Catastrophic Consciousness?

Consciousness. 

• A point of awakening
• Being made aware of something that was previously unknown to you 
• A light bulb going off, illuminating what was once drowned out in darkness

This was the theme of my English class this semester.  What it means to be a conscious individual.  And although I learned a lot about the topic, the greatest lesson was learned not from a text book but from my own personal experience immediately following this class.  What I learned from the class was that once you’ve been made aware of something, you can’t just become unaware of it.  It requires an action or a response.   What I didn’t know was that there are different dynamics, stages even, that exist when we begin to deal with the issue of consciousness.  Namely:

• For starters there’s your life  as you’ve grown accustomed to it before you’re conscious of something
• Something is brought to your attention that you were previously unaware of, in fact you were operating in life as if the opposite were true
• The changes one undergoes as a result of that conscious
• The life that is invariably different as a result of that revelation

The immediate mental picture I get when I hear this word is one of a person who has been in a deep sleep and is suddenly awoken. And I’d love to believe that consciousness is most beneficial and optimal way to journey through life.   It’s the exact opposite of the less than enlightened “ignorane is bliss” philosophy.  And while I believe it to be a privledge; consciousness is certainly not for the faint in heart.  Consciousness will always lead to change… if it is faced with courage that is.

But I post this because apparently my theoritic, text book undertakings this semester so lovingly decide to manifest themselves in my life and so this is as autobiographical as it gets.  I found out a guy friend of mine who I’ve never looked at as any thing more sees me as much more than just a friend.  Having been made conscious of it, I am now conscious of feelings I never knew existed myself.  But my question or concern rather is : when consciousness hits our relationships, does it necessarily turn into catastrophy?  How does consciousness effect our relationships?  Does raising levels of consciousness in our relationships  automatically translate into:

1. Things will change
2. Things will never go back to being the same

For the sake of relationships is it best to adhere to:  what you don’t know won’t hurt you?

P.S.  I tried to not make this about me but the rules of the game have changed and I don’t like it!  Consciousness is supposed to be so wonderful so why is it feeling so catastrophic in this instance?

Love: The Ultimate Bull Ride

Bull riding anyone? 

Now to the perfectly sane individual the normal, understandable, almost immediate response would be “Heck no!!!”  But to the insane of course, it’s “sign me up.”  Now don’t get me wrong, it is fascinating to watch, and while I must commend bull riders on their tenacity and courage; out of all the things a child can dream of becoming one day, I can’t imagine how bull rider could make the top of any a rational person’s mind!   Like how does that happen?  One day you wake up and say “Mom and dad I finally figured out what I’d like to be…..a bull rider.”  Poor kid usually has a dad or grand dad that was one and they become his inspiration!  Go figure.  But of course that’s neither here nor there.  Digressing….

Okay so…….any Animal Planet lovers out there?  If not, you are totally depriving yourself of one of the best television stations ever!  If so, you totally rock!!!!   There’s this one show in particular you have got to catch.  It’s called Untamed and Uncut; it is  entertaining, engrossing, informative and an attention grabbing time waster all wrapped into one!  Feel free to watch a clip right here.  But I bring it up because while watching it one day last week I was inspired.  See this show brings you the most incredible animal encounters ever caught on tape; that’s their mantra and boy do they deliver on it.  And this one clip they showed involved a bull rider who was committed to riding the most dangerous bull for 8 seconds in order to win a monetary prize.  He strapped his hand to that bull and was in for the ride of his life!  He nearly lost his life.  Needless to say he didn’t stand a chance against this bull, he was trampled on and thrown like a rag doll before the 3 second mark.  But the most incredible thing about him and all of the other folks they show case on this show is that despite the life threatening encounter they’ve had with animals, they never give up their trade as a result of it.  After they recover, however long the recovery process may be, they pick themselves up and go bull riding again.  As this bull rider was interviewed, what blew my mind was the fact that he said he’d love to get back on the bull that almost cost him his life.  At that point, mouth open in awe, I too wanted to become a bull rider when I grow up.  But a bull rider of a different sort.  It made me think of how love can be compared to a bull ride.  Sometimes you strap yourself on to what you think will be a fairly smooth ride only to have it morph into a tumultuous ride from hell, and you’re left bewildered to say the least.  But if you’re as committed to love as bull riders are to bull riding, you’ll be fully aware of the risks involved and willingly submit to them and actually prepare for and anticipate it.  But then again, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.  If you just walk away from something you have devoted your life to because of a few bumps and bruises; just utterly abandon the one thing you professed so much passion for, how passionate could you really have been to it to begin with?

