Forgiveness

Twice in the last week I've had to deal with the matter of forgiveness. I thought I was dealing with it. In reality it seems I had just pushed the anger and hurt away, at the back of my mind.

The first person I have to forgive is my father. I am working on it. It's next to impossible because forgiveness is a very special animal. It's easy to forgive when the damage inflicted to you by a person is minimal, or you have found a solution and it does not affect you anymore. But when the damage done has shaped your life to what it is now, and the past choices of that person still echo in your present situation ten years after his death, then... then you want to take the ossuary with his bones, fill it with kerosene and light it up. You are sure it will make an excellent fire, and that's the only kind of gesture that reflects your true feelings for him. 

There are those who say that once a person is dead, we should forgive them and move on. I consider that a grave oversimplification. So because they're dead, that means they didn't screw you over royally when they were alive? Hitler is dead too. Should everyone just forgive him because he's dead? That's the weird trip you get into with forgiveness. You can't forgive them when they've wronged you, when their decisions destroyed parts of your evolution and potential. They can't be absolved just because they are gone. The consequences of their actions are still part of your life, so forgive them how? And that's the paradox, because that is the exact case that forgiveness is needed, not in the sense of forgetting, but of moving on and not giving them power over you anymore.

If the person you need to forgive hasn't wronged you or hurt you, then you don't need to forgive them. You simply need to get over your ego. Forgiveness is needed when that person has left scars so deep that shaped your whole life. It's required when the damage done to you can't be undone, when their decisions have affected you deeply and profoundly and stolen from you your most valuable possessions; time and compassion. The one is the currency of life, the other is the currency of humanity.

If my father had been less of an asshole, my life would have been very different. He, too, would probably still be alive. I wouldn't have lost 14 years of my life trapped in a job I hated, without getting any stamps. I wouldn't have been forced to return from UK; I would have been able to get an MA and would have been working for the past 15 years in a job that would have paid me and given me social security. I would not have to deal with his sister taking me to court because she wants to appropriate more of his possessions. Perhaps I'd even have a companion. When your life has stability and security job-wise, it's not a giant leap to find someone. Right now I am where I am, doing what I am doing, and know that this man is more than 50% responsible for these things. I have a mother who's alone and slowly getting older and can't deal with everyday life, no job, no MA, no relationship, no previous job experience... The list goes on. I got social security for the first time this year. I am 39. And he has the nerve to ask for forgiveness when he has destroyed me, he has the nerve to think he can be forgiven when he ruined my life. Just because he died. So a bonfire with his bones seems like an excellent idea. Right?

The problem with forgiveness is that it takes a leap of faith, a gigantic motherfucker of a leap of faith. You need to forgive someone exactly because they did those things to you. You need to say, "I will deal with this mess and I will do it on my own terms". Because this is how you take the power back in your hands. As soon as you decide there is something you can do instead of being angry and accusing the other person of how they destroyed your life, you stop being a victim of that person or situation. From a "waaah waaah oh poor me" mess, you become the "come any closer and you'll see if this bitch has any fighting left in her" kind of person. Because truth is, that bitch (me) has a lot of fighting left in her. But she should do something better with that fighting spirit than bash the head of a person who's dead. 

I am trying very hard. Trying to let go while what I want to do is somehow get hold of him and yell at him, stomp him to the ground. Trying to move on when I see children with fathers who are there for them, who care, who help, who try to understand. I stare at those fathers, with their failings and mistakes and good intentions and wonder what planet was my father from. I wonder for the umpteenth time why, as I wrote in my previous poem, "I was raised by wolves". Why there wasn't a single safe adult in the family I grew up. And what the fuck it is that I'm doing here. 

And now I have to forgive him. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? 

I am just so tired. But I need to keep going. There is no time to lose. There just isn't any time for self-pity. I need to stop being a victim. And the only way one can stop being a victim is, curiously, by faith, and by letting go.

