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cpeacephoto · 4 years ago

Photo

Sadly, my posting of old photos may be coming to a point where it is less frequent. I’m running out of old photos to post, particularly those that aren’t nude portraits in some way. Which is nothing else seem really old hat to me but maybe that’s just because I’m not 22 and full of hormones anymore. I need to take more photos so I have more things to post and talk about.

I’m also noticing the community on Tumblr seems to be teens half my age. Maybe I’m just an old fart who doesn’t know how to use Tumblr? I’ve got absolutely nothing against teens. On the teen aspect, I wonder sometimes if my ranting is relevant, or even responsible.

When we’re teens we’re going through so much. So many emotions, hormones, new situations, pressures. I can see where some of what I post becomes attractive or relatable if not just something to feel emotions to. But for most teens, these things will pass. It will change and it will get better. So I worry I’m not helping. I’ll get into that more near the end.

It leads me to these photos today. These photos were taken years ago on the Bonneville Salt Flats. I’m sure there’s a place on the flats with an actual parking lot and visitor center but that’s now how we did it. This was probably the second time shooting this model. I’ll have to tell the story of the first another time. She was a little younger than I was grew up traditionally LDS but she herself wasn’t particularly religious or conservative. She actually seemed to like the idea of tattoos, alternative music, just being yourself even if she personally didn’t have tattoos. She was a HUGE lover of animals. Would end up one day a hedgehog breeder I think.

On this particular day she took her dog with her and together in her old BMW she picked me up and we went down the highway. The highway at the flats is basically a straight line and no one is driving the speed limit. Lots of people whizzing by at 100+ miles per hour. Being the flats, there’s also a huge amount of wind. We drive for what must have been an hour and talked, always looking at her gas gauge as that limited what we could do. I remember at one point some of the rubber holding on the windshield of that old BMW caught the wind and just flung off the car. Made me think of being in a rocket ship and having a panel fly off.

When we finally decided to take photos we just pulled over and walked out to the flats. It was vast, flat, and windy.

To me, these are lonely photos. And I post them today because of it. The girl in the photos was someone I had several deep conversations with. And in many ways I think had I allowed myself to feel joy, I could have been friends with. It may be arrogant to think so, but maybe even something more. She was someone who saw my flaws and kept trying to tell me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. And at some point in life because I couldn’t let myself have friends, let alone find love, and kept trying to tell myself I couldn’t form relationships with models or it was creepy… at some point I’d end up locking her out of my life. Suddenly, dramatically, and quietly.

This last month has been one hell of a roller coaster ride emotionally. There have been developments that happened with my old friend. The kinds of things where you don’t necessarily go looking and somehow it just pops up. The kinds of things where suddenly a lot of things just sort of happen. Where other things just don’t happen. It’s been a month of spiraling out on anxiety and walking around like Jack Skellington going, “What does it mean? What does it mean?”. A month of trying to distract myself, feel emotionally distant, make mistakes, learn something about myself, respond to all the stress and anxiety differently. A month of things not being as bad as I thought and things not going as horribly as I thought. And on the rare occasion getting to pull out my telescope to see how my old friend is on their boat and just feel, happy or complete again for a minute. It’s been a long and strange month.

Part of that month includes several people telling me something that I’m sure I’ve been told before by someone, but for some reason resonates now. It’s the notion that really nothing that’s happened is bad, or wrong. It doesn’t mean I’m a monster, that I’m a fuck up, or that my old friend even hates me. They probably just, don’t think of me because life has moved on for them. More to the point I’ve been told several times this month that the issue, not problem but issue, in my life is pain. Particularly that I keep punishing myself. And doing so to such an impossible and undeserving standard. As if all the punishment somehow makes everything that happened and all the time lost okay. As if should I ever not punish, then none of it would matter anymore. That if I just punish myself hard enough or long enough, that maybe life will go back to the way it was which it never will, but also shouldn’t necessarily and that’s okay. That punishment and pain have become an identity, and I’ve not allowed myself to know anything else.

