I went back home for a few days to recharge and get my head on straight. “Home” is in Washington State - a good 2,000 miles by car, or a quick 5.5 hour flight. I chose the latter.
It’s seriously difficult not to talk about The Situation and whether it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever endured, or the dumbest. I go back and forth, honestly, but the temptation to indulge in that good olde time ennui is strong, so I won’t. Once you get ennui on you, it never comes out.
I’ve always been a sentimental lad. Don’t know why, and I’m of an age where I’m less concerned about the why and more about what’s right in front of me. Besides, the whole going-home schtick is also getting old. (Evidently I’m really feeling my age tonight…) I remember coming home from college and feeling sentimental about visiting even though I was doing it every weekend. When I went to college farther away, homecoming trips meant a lot more. And when friction between my wife and family stretched the homecoming intervals to YEARS, it meant a hell of a lot.
This trip had the potential to be another “sentimental journey.” I wanted to avoid that because, well, I’ve learned a few things in these last few years of struggle. One of the most incandescently true things is that a man either rules his emotions, or they rule him. I’m sick of being ruled by them, so, I didn’t let that happen on this trip.
When I think back on all the times I let my emotions rule me, (which is pretty much the first 47 years of my life), it’s as embarrassing as a high school yearbook picture. (Speaking of which, one reason I went out west was to attend my HS reunion. Great people, but…it just wasn’t the same…). I mean, honestly, I was a mess. And while there was a nascent sense of reason in there somewhere, it was emotion that drove every major decision of my life.
I didn’t know how to think. I mean that literally. I thought, of course. I had lots of thoughts, and a half-decent imagination. But I didn’t rule myself with will and reason. Emotion ran me in circles. I could have been doing this or that by now. I could have learned an instrument. I could have begun and stuck with an amazing career. But no, I switched horses in the middle of so many streams because some impulse, fear, or interest led me in a different direction.
On the rare occasions when I talk about these things with younger men, getting control of your emotions right now is one of the top three things I tell them. It’s probably the first, most important thing, actually.
I first realized that something had changed within the last year. I even remember the moment. Challenges, to put it lightly, were piling up. My list of duties - i.e. those things expected of a Christian man in the 21st century - were numerous, overwhelming, and apparently contradictory at times. In years past, they would have easily frozen me with indecision and fear. But, given how that had worked out all these years, I decided, or rather, was forced to think my way through it.
I wish I could say, “And then everything worked out,” but it hasn’t yet. I’m still in it. But I have this amazing new superpower called “mastering my emotions” that not only puts a choke collar on depression, but gives me the ability to think methodically, one step at a time, through various scenarios.
It’s intoxicating, actually. It’s fun like a new toy and I like to play with it.
This isn’t to say I’ve become some kind of Spock-like android. I can feel the darkness around the periphery, and I’m tempted to lay down and just let it overcome me. But I don’t. I choose not to let it. And you know what? It obeys.
Every angle I take on this thought reveals a heck of a lot more to explore. It’s a big one. The lesson is simple: control your emotions or they’ll control you. The practice of doing so is most definitely an acquired skill. More on that later.
I know you said, "more on that later" at the end, but I'm very interested in seeing you describe the practice you've found, and how it works for you.
As a creative guy myself, I've found that my emotions are deeply tied to wherever the rest comes from -- the art, the writing, the sense of wonder. If my emotional state is disturbed, often by external circumstances, my ability to produce the kind of work I do gets flatlined. I have found myself out of commission far too many times in the past year or so as I've battled depression, layers of familial betrayal, wrestling with childhood abuse and my own consequent abusive behaviors towards my wife and kids, the loss of my faith (and tied to it, my career), and so on.
I recognize the need for self-mastery in this area, but I'm not really even sure where to start. And I think there's some fear that if I lock that stuff up, that the creativity will wind up locked in there with it.