neighbor and all his kin before myself, and, scariest and most perplexing of all, submit to the negation of the Self that i spent so many years identifying and refining?  What if i really, truly trust in God, without a back-up plan?  i think these possibilities need to be explored.

To sum up, it’s clearly time for me to start trying hard again.  It’s been long enough that i’ve been practicing self-acceptance.  i’m not really the one who needs to be accepting me when it comes right down to it.  Not my job to judge.  It’s time, i think, for a little honest reflection, some selfless service, some non-me-centered exploration of…myself.  i don’t really know how that works, but i’m pretty sure i’ve never really tried it before.  Not for any useful amount of time, anyway.  Maybe with practice i can not slip into obsessing over my own development and keep focused on the grand scheme.  i hear that one thing to do might be to focus on the qualities of God, maybe without focusing on how i do or do not manifest them.  i don’t know if that makes them mystically manifest in oneself or what, but it feels like it might be the thing to do.  Less worry about whether people think i’m neat and more commitment to what is true and real and valuable to the human soul.  Some investigation into my personal mindset will surely be required, but ultimatley, i think fewer “I” statements is what’s called for now.  I don’t really know yet what to replace “I” with, but maybe that’s a good first thing to explore.  i’m not sure that it’s so important to start any particular place.  It’s just time to get back to work.

I’ve been writing a lot of email replies lately and then deleting them before I send them.  For all the witty retorts and humorously critical remarks that come to my head, I just am not finding many that are actually going to contribute anything to the well-being of the people receiving them and I just can’t bring myself to propagate so constantly this mindset that finds its comedy in highlighting other people’s shortcomings.  Now, I would like very much like to give myself some kind of pat on the moral back for exercising this restraint, but I can’t help but note that I do still, more often than not, find all too entertaining the failure of others to think along logical lines.  Specifically, my logical lines.  Can’t really be proud of that.  I mean, yeah it’s good for someone not to kick the dog.  But what do we think of someone who’s inclined to kick a dog in the first place?  And then what if the dog is a person instead?  Can I get a round of “That ain’t right.”?  But they say the first step to sobriety is acknowledging that you have a problem.  So here I am.  Step 1?  My name is Abi and I am a barely-mitigated, unbecomingly critical snob. 

Who has Step 2?

Yeah, it’s been a long time. One would hope such a long sabbatical would end in some revolutionary insight, but no.  i just felt bad for taking up cyber space without using it.  Go figure.  Unfortunately (or fortunately in the big run) i doubt that i’ll be writing much for a while.  It’s not like before when i didn’t have any thoughts.  i just don’t really feel a particular need to express myself.  i’m having my conversations and that’s feeling pretty sufficient.  i’m doing a lot of the learning things and not so much of the talking thing.  i think it’s good. It’s possible that i may replace my thoughts about the world with fiction in this space.  i’ve never had much success writing fiction, but i think it would be a worthwhile exercise, so i’m going to try if i can get a chance. 

Which brings me to the news in my life.  Most everyone knows this already, but i thought it only resonable to state in my online record of self that i’m staying here in Haifa for 2.5 years longer than originally expected.  So that’ll be until December 2011.  It feels the same.  Just less uncertain.  And now that i’m a little more permanent here, i have a little more work and i’m happy to spend my time doing that.  All in all life is exactly what i would hope for itto be right now.  Though it would be nice if a husband loomed on the horizon.  For now i’ll go get a hamburger.  Laters.

When once the seeker hath ascended unto this station, he will enter the City of Love and Rapture, whereupon the winds of love will blow and the breezes of rapture will waft.

It would seem that in my tumble through the darkness of delusion, i have finally managed to find God’s love – for me, for Him.  And now i am agonizingly aware of my insurmountable unworthiness of my Beloved.  i am in a panic trying to learn as immediately as my egregiously limited faculties will allow how to love Him right – to do at least the best i actually can- and at every moment i fail, my heart stops and i tremble in fear that it will be too late, that i won’t pick up both feet in time and He will surrender me back to myself.

Now he laugheth, now he weepeth sore; now he reposeth in peace, now he trembleth in fear.

My heart breaks  every  day.
I cannot find a place to hide it.
The pieces…every side always so exposed and raw.
Every new sensation so dangerously potentially errant.

Can i trust my Lover to keep me?  When i so grievously fail to keep Him every day?

How do they do this?  How do the good people do this?  For a lifetime?  For eternity? How?