It makes me think of these photos. Because there’s been so many wonderful people along the way the last 16 years that I’ve locked out and pushed out. People I felt I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, associate with beyond a very strict point. I’ve missed out on so much. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to miss out on those things anymore. And I don’t want to live in punishment and pain. The time lost, is lost. But I still have the rest of my life. That perhaps there is something to be said for time served and enough is enough.

In some capacity, even if it’s just chatting online on occasion, I’d like to move on with my old friend. Like I’ve said before, I’ve always had this weird feeling my path eventually leads me back to them. And without the worry of school, social groups, parents, the impending doom of “get life right or live in a van down by the river” now, they and I have our whole lives to get to know each other. And be who we need to be to each other.

But even if it is just conversations online on occasion, which is progress I’m hoping comes from this month, or even if it’s nothing at all. I really want to enjoy life again with someone. I want someone to not lock out anymore.

And I think that’s the lesson. “let it go” doesn’t mean forget about it, or it doesn’t matter. It means that at some point the only person punishing you, judging you, hurting you… is you. And the only way it’ll ever get better is if you forgive yourself and allow yourself to be happy again. Something some of the events of this month, be they good or bad, has shown me. It’s okay. SWAT isn’t about to bust down my door. It’s okay to feel something.

Came across a podcast episode today that talked a little about this idea of Idiot compassion vs Wise compassion. It’s an interesting concept. One of those things that when you stop to think about it feels like you’ve always known about but just never really had defined before. That “duh” moment for me I guess.

For most of us, the compassion we’ll see most often is going to be Idiot compassion. We’ll even be the dealers of it from time to time. We’ll see it mostly from our friends and our family when we’re not feeling our best.

In Idiot compassion it’s when someone gives compassion for their own benefit. Because it makes them feel better. Because they personally don’t want to see this person suffering, or because if the suffering heed their advice they somehow gain. Such is of our friend stops being mopey we can finally go to the movies. It’s when they just want to make someone feel better, and so they don’t necessarily tell the suffering the truth.

When we see someone we care about in a problem and we feel compelled to say something it is probably idiot compassion. Something done that probably isn’t going to really help the other person anyways. It is probably something nice for the sake of being nice. And it risks being something that may actually hurt or further the situation the suffering are in. This kind of compassion typically doesn’t take into context, see, or even care about the whole situation from an objective view.

Your friends and family will likely give idiot compassion. As Lori Gottlieb says you may hear statements for example about a breakup similar to “He’s a jerk”, “you dodged a bullet”, “all men suck”, “never talk to an ex”. These people will commonly tell you things like you should date or sleep around to get over someone, that you just need to get over it, that’s it’s all in your head, that you should break up with someone because you had a fight, that you should marry this person because they are “perfect” or “perfect for you”. Such statements don’t really help you over time. They may feel good in the moment, but you may end up ultimately feeling unfulfilled about your “perfect” decisions, or stressed out anxious that you’re not doing as well as they said you should be or would be, or worst of all just back where you started.

Wise compassion on the other hand might look at that same break up differently. In Lori’s case she talk about how the source of her struggle wasn’t ultimately that this guy was a jerk and her heart was broken. It was about how she thought she had her life planned out. She was getting married, doing all the right things, had a career, everything was planned out. She did everything right. And then all of a sudden, the plan wasn’t there anymore. There was no backup plan, she didn’t do anything wrong necessarily, and she was alone. The floor fell from underneath her.

As such wise compassion first had to dive into why she was truly struggling in the first place. Maybe he wasn’t the right guy for her. Sure. At the same time, maybe the problem is she was doing everything for the wrong reasons? Maybe she wasn’t really getting the fulfillment she truly needed? Maybe she was surrounding herself with the wrong people, like “yes men”. Maybe she was depending too much on others, on ideals, on this plan, then really being honest with herself on her needs? You can have your dream job, be successful, and still not find it fulfilling if you’re not being honest with yourself.

