The truth of who we are is more than the lies we tell ourselves. I think that is what I used to believe. A conviction that there was something intrinsically true at the core, buried under the tangle of half-truths, fables, lies, and stories we accumulate day to day. As if divers could explore the inky blackness of my ship-wrecked consciousness, sift the flotsam and jetsam, and eventually find a half buried treasure chest that would contain the actual essence of who I was. Even in metaphor I am submerged, hard to reach, broken apart, and believe that everything this is important, or true, is in the depths and not on the surface. I am not a reliable narrator of my own truth. I am not to be trusted.
There are things that I have believed to be true for a long time now, things that I thought served me well, maintained my self sufficient self. That is the first one. That there is value in self sufficiency and strength, whatever that actually means, and a wariness of others; an unwillingness to seek help that stems not from stubbornness but from not understanding how to ask, how to accept. I think that it can all be thought out. That all of the impulses and thoughts, emotions and reactions, hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, can be rationalised. Considered, labelled, stitched together in systematic sequences, boxed off, and dealt with. An intellectual exercise to complete. I am already thinking ahead to the next paragraph to figure out how to make it appear clever as if that was ever the point of the endeavour. I am tired of thinking.
I think, on some level, that I thought I wasn’t really worth very much. Wasted a lot of energy in worrying about being found out, some kind of ritual unmasking that exposed a sensitivity to the world that I had cloaked in smarts and sarcasm, front and funny. People seem to like that projection and it’s not like it’s a complete deception; some of that stuff is true, it’s just that sometimes it isn’t and sometimes it’s exhausting on the days you’d rather listen to Bon Iver sing Re:Stacks and cry. There’s probably a whole shelf of self-help books that start from the you are enough premise and insist on being kind to yourself but reading the words and believing the words aren’t the same thing. Even writing the words and believing the words isn’t the same thing. In writing words I can be anything and, perhaps, that’s why I write them.
If the fundamental truths that I believed in turned out to be lies then what does that leave? They are hard wired now; brain chemistry isn’t fixed but it seeks the familiar patterns, the paths of least resistance, the worn-in grooves. Or worn-out grooves, like a record stuck on repeat, stuck on a scratch in the vinyl that you have to force the needle past or you’re just going to listen to the same refrain over and over again. Perhaps what should be left is to start with some new fundamentals, the ones that seem to bypass the exhausting over-thinking, second guessing, and the relentless, pointless, picky, destructive inner monologue. It’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me (Taylor’s version).
That leaves things that feel true. And maybe the point is that I can’t really explain them very well except to say that there’s an evocation, a revealing of something that I can’t otherwise articulate. It’s there in music most obviously, whether it’s Kurt’s howling catharsis or Margo Timmins’ hushed whisper, Neil Young’s raggedly glorious guitar tone or the weary resignation of Fake Plastic Trees, the joy in Move On Up and the despair in Skeleton Tree. It’s there in laughter and connection; there’s a particular kind of kindness, I think, in trying to bring laughter to bear in a way that let’s people know that it’s okay to smile, okay to let their guard down. I overplay that kindness in my work but it feels true and I am unlikely to stop now for the sake of another rung on the ladder. It’s there every Autumn when the leaves are polished gold, suspended before the fall into winter. It’s there on the nights when the light pollution from the city can’t disguise the scatter of stars across the infinite, ineffable blackness above. It’s there in Withnail delivering Hamlet’s soliloquy or Han bailing out Luke to take down the Death Star or in every la-di-da to pass Diane Keaton’s lips. It’s there in a myriad of things seen and heard and felt. Always felt. I can deconstruct all of these things but all the value is in the feeling.
And love feels true. Possibly unfashionable and possibly sentimental but true nonetheless.
So the crux of the dilemma might be that all of the rational, intellectual, clever modes of thought in which I dwell are lies, or at least not the whole truth, and all of things I hold to be true are beyond my comprehension and expression. Love, art, beauty, laughter, sadness, joy. Quite the shopping list. If Amazon start dealing in truth then hopefully all available via one-click soon. Free to Prime members. I guess the commoditisation of those things is actually the underpin to the entire entertainment industry but that feels like a distraction for another day, a diversionary tactic deployed as we were sniffing around something more fragile.
And it is fragile. Age was supposed to bring certainty and, on a good day, with a fair wind, some wisdom. It has, instead, yielded less certainty, more fear, and more anxiety. Where’s the belligerent sense of being right about everything that I was promised? Where’s that intrinsic sense of something true at my core that I believed in? I’ve been mining my own seams for so long now that I surely must have found it if it was there. Again, we are back believing in hidden depths of value. Like I said, I am not a reliable narrator and I am not to be trusted.
The truth of who we are is more than the lies we tell ourselves. I think that is probably right. As for the rest of it? I don’t know. I might need to learn how to ask for help.
I don’t know what this was in the end. I wanted to wrap back to the start of July’s writing (the lies we tell ourselves piece) but I’m not sure if this one survived the contrivance. Maybe some of it is salvageable from the shipwreck.
Anyway, that concludes 26,000 word for Great Ormond Street Hospital in July ’23. With a day to spare. I’m over the 26K and over my fundraising target but any donations welcome here. Hope you enjoyed it.
42 @ 42 