Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Thought purgatory

Alone is good. Being alone and a bit depressed is even better. This is the ideal set-up for breakthroughs if you need one. Most people don’t like to be alone. Some people would rather have a bad boyfriend or girlfriend to avoid being alone. The people who most crave aloneness are mothers with small children. Next are fathers with small children. Commercials seldom highlight a person who lives alone except that woman who falls and can’t get up. Being alone in America implies that you have seriously messed up. Either you are weird and plotting some horrendous public event to get attention or you are emotionally stunted and a loser at the game of life. Ah… that game of life.

I am alone much of the time. I should jump at the chance to hear other voices, other thoughts, other points of view. (I just realized last year that I don’t really listen to other points of view. My ears go numb and I hear whaa whaa whaa like in the Charlie Brown specials.) When I socialize even on the phone, I spend a lot of minutes reviewing what went on - in other words wasting time. The review parade goes like this: how they acted, how I acted, what they said, what I said. Many times I am dissatisfied with my behavior. Occasionally I am dissatisfied with the behavior of the other. Either way it’s a waste. I'm evaluating according to dumb fossilized ideas and it takes place in thought purgatory. Just like in the catholic religion thought purgatory is a circular holding pattern. You are waiting, waiting, waiting to take off but you can’t because it’s so effortless to keep thinking the same thing over and over.

Nothing ever changes or moves out of thought purgatory until you are alone for enough time to become uncomfortable and start thinking fresh untainted thoughts.
Ah...fresh, untainted thoughts.

2 comments:

  1. i'm catching up with you (again). oh my gosh, all these posts entice! i thought i'd post under this one because you explained myself to me in this post. i gave up thought purgatory for lent and so far it's been going pretty good. when my sister asked me to give her an specific example of a thought caught up in purgatory, i declined, telling her i'd have to go into thought purgatory to retrieve an example and that is what i gave up. see me after easter. heh...

    sherry

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