Narrative Addicts Anonymous

We went to a comedy show with a real live comedian, Amy Schumer, for the first time this weekend.  Well, it was my first time.  Nels had been to comedy shows, and I had been to a few comedy clubs, but it’s not something I normally do.  When we saw David Sedaris, he was reading from his own work, and when we saw Steve Martin, he was being interviewed.  Both made me laugh, but if I ever attend a live recording of a comedy show, they will cut the footage when it comes to me.  I am just not that into it. 

I enjoyed Amy Schumer’s show to some extent, and I appreciated that she did what felt like a mix of extemporaneous work and rehearsed, well-timed jokes.  I am sure there’s a fine line there.  However, appreciating somebody’s talent and laughing so hard I pee a little are two different things. 

The next day, I realized it wasn’t her, it was me.

You see, I am addicted to narrative.  I need stories in my newspaper, comics, poems, conversations, songs, and everything else I read and hear.  The narrative doesn’t even have to be clear, like they taught us in middle school English.  I never could pick out the rising and falling action and the denouement.  I also don’t need a happy ending, or even much of an ending at all—but there has to be a thread to follow.  This is from “The Way It Is” by William Stafford:

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

One of the problems is that, at least for me, I am not always sure what I am holding onto.  That’s why the yogis and Buddhists teach practitioners to let go of the stories in our heads:  the stories about our identities, in which we say to ourselves variations of “I am a good teacher/a lousy runner/impatient/hate sour cream/live in my head.” 

But I must have story.  If I do not, what’s left?  The yogis and Buddhists say, “pure Being.”  That sounds pretty boring to me.  Sure, I have a series of unreliable narrators inside my mind, but it is certainly fascinating to see who is telling the truth and how that truth evolves, and how something seemed to be true at one stage of my life is most certainly not true at some other point.  Of course, this requires seeing the story as a witness, or reader, not as the protagonist.  If I am playing the protagonist, than I am merely, as my friend Chuck Holloway would say, “believing my own shit.” 

Philosopher Evan Thompson addresses this issue by critiquing the idea that the mind is merely inside the brain.  He says that the mind is relational and involves the body as well as outside concepts: “We inhabit a meaningful world because we bring forth or enact meaning.”   Mindfulness is “social, relational, and ethical.” 

However, I do get that there are cultural as well as personal stories that are dangerous.  We may have certain ideas about human beings based on social categories as opposed to who the person is as an individual.  Ian Hacking calls this the “looping effect” and says that when we categorize people, we change them by how we interact with them based on those categories, and how they think of themselves.  This is why so many issues about gender, race, and class continually get reinforced.  I have a lot of respect for people who provide a counter-narrative, breaking up the original story and creating a new one. 

I like to hear stories that offer me a new way of looking at the world, others, and even myself.  I remember when a professor told me that I wasn’t bad at math; I just hadn’t been taught it in a way that was meaningful to me.  I wanted to tell her to put down the crack pipe, as my students said to me when I said something outrageous, but now I wonder.  “Janet the math genius” offers a counter-narrative to my learned helplessness. 

Earlier this week, I dreamed that I lost my shoes at a ski resort when I traded them in for ski boots.  The shoe lady took me down to the basement, and there were lots and lots of shoes, but none of them were mine.  Shoes represent the identity, and the basement the subconscious.  Unlike in the dream, I am in no hurry to find my shoes.  I’ll just root around in the subconscious for a while, enjoying the threads and stories that emerge, and not wait for the “This Is a True Story” sign to pop up.  After all, it’s the reading that’s the best part, not the ending.

Another school year: time to head for the ditch

“It’s not a vocation; I’m more of a worker bee.”  Worker at a state agency, 20 years and counting

“If you do it right, it takes all you have.”  Public advocacy lawyer, 10 years in, looking for other work

I will be starting my 19^th year of teaching shortly, and I’ve vowed this time that I will not be a wrung out, hollow-eyed, sopping mess by the end of it, or even each Friday.  I used to take great pride in my work ethic, in my ability to power through 12 hour days, even though I would be practically sobbing as I left the house.  On the way home, I would be irritable, and then eat way too much, falling into bed with feelings of regret:  “I shouldn’t have said that to that student.  I should have answered more emails.  Why didn’t I do that thing I’ve been meaning to do?  And good God, did I really need that fourth piece of pizza followed by an ice cream chaser?” 

In the past, I’ve been jealous of people like my acquaintance above, a state worker whose vocation is not her job, but her running.  I have zero doubt that she is as conscientious at her job as she is in all other aspects of her life, but it’s clear from her statement that her job is just that: a job.  For a teacher to say that, though, would be anathema.  At the same time, we also have to avoid burnout, like my other acquaintance, the public advocacy lawyer.  Can a person have a vocation, particularly one that witnesses the very personal harm of social inequities day after day, without becoming cynical or burning out?

I freakin’ hope so, or we are all in a lot of trouble.

Mary Rose O’Reilley offers these questions, which I stole and put on my syllabus for student teachers, and yet also resonate for me personally:

Are you eating properly?

Are you exercising?

Are you practicing your art?

Are you involved with communities that love and honor and challenge you?

Do you have someone to talk to about your life?

Those of us who bear witness to suffering—and if you look hard enough, and work with people enough, you know this—need to keep these questions in mind.  If I cannot be whole and present for you because I am tired, upset, and/or have low blood sugar, then I am doing myself and you a grave injustice.  I admire my friends with endless energy and the ability to be social at all times, but that ain’t me.      

“Mind is like a train on rails and the koan knocks out the rails so we can find our true path.”  Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk

Mary Rose O’Reilley writes, “This phrase gives me a conceptual frame inside of which I can choose to not shut down, to not anesthetize myself, to not despair, to not apologize, and to not be ashamed.  Those in my experience, are the traps.  Those are the ways we get stuck in breakdown” (2005, p. 4-5). 

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that a person’s personal koan, or riddle to solve, is to figure out the train that runs on the tracks, because leaving the tracks is liberation.  For me, the train is my identity, and the twin tracks are anxiety and perfectionism.  And that’s why I work beyond my true capacity.  With that, in theory, I get recognition and appreciation, which I seem to crave.  It’s a self-perpetuating thing.  And that’s why work becomes overwhelming with no sense of satisfaction.  I am doing it for false reasons.

 

The thing is, I’ve known that these are my tracks for a while now, but I haven’t understood how to head for the ditch, as Neil Young would say.  However, when I think about it, I realize I actually do have the tools, and they are meditation and yoga.  So I have the way off the tracks, but I’m so attached to the tracks that I fit yoga into my lifestyle instead of the other way around. 

What if yoga came first and work second? 

I’ll just sit with that for a moment. 

It’s not like overworking has done me any good, or really allowed me to accomplish that much.

"'Heart of Gold' put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch." Neil Young

I think I can now accept that life is not about seeking what’s comfortable, but what’s true.  It’s also about service, not overwork.  How much better will it be not only for me, but for others, if I choose genuine, authentic service, instead of the self-service that is simply to soothe my anxieties and perfectionism?  My risk is not jumping off a cliff, but at least heading for the ditch.