The lyrics of the very beautiful song are here: 

Chelsea Wolfe- Sick

This suffering brings me closer to you

and time is broken and moves slow

your pure heart, your white light

I should be put to death for ever being cruel to you

you washed me clean like no one ever could

come closer now and step right into

the wide mouth, the sharp teeth of the one you love

I'm not the kind of sick that you can fix

don't you worry about me baby

I've got no enemies and I've got no time

the song, we carry on

even though you pushed us down

we carry on

when you try to blind my eyes I can see tenfold

It's nothing that my heart can't take, 'cause your hate has made me strong

and stronger men than you have tried to break me

stronger men than you have tried to break me

leaning toward the golden days

forget about the older days

and everything we left behind

to stand here in another life

we carry on, even though you held us down

we carry on, with the song

we carry on, even though you pushed us down

we carry on

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The mortal remains

Smell no evil either. I wish.

(Warning: the following post will be unpleasant and disgusting. Continue reading at your discretion).

A few nights ago I went to the garden to feed my strays. There was a smell of something rotting, but I could not really place it, and it was too dark. The next night the smell insisted, and the next was even worse. So I looked with the aid of my nose and located the remains of a cat I used to feed. It was a black one-eyed feral cat, perhaps less than a year old, who always looked sickly and I took extra care to give him or her food separately. As it turns out, in vain. It had died on some old woollen clothes I had placed in a space protected from the rain for the cats to sleep on, behind an old motorcycle. So I was faced with an interesting question. How do you pick up the rotting carcass from the narrow space between the motorcycle and the wall?

I put a plastic bag inside another and tried to put the carcass inside without touching it. Oh goodness gracious, the smell. And just as I had managed to cover the body, wrap the bags around it, and raise it in the air to slip it inside the bags, I realised three things. One, the body was lukewarm. I think it has to do with decomposition. Two, I would be lucky if pieces didn't fall off, like a leg, or the head. Three and worst, it was raining maggots. Fat, long, writhing white maggots, that landed on my shoes and the ground and kept writhing. Great.

I managed to bag the dead cat, and then I was faced with the realisation that the old woollen fabrics were saturated with the decomposition fluids and consequently full of maggots too. Oh joy. So after I threw away the bagged carcass, I had to pick (very carefully, from the corners) the fabrics, the pillow, and everything else. Second trip to the garbage bin. The excitement was palpable in the air (in waves of eye-watering stench). But there was nothing I could do. If you feed them, then you should also deal with the less enjoyable tasks of spaying them, giving them medication, or disposing of their remains. It's in nobody's top ten of favourite things to do in their spare time. At least nobody I know personally.

Right now I have in my flat a blind black kitten. I think it is a she. Her mother gave birth to two. The other kitten, also blinded by the same infection, did not survive. This one might. I don't know how I am going to feed an extra mouth, but you can't leave a blind kitten in the garden with a busy road ten meters away. I don't think anyone with a conscience can. I will try to capture and spay the mother soon, to prevent her from giving birth again in the future. This world does not need more blind kittens. It really doesn't.

Sometimes I feel I need ten arms and six legs (and 48 hour-long days) to deal with everything. But that's life, or that's my life. What can you do? I've repeatedly tried to win the lottery, to replace my set of problems with a different set of problems. No success as of yet. I will inform you if that happens (probably by publishing a glowing and rapidly changing colour fluorescent middle finger as a blog entry, intended as a message to The Powers That Be). Until then, have fun and may Lady Luck abstain from placing decomposing cats on your path. Spirits of dead cats are fine, they give good advice and are very protective. More importantly, they don't reek.

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Christmas classics

"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

"REALLY?" said Death. "AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE."

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

"YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES."

"So we can believe the big ones?"

"YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING."

"They're not the same at all!"

"YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET"—Death waved a hand. "AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

"MY POINT EXACTLY."

-Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Merry Christmas/ Yule/ whatever celebration you celebrate to everyone! I hope you are all safe and in the company of the ones you love.

Triggers

I recently read that grief isn't a process, but rather a new way of seeing things. It was one of the best ways I have seen grief described. I'm still mourning for my friend Virve and it has altered my entire perception. I will include the quote at the end of this paragraph. Some might find it helpful. I did find it helpful.

How do triggers work? They work due to the mind's ability to make associations and connections. You see something that for another person means nothing, or something positive. For you, however, it has a very different meaning and causes vastly different feelings. For example today I saw a bottle of soda water on my desk. I wanted to give you that bottle because you love soda. Then I remembered we're no longer together. That's a perfect example of a trigger. A soda bottle made me feel sadness and a sense of futility.

