I realize that all of those moments growing toward adulthood.. adulthood is a horrible word to describe the ideal of fully formed, fully evolved beings.. all of those moments of becoming where I had some access to something I truly wanted, or some sexual feeling that I knew I would love to explore and yet one that wasn't a part of what I did yet.. all of these feelings and moments that passed by, all being thrown into the same category when I experienced them.. the category of unfulfilled desire and self-fulfillment.. recognizing things apathetically as part of a world not mine.. when I wasn't even myself. I had not become myself. I had not yet been allowed to be myself in the context of anything that I could be; free range of motion, full choice coming from a series of options or attempts.. The external world of options starts to expand almost after the teenage years are survived.. That emerging identity is formed before it has the agency to test the waters. Though it wasn't always like this.
I realize that the physical feelings that I felt consistently in my body (now referred to as posture) prevented me from thinking that I could chase these desires, like other teenagers did, like other sexual beings.. these feelings in my mind-body are what have remained even since I've thrown myself at the hordes.. feeling small.. literally.. a feeling of coming in on oneself that makes it feel impossible to go out of a comfortable range of actions or even thoughts associated with self-identity.. and yet feeling uncomfortable nonetheless. I was mistaken all of that time. My beliefs and even my circumstances as I saw them at the time were simply a product of the limitation of that physical visceral feeling of self. That flow of energy through the entire system. A psychological misnomer that I was everything somehow contained within my own skin and limitations.
I now understand that I am simply a shell, allowing myself to be oxygen or not, within each 'moment'; time objectified or delineated within the mind in order to understand.. cerebral thought; the flow of time & being cut off furthest from the source and closest to the brain. Cut off at whatever interval allows for a kind of understanding that might be useful at the time. But useful for what? survival? emotional survival? survival of one's identity? self-development? but that would refer to self as ego or construction rather than self as experience. allowing myself to be water (emotion) or not, to be fire or to be the earth between my feet and between myself and another one of us. I realize now that limiting posture is manufactured through psychological constructions of self identity (basically meaning limitation). this seems to be the consequence of an attempt to protect from the experience of emotional pain - by cutting off all feeling to that part of the mind-body/brain-nerve self.
Identity; Self limitation. Not simply I cannot or I would not or might not do or be, but to the point where the actual experience of my role within existence was completely raped of its true form.. of its ability not to be questioned. The experience of self in its truest form just is. It should not be defined within a metaphysical or psychological self-examination of constructions and contradictions with it's own environment.. I believe that these sophistications are simply stages to be deconstructed in order to discover again the curiously simple nature of what seems at every moment to be an eternal existence. A truth that we fight against, cover up and use each other to forget. Self-hood vs. desire. Distractions. Sex. What is sex? Other than its biological-evolutionary function.. how do we create a map of desire? Why do we need to fulfill it as such an important part of our self and of our happiness?
I thought I could escape this facet of self-hood as I was becoming an adult. I was growing up in an alien environment wherein I knew concretely of no other homosexuals. Unconsciously I felt alone during this development. I understand now how this created a self that would continue to develop alone for years after this. It would not even assume that it could or should develop in the ways of those around it. It ceased to even value shared experience. Desire still existed, but I guess I mapped other enterprises onto it. I did this in order to persist within my mind in the alien environment I felt I lived in. I attempted to follow the desire of my sexual energy as creative energy and have not stopped since. The piano became my object of intimacy and absorbed my feelings of sadness and joy, while at the same time allowing for a mini-psychological theater that I became the creator of, as well as the audience for. There was no harsh criticism here. In fact, it was a safe place and space that opened up out of necessity to avoid the shame of social judgment and alienation. In this box I evolved a forum for my desire and emotional fulfillment for years. It is the object of all of my investment and only through convincing my more external, conscious self of the need to grow have I succeeded in becoming more healthy in a larger world and context.
I have practically learned to brainwash myself in order to help myself. My unconscious mind has been from here to eternity but hosts a child mind-body moving laboriously through infantile stages of self-development in order to make better choices and respond to reality itself rather than a complex of self or other-identities. I moved into dance in order to open my body physically. This may sound strange but what I mean is in terms of sensation. I have opened the connections between parts of my body that I could not feel, and which would physically sink or act as if they did not exist when I could not feel them. Obviously to feel pleasure one needs to feel a place itself in the first place.. so I had numb parts of my mind-body that were not allowed to grow in terms of whole-body connection, alignment. A lack of physical feelings of pleasure that are psychological requirements to allow for confidence.. comfort within any range of situations. Not even confidence.. just feeling ok. Why is it difficult to feel ok in so many situations at first?
Does our culture simply shut down easily as a reflex response, in terms of not being willing to feel the simple sensations of our bodies in different circumstances? Is it so unconscious and ingrained that we are only doing it any longer because we copy each other as social beings? Are there historical/cultural roots to this simple response? There must be whole categories of demons that prevent the evolution of a being who consistently feels every part of themselves and their physical body throughout the boiling period of development. Would it be possible to create a methodology for describing these states of being so specifically that people experiencing them even unconsciously might be able to go into their mind-body connections and allow for change and growth? I suppose this is EmotionalFreedomTechnique (which involves tapping meridians) – but is there a more internal remedy that people could use all of the time or as tools for just being and maintaining sensation through awareness? I feel like this is such a Canadian issue. I suppose one could call it British as well. Half of the bad patterns seem to develop in social situations.. where one doesn't want others to feel less healthy or less happy than one, oneself. This instinct to imitate the wounds of others, even though they are psychological and potentially unreal.. never to seem too confident, or arrogant. Never to make someone who is sick or hurt feel envious of one's freedom. Ayn Rand would love it.
I think in my case, I learned at about the age of 10 never to show off my personal fulfillment of physical or creative desires in front of those who didn't have that kind of direct relationship with their senses.. I had been & was attempting to continue to experience this expansive experience of self during that time, while other kids were developing & constructing limited self-identities to 'survive' socially. I survived, but tended towards expansive, creative exploits.. this lands me to the present moment, waiting for knee surgery, finally understanding why I haven't had a career. Pain-free, identity-exempt, whole-body sensing, Artist. looking for work, or life. After the recovery.