I just got my ass kicked by idol fancy and vain imagination in the strangest reaction to a mediocre work of fiction i have ever experienced or witnessed. That’s what i get for putting moderation out on its haunches. Over the last few days i listened to a four-book series in its entirety – 2 days, 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 33 seconds worth of fiction in a 96 hour period. Probably because this particular series plays so directly to my most relied upon and, as it turns out, most cherished alternate universe fantasies – fantasies i have harbored for almost half my life - i let myself get bizarrely entangled in the characters’ relationship and so attached to the family in the story that when it ended i actually felt like someone had died, fighting back tears all day yesterday as though i was being separated from people that i loved and wanted to spend so much more time with and, freakier – like i was ending a relationship with someone who took up my whole heart.

The whole experience was, at least, tempered by the constant reminder of my logic that none of these things i was so pained to part with had actually existed in my life to begin with and the accompanying embarrassment at the violent emotional reaction i was having to losing something someone else imagined. What i realized fairly quickly, though, is that what was really there for me was the pain of letting go of fantasies and imaginings for my own life that could transform in my heart to hopes and wishes when i at the end of my patience with this world, of surrendering things i have so strongly desired, of tearing from my heart my fantastic imaginary future, and more than anything of cutting and sealing off my escape routes.

If i were to describe with any amount of detail what sorts of things i tore from my heart while i sat sobbing for the last 45 minutes, it would be a lot easier, i think , for you to imagine what i mean. But then i would be mortified instead of just really embarrassed and you would all know that not-so-deep inside i’m really still 15 years old. No kidding. But as it stands, you have no proof. Be assured these are not the sort of healthy dreams for the future – graduate school, publication, family life – that we all need to keep moving forward. These are those things that, while innocent enough, cloud one’s ability to accurately assess reality, always holding it to standard that does not and needs not exist.

As i write this i can feel myself craving those fantasies again and i very much feel like an addict who just entered rehab. i, my friends, am a fiction junkie. It even took an overdose to get me here. I have acknowledged now that i can’t go on living my life as though this other life i’ve imagined is a practicable plan B.  Or that any alternate life i imagine is a practicable plan B.  There’s just this and i have to be ok with that. 

So we’re going to see how i cope with a week quit cold turkey. No fiction, no movies, no daydreams, no stories. One week solidly in reality. I am actually, genuinely very nervous. Not quite wracked with anxiety, but seriously on edge. Maybe if, in this vulnerable state, i start to read holy, healthy things my dependency will shift. Maybe i will start to see more fully my reality, not distracted by imaginary options and impossible wishes.  Then i can – slowly and with great moderation – reintroduce certain types of fiction to my life, though i’m not sure i’ll ever be able to safely revisit the books that were my downfall. I’m about to cry again thinking i might not. And i’m having to fight so hard to keep from drifting back to their memory. This is really kind of sick.  And so absurdly difficult.  It’s hard to believe i’m a normal person.

Note: An interesting observation – after listening to more than 65 hours of the same author, i note that the style that appears in this entry mimics the voice of the novels. So don’t blame me. It would seem that i am a style mimic. Does that count as a superpower? Wait. Don’t answer that. Damn.

In the context of the material world being a facsimile of the spiritual world

The worlds of God are in perfect harmony and correspondence one with another. Each world in this limitless universe is, as it were, a mirror reflecting the history and nature of all the rest. The physical universe is, likewise, in perfect correspondence with the spiritual or divine realm. The world of matter is an outer expression or facsimile of the inner kingdom of spirit. The world of minds corresponds with the world of hearts.

(Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 270)

i find myself wondering – what is the function of beauty?  Especially, to what degree and in what way does what we as a humanity find beautiful reflect the progress of our development? What does it tell us about our spiritual senses?  How precise is this correspondence?  Does the reflection of beauty in the physical world correlate to some specific or non-specific quality in the spiritual world?  Or is this correlation only there to let us understand the virtue of attraction to beauty, to give us a metaphor for the natural attraction our souls have to the Ancient Beauty?  Does the manifestation of that virtue apply only to spiritual beauty, or is it also somehow a sign of spiritual advancement to be attracted to the flower or the fine art or the genetic masterpiece?  As the increased mixing of races leads to more and more beautiful human beings, is there something to be understood from that about the unity of mankind?  It certainly says something that beauty plays such an important role in the evaluation of things created by artists and that that creation seems to be one of the closest things to revelation a mere mortal might experience.  Can evaluating what we are attracted to and where we see beauty give us clues as to how our own spiritual development is coming along?  Would an effort to consciously reshape one’s conception of beauty have a correlative effect on one’s soul?  As an aspect of material existence that causes so much consternation and confusion, i’d sure be interestedto know- what is it for?