why I picked psychology

Questions, questions, my life for a question. I love questions, I love to think. I love to explore and understand new things. I want to know things, but not simply to know them, but participate in the joy of coming to know them. At the very base of my life I have one question. and that question has always caused my problems cause to look at it at a glance it's easy to take it as a paradox, but it's not.

I want to know, the question. I want to understand what it is that I want to know. the question I ask is "what is this burning quandary inside me, that has been smoldering in my gut for so long?" it's pushed me forward, begged me to massage it, use it, understand it, but I can't, every time I try to put it into words, they fail, every time I try to find it, it vanishes. Like an itch on the palm of your hand, that you can never scratch, that is never in the spot where your claws search.

so I simplify it down so far that it loses all meaning. I say "I'm looking for the truth" but that makes so little sense, or maybe it makes too much sense, it's a cliche that so many people have heard. It's something a hippy says while he's high. it makes sense to everyone who hears it, and to each, a different sense is arrived at. with all that sense flying trough people's heads from these words, I don't think they ever hear what I really mean.

when I went into college this was the question that drove me to pick philosophy as my degree, because then, as now, I really only needed this question asked, and answered, I didn't care for the question of career, the question of money, or food, though now I begin to understand maybe all those things together have an impact. Maybe even every little thing has an impact on the answer to this question.

but if I digress into that line of thought I'll just mentally masturbate all over the key board, and nothing will be communicated, it only makes sense to me.

After doing philosophy for a while, I went to china, then came back and found so many little answers had been answered but the big one was no closer. Only perhaps that it was stronger now. when I cam back to philosophy I studied and went to classes. and became more and more disgruntled with my class mates. who rather than wanting to understand my question, or help me answer it, or being much help at all, they took my inquiries and ideas as academic, rather than spiritual, they chose, to combat me on the definitions of my phrases, the grammar of my work. rather than trying to understand they chose to argue.

I realized the academic world was designed in such a way that this was considered noble, to argue, till and answer was found. but this seemed so harsh to me. like using a shovel to excavate a fossil when one should be simply blowing away the dirt with their own breath. I wasn't looking to win, wasn't looking to prove, the truth was inside me, I was just trying to understand.

I decided that Philosophy wasn't for me. I had other things to worry about. I found the question was appeased the more I learned, the more I experienced. when I was traveling around china living out of my suit case, there was a time I thought the question had been answered. though I realized it wasn't that it had been answered, but just that I had found a way to lay comfortably with it.

now when I work at Fred Meyer's, the question surges painfully up inside me. it haunts me. it asks me "why have you stopped investigating me" it hurts very much. But I promised it I would get back to it in the winter term, when I go back to school, and that appeased it for a while longer.

so why psychology? because psychology, as I'm just now understanding, is about understanding. you are not yelling at someone telling them "no you're wrong, you should stop being depressed because of this logically laid out argument I've written, I have proven myself there for you are clearly wrong" that's absurd. psychology is about understanding a person, gently brushing them this way and that, hoping they can take a step in the right direction.

the part of me that asks "the question", is the human part of me, not the one that asks about logic, that asks about math. it doesn't care about science, or about the evolutionary reasons to do anything. it cares about the pain of life. about art, about god, or no god, about life and death, poetry. it is understanding the world of emotion, that massive piece of humanity that makes us who we are. all separate and all together.

Hppiness Slowly Returns

It is strange to think a word has gone so long without meaning. that a single syllable, so common and used so often could have lacked definition for most of my life. "Loss". The idea, the feeling, things I'd never felt, never even considered, something I didn't know I didn't know. But now, after having experienced it finally, experienced the loss of everything I'd come to depend on. along came with it pain that had never existed before. Pain that lasted so long, that still lasts. I'm now beginning to think that that pain will stay with me forever. I will always feel that loss, it will always be in my heart.

when I was young, I always thought I knew everything, and every time I learned something new, I thought, "well at least now I must know everything" but as I went into college I started figuring out that in fact I knew so little, the world in general was blank to me. the world that I knew was really just a small amalgamation of memories. all taking places in such a minute area, between only a few people. When I went to college I began to learn, when I was in china I learned more, how little I really knew. how small my experience actually was. The world is huge, the things in it are so many.

But nothing I ever learned, compared to what I was introduced to after I lost the person I thought would be my answer to why I was here. a question I've asked all my life. a question I thought had come to an end, I thought I would move on, the beginning of my life had finished. But loss happened, it happened when i didn't expect it, and introduced me to a whole new range of feelings, of what it is to be human. I now appreciate things in a new way, understand pain like never before. But something scares me.

So I've begun to realize that my experience is so small, and I've accepted that I don't know anything of the world I thought was mine. tonight I watched ER, the story was about a woman who's 5 year old son died suddenly with out warning of leukemia. and her life was destroyed. And I couldn't help be feel I understood her pain for what I had gone through, and I hated my self for it. how could losing a girlfriend compare to losing your own son. And as I sat I began to wonder, if this was just my warm up. the pain I have felt, is it just the beginning? how much can life hurt. and can I take it again? can I possibly take anything worse than what I've felt?

I hesitate to say I am recovering. It's the first time in a year, maybe 2 years, that I've felt peace of any kind, that I haven't felt my heart retching inside me at least once a night as I'm falling to sleep. this isn't the first time I've felt like I was doing better, which explains my scepticism, I've had false hope, or perhaps been self deceived.

I now feel forgiveness starting to grow, though it is still a very small seed, no where near ripening. I still think it'll be years before that fruit is ready to be picked. I hope I am finally on the right path, though I can't be sure. But I wonder, will I ever feel this pain again. is there even greater loss in my future. but more importantly, what I'm even more afraid of, will I ever be able to open my heart so wide again? will I ever be able to let someone in again. Will I ever be in a position where that pain can even get to me again, and would it be a greater tragedy to be hurt worse in the future so that it kills me, or never be hurt again.

Fall

I felt really good today. just really at peace with the world in general. Last night I went to a party and go to see a lot of people that I haven't seen since this summer. and this morning I woke up really revitalized and feeling good. I spent the day just hanging out, I listened to NPR for a while, and to my pod casts, the best one being a teaching by one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, it felt so good to hear one of his sermons again.

after that I went out to take pictures, I got a bunch of really nice ones of all the fall colors, it was just so pretty today, then I came home and spent a few hours just listening to jazz on the radio and posting my pics on facebook. finally my mom asked if I wanted to go to the Jazz service with her at church, my church has an amazing jazz service every sunday at 6 pm, with some of the best jazz musicians in the country, that come to play music at our church, tonight there were no more than 20 people there so it feelt like a really intimate concert. but it's a church service too, and there's just something about hearing the pastor speaking from the pulpit, that makes me feel all warm and happy. after that me and my mom went out to dinner, I had mussels and beer, and when I got home I just started talking with a friend or two and writing this.

It has just felt good these days, I haven't been panicking about everything in the world, I generally know what I'm going to be doing the next little while, and I feel comfortable with my life finally. I felt really happy today for the first time, and I'm really glad I seem to have bounced back from the crap I was dealing with.