just writing away

I try to understand more every day. Lacan's goal, Freud's goal, Jung's goal - and most other goals in therapy are for a person to learn how to live with the facts of their life. Most of the big signs of approval offered by society are limited. Even for people who attain recognition, wealth, whatever - the time of those is fleeting. Ecclesiastes has so much right. The best thing an individual can do is recognize what is theirs in their life - and live that life - not as an other might direct, nor for some talisman of validation.

The facts of our lives can be uncomfortable - they may not square up with a narrative of triumph, an overcoming of adversity, or even being understood. I wonder at the places I remained at - the times I seemed to be stopped. It is embarrassing to say, "yes, this place was where I wanted to be."

I also wonder at how blind to circumstances I can be. I told my friend Bob the other day, using the metaphor of the running game, that most of us seem to run to darkness. That frustrating thing you see watching a football game where the running back takes the handoff and runs right into the line, just stopping there. Well he was supposed to find and opening - that's where the hole is in practice. Practice has gotten him there. I suspect that most of us are like that. Running where we think the hole is supposed to be. Well meaning people: teachers, pastors, mentors, family, friends all told us to run there - that's the way the play works out, they might have said. Instead we find ourselves running into a wall. The gap closed when we arrived.

If our lives were something we viewed on the screen, we'd find the new hole, the new opening. We would have run the play right - or, finding the gap closed, we'd power our way through - just keep those legs moving, stay low, don't let them stand you up. And it is to no avail. We haven't the strength or preparation or skill to break through.

Sometimes I've seemed to break through the line and gain some ground. Most often on what I consider broken plays, I find open field before me. The day typically is not like that. The day is mostly the ineffectual scrum - the scrimmage of forces around me that evince neither up field nor down field. Just mud and exertion and exhaustion at each step. If I ask my neighbors what they see - they see the same as I.