Wise compassion by far is harder to find, but oh so much more valuable. We often feel and maybe are ill-equipped to dispense it. It may not necessarily flatter us or the person being given to. But it’s the truth given in a compassionate way.

In Wise compassion, the compassion we give is more skillful and meaningful. Its intent is not to say something for the sake of something, or to simply end someone’s suffering so we don’t have to watch it. The intent is to help bring release from suffering so they honestly feel better. In this compassion it may be necessary to shine a mirror upon the sufferer to show them something they may not want to see or otherwise didn’t see before.

It is an interesting thought experiment to me because I’ve been thinking about a similar thing for a while not. There’s a lot of nice people in this world. And there’s a time and a place for that. There’s nothing wrong with nice people. But people who simply nice people, aren’t always meaningful people. They aren’t always honest people. Just because someone is nice, doesn’t mean you’re going to be the best of friends that they really care about you, that you should sleep with them, date them, or marry them. It doesn’t mean you should be investing your time, energy, life, heart and soul into them.

They aren’t bad people, they’re just nice people. And there’s a lot of nice people who will likely be nice for a while. But ultimately, aren’t you kind of people.

“~Write your soul down word for word. See who’s your friend. And who is kind.~ Matchbox Twenty - You Won’t be mine”

In my life I’ve met a lot of nice people. And someone of them I’ve tried to hold onto longer than I should have, some I’ve lost myself in just to have someone who was nice around. There’s some who I pursued relationships with that ultimately didn’t work out because, they were just nice.Or because I didn’t truly allow myself to take the risk of actually feeling happy and connection again.

There have been very few people in life who I’ve found had wise compassion. People who were truly honest, in a compassionate way. Who spoke my language, who I cared about.

Like so many of these posts, it makes me think of my old friend. In part, because it always seemed like they could always find nice people. There was always an unlimited supply of nice people to surround them. To get lost in. How can you deny the voice of the crowd? They can’t all be wrong right? And it’s so much nicer over there what they have to say. But the voices of yes men and nice people, of Idiot compassion, isn’t always helpful. It isn’t necessarily fulfilling in the long run.

I’ve been known to give people Idiot compassion like everyone else. But when it came to my old friend, I always tried to be honest. Even if it wasn’t fun to say, even if it wasn’t at my favor. I love their art. But no, I don’t love every piece. No, it’s not okay right now. Its okay it’s not okay right now. It’ll be okay someday. I love some of the things they do, and yes sometimes the problems we had were my fault. I own that. I’ve always felt like it was far more important to tell them the truth than to say something sweet just to be sweet.

From my end, I’ve met a lot of nice people. I’ve had a lot of Idiot compassion happen to me. People who feel like emotional tourist. It’s part of why I feel for women. It’s so easy to have tourist show up because someone is feeling lonely, or horny, and the when the feeling passes in the morning or years down the road the tourist is gone only to be replaced by another. In my life I’ve had a lot of cliché’ platitudes lobbed at me. But I’ve had very few people be they stranger, tourist passing through, friends, family, or medical people, who were truly dispensers of Wise compassion. And there’s been so many times when I’ve needed it.

I think that’s part of the reason why I respect and admire my old friend so much. They were probably the last person who I had that dispensed Wise compassion to me. And they were possible the only person I ever felt truly honored to try and reciprocate. I suppose in the end, after all this time I just hope beyond hope that I get that opportunity again someday.

While I’m not really big into the holistic or the metaphysical, I do want to be a romantic and optimistic. There’s a thing called manifesting where you work towards your goals yes. You don’t lose focus and you don’t give up. But you try to stay positive, have happy thoughts, think about what you want and just hold on to that thought. I’m not really sure how much I buy into all of it. But I’ve got time. So I’ve been trying to manifest a conversation via happy thoughts and thinking about that conversation happening someday. Who knows, maybe it’ll all pay off sometime.

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