Love, as tossed by it as I have been; I’m willing to ride that bull again

Now…. bull riding anyone?

Of Love & Boomerangs

Honestly, I don’t really even know why those things were invented.  Like seriously what purpose do boomerangs serve.  I mean sure they can certainly keep a child occupied; pass hours of a child’s life away, tossing that bent piece of plastic or wood back and forth but even that is a detriment.  Aside from the injuries that may have been incurred as a result of them, how many children can attest to countless hours of wasted childhood on playing with a boomerang that didn’t even come back to you on its own.  How many a child was left disappointed when they learned that boomerangs only come back to you on their own in cartoons.  Oh wait, I just learned that there are boomerangs that did come back to you on their own, I must have only been exposed to the cheaper models.  So yeah, boomerangs, didn’t expect that intro of them to take me off on such a tangent but nonetheless, if boomerangs aren’t good for anything else, they are a great visual concept for this entry.  Boomerangs get their time to shine in the boo-less-life and unfortunately or fortunately so, depending on where you are standing when a boomerang of love is thrown. 

So there is a mechanism at work in boomerangs that make them come back to you.  Let’s just say that for arguments sake, no matter where you are standing when you throw one, that thing is going to come back to you.  And I am reminded of this only because isn’t that what they say in life:  that whatever you do comes back to you.  Some call it karma, others the law of reciprocity; whatever you term it, I think it’s safe to say that the universal principle is:  what goes around comes around.  And usually when it comes back around, it comes back twice as hard.

I can’t help but think that this mechanism is at work in relationships as well.  I only wonder how many people in relationships throw boomerangs of love without factoring in that it’s on its way back to them.  And by boomerangs I mean certain actions that inflict hurt upon the other individual knowingly or unknowingly.  They throw these things out to accomplish their own ends, turn around and go on about their business.  But it’s those of us who have been thrown off course by this boomerang that watch and wait for it to make its return back to the sender and hopefully knock them upside their unsuspecting heads.  It’s sometimes ones only solace; that is the notion that the estranged boo will feel what you felt when they hurt you.  Of course I expressed my challenges with this concept in Tight Roping the Thinning Line.  But there is something I did wonder and that is would it even be enough?  If you and I were to ever learn that our boo from years ago was in extreme emotional pain, the equivalent of the pain we ourselves experienced at that same boos hands, would it comfort us to know it?  Even though that pain was not felt as a result of us?  Is just the thought that your ex boo would think about the pain he/she may have caused you when their love boomerang catches up to them enough for us?  If nothing more, would it help us tread more lightly and be more delicate with the emotions and hearts of those we come to be in relationships with if we were conscious that a boomerang effect were at work?

 

Love Under Fire

I think it’s time I put love on trial. Sit it there in the court room and have it cross-examined, questioned, interrogated. Have witnesses come up and give their stories and experiences with this thing called love. Could it handle the pressure? Could it stand the test? Would it hold up under fire? What would the line of questioning be: Mr. Love, you said I had all the makings of a potential wife and that you’d never stop loving me, tell me Mr. Love, what happened to you the night you married someone else instead? Maybe then I can reach a verdict on the matter–a ruling. Would love be sentenced to life in prison? I wonder. It’s certainly worth exploring and entertaining. It’d be rather interesting to watch, wouldn’t you agree. I’m sure it’d be a case that would last an eternity. Maybe that is what each of our lives are–our dating experiences– nothing more than love under fire. We sit in the judges seat as the new boo takes the stand to testify of his love. But in the court of love, we’d have to play many roles: that of judge, lawyer, and juror. I’d image that would be very exhausting after a while.

I only mention this because I had a conversation with my grandmother the other night. A woman with close to 70 years of experience with love. And she took the witness stand and very candidly stated that love should be locked up. According to her, “we should not go falling in love these days”. When asked what one should do with love, she said that you will learn to love someone in time. Our objective should be to find yourself a decent person who is trying to accomplish something in life and is willing to work with you. And as you work along with them, love will come in time. And as much as I am a helpless romantic, I am beginning to notice that it leaves me more helpless than it does leave me experiencing romance. I’d hate to think for a moment that my grandmother could be right but when experience is on one end of the phone while wishful thinking is on the other, it has to account for something. Experience pulls the plug on wishful thinking when it realizes that it is all a fantasy, allowed to live and breathe as long as it’s fed with false hopes. We all want the fairy tale endings and if that weren’t enough, we want the fairy tale beginnings and middles too. Does it happen that way? Only in our dreams. But where did we derive this sense of Happily Ever After Land? And as I sat and spoke with her I wondered what Walt Disney would have to say for himself if he were to take the stand directly after my grandmother. Certainly Mr. Disney, life is very different from the fairy tales you fed us when we were kids. What do you have to say for yourself? Where are all the prince charmings? And this undying unconditional love? Where’s the happily ever afters? Mr. Disney I’m afraid you’ve led us all terribly astray.

