…this photo as a note…in looking up and seeing the garden here, one evening in the street light.. my projections on the natural expressions, redolent with meaning, almost as a word or phrase…
Day 474: Redefining Writing: Evidence, Affront and Trespass
.Evidence of how I have defined a word comes up in me as I am about to put that word into action.
So here, as I am about to write, I observe those moments of hovering, those moments prior to the decision to just simply go in there and do it; and for me I notice within the fear of setting down the pen onto the page – again – as if the patience were wearing thin… yes writing out – Again! – only this time staying with myself within that fear, in all its vagueness, and in the face of that impatience, to see what might exist in it; and what I notice kind of within the folds of that fear, is a feeling of Affront, as if the intention to resume the writing were the cause of it. Both at the same time really: in the feeling of Affront; of being offended, and as well the feeling of being the cause of the offense.
This is a cool discovery for me: extracting these specific words from out of what had previously been nameless, shapeless. There may be and are many other dimensions to this fear, but here is one of them.
Playing with the word Offense, the phrase ‘Uneasy sits the Crown’ comes up, and it seems apt to me as so often examples of Offense being taken involve a being with a position to defend, who has a hidden insecurity, since the ground of their authority is in some way false. Sometimes I’ve noticed offense being taken when an expectation from the other person has been unconsciously like a feeding of respect for their position, or for some other thing, so that when that feed is no longer felt to be in place, they take offense – as if their elevated rank for example had been doubted, they feel slighted; as if there had been a breech of contract.
And in ‘taking offense’, that is with me taking offense: such as in not being taken seriously: those moments in which I feel that I am deliberately misinterpreted, for the sake of a joke or a giggle, and I am unwilling to look at the possibility that I am becoming quite intense or over earnest, unwilling to see that a moment of levity could be valid, unwilling to consider that I might have strayed into a personality of some kind, unwilling to consider that I might have lost my way, unwilling to consider that what I’m seeing as an attack may actually be supportive. All of this exists within me as experience, as memories that contain that experience of being offended, taking offense. If that were not so then I would not recognize this feeling in me that comes up as I am approaching writing: I would have nothing to recognize it with.
And with the feeling of Offense that comes up, there is a fear of that feeling also, a fear of standing in it, staying with it, and also that feeling as well of having caused offense, or that possibly I might cause offence. A question here is this: by participating in this fear around Writing, what self definition am I living out, what word expression am I using for this purpose, when by participating in that fear, I validate that reaction of Offense, and I am actually being as a pest, a nuisance. Here is like the other side of it, though as I am approaching Writing they are both as one. So like in approaching Writing I am approaching the grounds of a complaint, where the complaint has been, “If not for this and that… nuisance… happening…then life would just go on and on, and on…” And so in a way the writing-ground is pre-defined within the parameters of complaint – as a kind of trespass – and the words if written down at all – are disposed towards defense – and as a trespasser, there is the feeling of causing an offense, kind of tip-toeing around on someone else’s land.
In the case of thinking that I have offended someone – and usually it’s way later – it matters to me a lot. Feeling shocked that this had happened, I go back and re-examine everything I can, with self questioning and re-runs, looking at all the angles, like was it something I said or didn’t say, something I did or didn’t do – perhaps it is not that drastic – but there is an insecurity opens up in me – and though often I do not find out if it happened or not, because times go by, and moments are gone, I think that mostly it was not real, it was usually me giving reality to something that did not happen, that is me validating a suggestion or suspicion in my mind. This is a good reminder to me of how I can be manipulated by for example someone resonating or even feigning offense, with me going into a reaction that is out off proportion, and also with the self manipulation, where that familiar doubt or feeling of having caused offense can have the result of me not going ahead with my intentions, as in the case of trespassing on someone’s land, not doing it.
Well who is it whose land I am considering to trespass in? Obviously all of it is me, and looking at the nuances within the fear of writing, all of them are also part of me: these feelings of offense and fear of them, these fears of causing an offense, who I am within and as my reactions to them, my validations of them. I take a look again at what I said about being the one who takes offense, and being unwilling to consider that I strayed into a personality of some kind, and that phrase ‘Uneasy sits the Crown’; a personality of the mind can have a sort of energetic insecurity, and that feeling of offense though rationalized into all kinds of human relationships and contexts, could also be like a survival fear of the personality itself, an expression of instability of a system.
There is part of me that is my mind, that part of me that is the mind, as all the words that I’ve been living, or existing as, and there is the part me that is the life within those words, responsible for their meaning, responsible for the nature of the mind, responsible for the automation of those words, responsible for my absence from them; so that as I develop self awareness in my redefinition process and give back to me my self responsibility it seems as if a relationship exists between myself and my programmed automation, in which largely I have kind of let things run, as in on and on and on.
There is kind of a relief in seeing that you are tied, because then there is a way forward, there is the possibility of then seeing How it works, rather than remaining in a wordless overwhelmingness in which one has become accustomed and familiar with resignation, and then such as with me, finds a positive energy for that, experiencing it as laziness… that everything’s ok, that I have time, just wait until the energy has changed…
In Breech of Contract comes up through Affront, Offense, and Trespass: words associated with crime and law, and so stemming from Authority. A personality of the mind, as a world of fraud can only function with the absence of evidence: it quavers, trembles, becomes unstable and shaky and deceptive as the lie on which it feeds is becoming likely to get written out. Within myself as both the maker and the breaker of my world of laws and contracts and dubious definitions I see now within this post these points as pushed up surface features pointing me towards who I am on deeper levels as ambiguous authority.
…continuing into this.. next post…
Adam's Journey Into Life 