Don't get me wrong. I don't regret a thing I did for you, and I don't consider it futile because you didn't appreciate it. I am who I am. Nothing can change me. Only death can take my personality away. When my time comes, death will step in lightly and transmute my being into something bigger and brighter and literally larger than life. Death is the one place, the one condition that wipes the slate clean of everything. And guess what, the first thing to go are our lies. All the lies we told ourselves and other people are gone like morning mist under the blazing sun. For death is yet another sun; it shines black and negative and peaceful in its anti-existence. The doorway opens and you step through it naked as a baby. Everything you have been holding onto for comfort is gone.

When your comforting lies and possessions are gone, I hope each of you will hold onto the one thing no-one can take from you, not even death. Your dignity.

Good night. 

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Memory

 

I haven't gone anywhere near Dir en Grey for two years now, maybe more. When I do, I remember you are gone and get depressed.

We amass knowledge and experience during our lives. Look at you. You played a mean piano, ghost-composed or contributed to the songs of countless bands I listen to, supported noble causes in so many ways, and now you are gone. All you got was 37 years of life. Your creations are still alive, yet your knowledge and talent are gone forever. The languages you spoke, the music you made, the foods you cooked, the way you made love, gone with you. There is a hole where you used to be and it can't be filled. 

I keep losing people I considered friends, either because they die, prove themselves superb assholes or just follow different ways. Every year that passes finds me with a smaller circle of friends. But if I want to be 100% honest, no-one can replace you and no-one will replace you. Some people are one in a million or perhaps one in a billion. What do I know? I don't know. You were one in a billion for me.

Lately mortality is a weight that pulls me down, it chokes me like an anchor hanging from my neck. I do the best I can, I say to myself. I do the best I can for reasons unknown. I don't know why I go on. I just do. Even when everything seems completely pointless, even though I know the knowledge and experience I amass and the effort I've put in bettering myself will be gone with me, I bite the bullet and push on. What will change if I give up? You never gave up. I won't give up either. I'll keep pushing, if only to make those who hate me cringe their teeth. I push on just to rain on their parade. One of the best reasons I had ever read was this, by the gracious Steven Barns:

"I had a student ask why, if nothing ultimately matters, we should care about anything at all. Well, that’s why no world religion will take you all the way to clarity: there’s no social benefit. However, encoded within each major religion seems to be a hidden path to dis-assembling the ego walls without turning you into a bum, madman, or wandering Saint. It seems to be the inculcation of core values at a young age, such that the residual ego shell still functions appropriately even after you’ve shed the illusions. It’s tricky stuff.

My guess is that the gate of Adulthood—responsibility for the core values held by the culture (my version of this is body-mind-spirit) MUST be passed before deeper, more secret teachings are offered. Most will try to go straight for the goodies. But religions are what Buddhism refers to as the “large boat” while direct experience of the divine is the “small boat”, not for everyone. I don’t recommend it. I just speak about it because, as I realized yesterday, this blog is my version of Literary Autolysis.

But more directly, try this: a baseball game doesn’t “matter”. But if you decide to play, you learn the rules and play hard, to the best of your ability. If you don’t want to play, you lose the right to complain about the results you get in this world.

The challenge is to be “in the world, but not of the world.” To play hard, to learn the rules, to clarify our understandings, and then to move on.

To say “it doesn’t matter” falls right back into dualistic thinking, and logic breaks down a bit. “It matters/it doesn’t matter.” They don’t exist separate from perception.

If you can’t play hard, work hard, care for your family, engage with your community, preserve your body, provide goods and services, and grasp the fact that we can know NOTHING other than the “I am”—then please, please, please don’t try this. Don’t use “nothing matters” as an excuse to ignore your worldly affairs.

Remember the chakras? Master the lower ones BEFORE you get to spirit. Otherwise, I promise you, rather than clarity, you will be lost in illusion, and feeling holy about it. Obese, broke, and lonely…and feeling smugly superior to all us idiots who act as if the world is real. And then secretly weeping at night, confused as hell: with all this wisdom, why am I so miserable?

Trust me: you don’t want to go down that road."

Perfectly put. Thank you, Mr. Barns. Taken from here:  

http://darkush.blogspot.gr/2007/10/why-even-care.html

And one more Dir en Grey song, because it soothes my soul... Like you did.

  
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