Maybe it’s our ideas and expectations of love we need to put on trial. What do you think?

Boo Bashing Binges

Today, being boo-less stunk. Just when you thought you’ve finally reached a point of contentment, something happens that makes you feel as if your heart is being dragged through your boo-less-ness tied to the back of a pickup truck doing 100 miles per hour on a road covered with daggers. Can you say…ouch?! And what could this delightful event be? None other than what I call boo bashing binges. Simply put, round table discussions with other ladies who are living the boo-less life; conversing about their boos, in particularly, how their boos did them wrong. It feels great while you’re in the midst of it. While you are sharing, reminiscing, co-signing, head-nodding, high-fiving, chatting with others about the uselessness of a boo, you think to yourself: I should do this more! why hadn’t I done this sooner? And you sit there smiling from ear to ear, laughing so hard your stomach hurts because you’re thinking boo-less-ness support groups are the best thing next to sliced bread. Reason being things tend to feel a whole lot better when you discover you aren’t out there all on your own. You have a host of other ladies living the boo-less life right along with you. But when you get home, and there is no one around, somehow you are purged from that empowered boo-less state of mind you acquired at your boo bashing binging spree. And you’re left with the stark realization that maybe you did not even intend on being boo-less. It then begins to dawn on you that maybe that boo bashing binging spree was not as good as you initially believed it to be. In fact while you hadn’t cried in a couple of days, you find yourself wiping unexpected tears from your eyes. All you did was have an innocent talk with the girls. Sure there may have been some name calling and insults along the way, but innocent nonetheless. And while they can serve as a form of honest expression, you release pent up frustration, confusion, and anger; it can also be like ripping the band-aid off of a wound and picking the scab off. You’ve left that setting, no one is around, boo-less-ness is even more apparent at this point. Thoughts of good times you had while booed up flood your mind, disappointments that boo didn’t live up to your expectations create dams to prevent the flooding. And just to think that had you been booed up and on cloud nine, you would not have even been an active participant at this session, because you would have been with your boo, gains boo bashing binges a slot in the top ten downs of being boo less.

Tight-Roping the Thinning Line

What's left to walk on once the rope starts to thin?

They say it’s a thin line between love and hate. And although I’ve heard it more times than I could ever count, even now, I can’t quit figure out just how that works. Like was the line thick at one point and as time progressed and after countless offenses, misunderstandings and disagreements, the fatness of the line was chipped away at? Does it begin to recede like a hair line until all that’s left is… hate? Boo-less-ness makes you consider these things. Makes you turn your previous relationships upside down and inside out, taking them apart in the hopes that you will discover the invisible mechanisms that made them tick and what caused the break-down. I guess you do this so you can somehow not make the “same mistakes twice”. Whatever that means. Or maybe you do it to achieve some sense of solace. Whatever the case, it makes you question the love you thought you and the boo supposedly possessed and professed for one another. If the very same person you affectionately referred to as boo, is now resentfully and almost disdainfully referred to as a son of a b….man the boundaries between love and hate must have been thinner than either of you could have imagined. Do you straddle the line and each time the other makes a wrong move you jump over on the hate side and hurl insults at the person who is still standing in love.

Interesting way to look at it huh? Never quite saw it like that myself. Boo-less-ness will do that–make you come to these conclusive thoughts and make these over-generalizations about relationships. It helps you file notes on relationships better that way. But now that I think about it maybe that’s how relationships break down. Both people start out holding hands and walking the thin line between love and hate almost like tight rope walkers, convincing each other along the way why the other should jump off

the rope into the garden called love beside them. And they take turns leaving the thin line to run into the garden and bring back roses, until they are both chasing each other in this beautiful rose covered field of a garden called love. Once they are back totting that line, and hardships come, it adds weight to the rope, causing the rope to get progressively weaker and it begins to break. There’s no telling how long the two can walk on a breaking rope but I imagine that the rope was never intended to carry any more weight than that of the two in the relationship. But love and hate lay on opposite ends of each other with nothing but this tight rope of a line separating them. Every time the rope experiences any type of turbulence, the two walking it have got to jump on one side of the rope or the other. Maybe relationships break down when either both parties wind up choosing to land on the weed filled garden called hate or when both parties are separated by a broken rope on either side, not able to bridge the gap so that the other can cross over to love.