Bear Homily

So, somehow, I’m back here: back to feeling pissed off – or at least aggravated – all of the time. I want to hide in my bedroom, “my cave,” and I find myself wanting to bite people’s heads off when I see them coming. My sleep schedule is out of whack, and I don’t have any enthusiasm for the things that I know I should be doing to make myself happy. I go to the gym feeling resentful that I have to do so much extra work just to keep my mind and body functioning well enough to do the things I actually want to do with my time like writing, and cooking. While I’m there I feel stuck and frustrated – largely due to my own vanity - and I leave feeling unsatisfied even if I’ve had a good workout despite my crappy attitude.

I haven’t been able to decide if I just need an attitude adjustment, or my general irritation is a side effect of being forty-seven: I just don’t have time for crap that gets in the way of doing what I know I should be doing to make full use of the time I have left. I guess that makes me selfish, and if it does, I’m OK with that. Still, I’m struggling to accept that this is the path I’ve chosen in order to deal with my depressive episodes, and ADHD spectrum brain. It works, and it’s consistent with my values, the fact that I have to do things I don’t want to do when I don’t FEEL like doing them, is just a consequence of that choice. I get it, but none of that makes it easy.

Thing is, I love my brain. No really! It has got some bugs in the hardware, but it does some pretty amazing stuff. And, let’s be honest here: it’s the only one I’ve got, so naturally I’m rather fond of it. In fact, I much prefer my brain to a “normal” or “average” one even when it’s being a dick, and trying to convince me that life, the universe, and everything sucks, and is always going to suck. I have episodes of wishing my brain worked differently, but I don’t subscribe wholly to the illness/deficit model for ADHD either. Our brains can get sick, episodically, chronically, or terminally, just like any other organ in our body, however, when it comes to ADHD I’m married to the idea that my brain functions how it functions, and I am better served working with it than fighting it, or medicating it. Medication is not completely out of the question, nor is it an invalid choice. If it becomes necessary, I have no guilt or internalized stigma in taking it, but I would prefer to avoid it. In general, I don’t like taking systemic medications for any condition that can be managed in another way because (in this case) your brain isn’t the only organ in your body that receives the medication, so does your cardiovascular system, kidneys, liver, etc.

In my world view, we are a walking bag of chemicals, bones, and organs, so sophisticated that we have emotions, and reason. We can remember the past, and project our thoughts forward into the future to predict the outcomes of our behavior. We can love others, and believe things so fiercely we are willing to die for them. Isn’t that amazing? Our brains – The Mother Ship – hold everything we are, every memory, thought, and breath: our complete understanding of reality, our ability to dream of something beyond what we know, and our ability to create new things that have never existed before. The brain inside my head, and the one in yours too, is made up from my genetics, learned behavior, and habits I created myself. The question of nature or nurture is a waste of time, the answer in most cases is yes, and both. It may sound counter intuitive to those of faith, but the idea that there is nothing else, that we cease to exist when we die, IS what gets me out of bed in the morning. If this is all there is, then I better make it a good’ne! Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s the reason I didn’t end my life more than a decade ago when I was suffering from a major bout of clinical depression: death offered no relief, only annihilation. Fortunately, I had enough will to live, or blind stubbornness, to keep taking the meds. and going to therapy. By the way, you will never hear me apologize for being stubborn, it’s only a label people give to tenacity when they don’t agree with you.

For the record, I do not identify myself as an atheist, non-theist, or even agnostic: these labels only tell you what I am not. What I am is, a secular humanist, meaning we decide what is sacred, and holy, and worthy of our worship, and that doesn’t make it any less valid. Community is important, faith is important to those who have it, and we are hardwired for connection, ritual, and story. Faith, and religion, are rich sources of all three. It’s in our DNA, it’s how our ancestors survived in tribal times, and it continues to serve us well – most of the time – today. I personally don’t need the construct of a god – or several – to share a sense of wonder and awe in the universe, or to give meaning to the things I am not capable of understanding. The very best and the very worst in all of us, is driven by our unique mental abilities, and our biology. We are the sum of the stories we write by our choices as individuals, and as a society. It is the story that goes on after we are gone, and it is all the result of being a human animal: exquisite, and flawed.

How exactly a journal article about my cranky mood turns into a discussion of faith, or that lack of it, I’m only beginning to figure out. This week I’ve been forced to check in with all the crap that’s going on in my head, and do the work to reevaluate my thinking. By check in, I mean, ask myself how much of my thinking is evidence based, and how much of it is a story that I’m making up about a situation, or individuals, that I cannot change. It’s an ongoing process. If I’m being completely honest with myself, I’ve been kind of “half-assing” my mindfulness meditations lately, (yes, I know that’s not really a verb) and it is definitely time to change techniques, or at least reinvest some energy into the practice. So, here is where the whole thing begins to come together: in the absence of a prescribed faith or prayer, I must deliberately and regularly be sure that my behavior is consistent with my values, and ideals, and not allow others to force me to act in ways that contradict those values. The price of that concession is my unhappiness. I have to create rituals for myself, and I must live in my story so that I'm not be distracted by my own desire to know how it will end. If I can do all that, and there remains a consequence to living the life I want to live, I simply need to be prepared to welcome it in.