Past Imperfect

So I’ve just ushered the last of my dinner guests out the door after a night of song, spirits and silliness, and sat down at my computer. Checking my email, myspace, and other internet notifications of my net worth I am left to wonder why the hell some aspects of the past simply refuse to let go.

Buddha would have us believe that we are linked to certain souls from our past lives; people we have wronged or been wronged by; people who have experienced or been the cause of great deeds of compassion on our part. I’m not a subscriber to the idea of reincarnation, but I agree with alot of what the ‘B’ man has to say aside from that. Sorry Sid, but I have to find my own way.

I’m a huge fan of psychological and sociological studies and I read whatever I can get my hands on that I think will benefit me in my dealings with others. I am better informed on this subject that the vast majority of the people I am acquainted with and still infinitely more ignorant than the least of those who make a profession of this sort of thing. Most of what I have to say about this is regurgitated studies and best guess tactics from my own experience. The thing I have come to realize most is that people tend to use one another like drugs.

To really understand this you have to realize that, for the most part, humans are rarely addicted to “drugs.” They are addicted to the release of natural endorphins caused by the intake of illicit substances. The temporary chemical imbalance that we call a night of fun. The fastest and easiest way to produce these feelings of euphoria is a needle in the arm or a pill in the mouth. Simple, effective, and you can count on it everytime. It gets complicated when we allow others to elicit this response in us.

Controlled Substance: a drug or chemical substance whose possession and use are controlled by law.

Humans cannot be controlled. No one person, even dedicating the entirety of their time and energy, can ever control even one other individual any more than that individual chooses to be controlled. Thus, when another person causes the release of our wonderful hormones and chemical agents, we are in for one hell of a ride. Falling in love is the most manifest for of this potentially damaging phenomenon. Just as the wording implies, falling in love is all but uncontrollable.

Falling: suddenly losing an upright position; Dream interpretation: unsure of foundation, feeling out of control, powerless.

For a society so infused with the notion that we are the masters of our own reality and destiny we have an amazing predeliction to throwing away our self-actualized power at the first notion of our emotional attachment to another person. This carries on for hours, days, months, even years in some cases. The worst part? We as a society and as individuals acutally encourage this ridiculous surrender of self. Why? Because We like it.

So years later, when we feel some shift in our paradigm, we as humans feel the need to either redefine our interpretations of our past selves, or recapture the lost emotive states of happier times. When does this become healthy?

We believe ourselves to have become powerful, realized individuals having moved beyond the limiting addictions and beliefs of our past. Thus being this new and amazing individual, for some reason we feel the need to confront and overcome our past shortcomings instead of learning from them and moving on to a new and brighter future. Somewhere in our ridiculously complicated and completely illogical higher brain we believe that we will amplify our new capabilities by regressing to deal with the challenges of our past. Reading this it is easy to see how this is counter-productive and simple to commit to never making this mistake. However, of all the “convincers” in the human spectrum, (physical, emotional, and logical) emotional convincers are the most potent and illogical by far.

Perhaps we hit a rough spot and decide to revisit an older happier time when things were simpler; made more sense. Then we run away from the challenge at hand, that which would allow our growth and adaptation as humans, and rush back to older romanticized happier times; stagnating our growth and placating that desire to belong to someone… something greater than ourselves. When revisiting the past is done from this mindset it can be devastating.

However, there is a way we can allow items from our past to resurface. When we divest ourselves of the emotional baggage we hung on these people and experiences; when we realize that the emotions came from within and not from without, we can perhaps view the old and seemingly depleted in a new light; the light of rebirth and hope. When we can realize that all the wonder and magic of the world is just a gateway to something less sparkly and diverting; something lasting and strong enough to build a life of true love and happiness on, we can allow or disallow the past to merge with us and move forward into an honest and breathtaking realm of self love (not that kind) and love for others.

Holy shit, where the hell did all this crap come from? Anyways, to recap: Obey your parents, eat your vegetables, and love the moo-cows.