Welcome to Communication with the Living, Part I
I get paid to listen. It’s not a bad job at all, but on any given work day, I might spend 4, 5, 6 or 7 hours listening intently to many different tales of woe. (In case it isn’t obvious, that’s a hell of a lot of listening.) As much as I like doing it, sometimes I get worn out. Worn enough that on many days I have nothing left over for my family, friends, music, cats, art, games, and well, life. And life is the whole point of life, isn't it?
Communication with the Living shall be dedicated to remembering the point.
Seven or so years ago when I decided to become a therapist, it was because I needed to find a way to support myself financially without going insane. I am a musician and have been a musician since I was 19 years old. Indeed, for all my assorted jobs, career moves and education, my heart is music and I am actually the most experienced as a vocalist fronting a rock band. But I wasn't earning money doing it.
Damn money.
I became a musician because I hear music all day in my head. I always have. Whenever I hated myself and the world, music gave me a channel for those feelings that put me back in control. Therapy taught me how to use language to contain the feelings and to communicate myself more directly to people.
I'm all about communication. And I'm into humans. I'm into relationships between things and between people and figuring out what it all means. With music, I found a way to tap directly into the world of feelings. With therapy, I learned how to use language to express it and that became an enormously powerful tool for fulfilling many of my heart's desires.
But truthfully, with time and repeating the same shit day in and day out, the senses get dulled and so does the point of our actions. We become creatures of habit – mindlessly doing until we are too exhausted to create anything new and interesting. That’s when we start to truly age and deteriorate.
I find myself uncomfortably on the edge of that blunted object. It is a condition that comes from doing too damn much, which is something that happens once you finally realize you’re going to die someday. I don’t know about you, but that’s where I’m at these days.
I think we all get into trouble when we stop the dialogue with ourselves about what we’re really about and what we need to do to fulfill it. Sometimes we stop communicating that need because we are too busy surviving and don’t believe that we can be ourselves and make it (like the musician turned therapist). But sometimes survival is really about making other people happy because we can’t stand the thought of their loss. Most of us are at some point convinced that those we love will leave us if they know our real feelings. That’s the other goal of communication with the living. The other living beings – not the internal human, but the external humans in proximity – shape our worlds by their acceptance or rejection of who we are. And while we think we don’t care, the truth is we do and we react to their feelings whether we want to or not.
Communication with the living is about response, not reaction. It's about calling the shots for ourselves and having the freedom to be honest at all times with ourselves and anyone that matters to us. And I don’t know where this blog is headed, to be sure. But I had an idea and it is this – if I could capture my truest feelings in words and share it with you, that would make me happy. I would breathe easily and have no more fear of you. Then you could actually know me. I'd like that. And maybe I have something to say that would also give you something to think about. In most circumstances, thinking is good.
Communication with the Living shall be dedicated to remembering the point.
Seven or so years ago when I decided to become a therapist, it was because I needed to find a way to support myself financially without going insane. I am a musician and have been a musician since I was 19 years old. Indeed, for all my assorted jobs, career moves and education, my heart is music and I am actually the most experienced as a vocalist fronting a rock band. But I wasn't earning money doing it.
Damn money.
I became a musician because I hear music all day in my head. I always have. Whenever I hated myself and the world, music gave me a channel for those feelings that put me back in control. Therapy taught me how to use language to contain the feelings and to communicate myself more directly to people.
I'm all about communication. And I'm into humans. I'm into relationships between things and between people and figuring out what it all means. With music, I found a way to tap directly into the world of feelings. With therapy, I learned how to use language to express it and that became an enormously powerful tool for fulfilling many of my heart's desires.
But truthfully, with time and repeating the same shit day in and day out, the senses get dulled and so does the point of our actions. We become creatures of habit – mindlessly doing until we are too exhausted to create anything new and interesting. That’s when we start to truly age and deteriorate.
I find myself uncomfortably on the edge of that blunted object. It is a condition that comes from doing too damn much, which is something that happens once you finally realize you’re going to die someday. I don’t know about you, but that’s where I’m at these days.
I think we all get into trouble when we stop the dialogue with ourselves about what we’re really about and what we need to do to fulfill it. Sometimes we stop communicating that need because we are too busy surviving and don’t believe that we can be ourselves and make it (like the musician turned therapist). But sometimes survival is really about making other people happy because we can’t stand the thought of their loss. Most of us are at some point convinced that those we love will leave us if they know our real feelings. That’s the other goal of communication with the living. The other living beings – not the internal human, but the external humans in proximity – shape our worlds by their acceptance or rejection of who we are. And while we think we don’t care, the truth is we do and we react to their feelings whether we want to or not.
Communication with the living is about response, not reaction. It's about calling the shots for ourselves and having the freedom to be honest at all times with ourselves and anyone that matters to us. And I don’t know where this blog is headed, to be sure. But I had an idea and it is this – if I could capture my truest feelings in words and share it with you, that would make me happy. I would breathe easily and have no more fear of you. Then you could actually know me. I'd like that. And maybe I have something to say that would also give you something to think about. In most circumstances, thinking is good.
