Trying to tell me something

One of the conversations I had with K at her birthday gathering (yes, the one with the book of what we've learned) was about the expression "somebody's trying to tell me something." You know: when circumstance and the confluence of events seem to form patterns or suggest some deeper meaning, as if someone behind the scenes were manipulating things in such a way to, well, send me a message.

These days, it seems like I get that feeling a lot. But I remain skeptical, and at the time, that's basically what I told K. When you get that feeling, I said, no one's trying to tell you anything, that's just your own head doing its thing. The brain is designed to organize information, find patterns, look for meaning -- that's what it does. I guess technically that is someone though -- that's you telling yourself something. But does your subconscious really know better, or is it just rationalization? Is it just making excuses?

It's been a rough year. I've already mentioned that (in a relative sense, at least) life is still pretty good, but given the relative suckitude day-to-day, sometimes I quietly wonder to myself, "does somebody out there have it out for me or something?" But, y'know, I don't really subscribe to the sentient divine -- that there's some dude sitting up in the sky, big white beard or no, deciding the minutiae of everybody's everyday lives. TheWandis suggested that maybe He has it out for me precisely because I don't believe in Him.

Well, maybe.

I accept that there are things that I don't understand. But I'm also a nerd, so for me, it always gets back to probability and statistics and well, coin flips. You know, the whole thing where the probability is always 50/50, meaning that even though statistically, over time, you should end up with an approximately equal number of heads and tails, that fact remains that for any given flip, and even any flip is a sequence of flips, the odds for that one flip are still 50/50. Meaning, nothing in the probability excludes the possibility that you could call heads on 1000 coin flips and get 1000 tails in a row. Someone trying to tell you something? (Well, besides me trying to explain how bad luck is just luck.) No, it's just luck in it's purest form. Probability. It's not you being unlucky... well ok, it is. But what I mean is that a person isn't intrinsically unlucky, we just say a person is unlucky when he suffers from unfortunate circumstance.

Luck, and shit, happens.

So, recently it's felt like somebody has been trying to tell me that I should give up on massagemuscular therapy school. What are the signs? Well, for one, things seem to keep happening to my hands. This past March, I scraped up both my hands, because on a long training run... I just fell down. I can't think of one single other occurrence in over 20 years of running where that's happened just running along the street, even the ones where I've rolled ankles. Then in June, I sliced open my right hand doing dishes. And then in July I tore a ligament in my thumb (and subsequently had surgery in August). And a few days after I officially got the (second) splint off (after the cast and the first splint), the day the rehab therapist told me I was making great progress, I cut my hand again washing dishes. (Thankfully, just a superficial cut -- yay! Dull knife! *sigh*) Then, deathly ill during the first week of class. And then this week where I couldn't find enough practice bodies for technique homework. I had one for today but she cancelled yesterday because she had gotten sick. I tried to schedule a massage for myself (we can use that as a substitute for homework twice a semester), and never got a call back. I was feeling pretty frustrated last night, trying to scramble and get in touch with classmates at the last minute. *

Really, is someone trying to tell me something? At this point I'm not sure whether I'm being rational, or just stubborn.

But, y'know, I take a weird approach to this sort of thing. Especially when it comes to giving up on something. Am I just being a quitter? I'm afraid that I'm just taking the easy way out, the path of least resistance, which is something I have come to realize drove a lot of my decisions growing up: avoidance in the face of challenge and adversity. So sometimes I do things because I'm intentionally trying to stare down my desire to do the easy thing. Unfortunately, that whole process muddles my ability to figure out what it is that I really want to be doing. And you throw in the signs and portents, and it's all over -- it's an exercise in trying to figure out what is real and what is manufactured, and really it's effectively flying blind, taking shots in the dark. It's using the force.

So you do it. If just for the sake of doing it. The SOOTTAD was talking to me about that. She left a framed Goethe quote with me when she moved:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness... There is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too... A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
-Goethe

It's funny. At least three people, maybe more, made comments last week during class about me being in my head, or needing to get out of it, and I suppose this is what they were talking about. Help! I've fallen into my head and I can't get out! I think I told one of them that I could turn it off. I suspect that I lied.

It's troublesome at times, but I think sometimes that it's only through the mental exercises and gyrations that gets me through some of life's darker moments -- the frustrations, depression, malaise, the badness. Things may be crappy, but it can help me realize that it's not me, it's not in my circle of concern, it's not in my circle of control. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. (Or not.)

And there are times when I do fall in... but at some point, I just throw it all out, close my eyes and take a step. But I suppose from the outside it looks just as much like an outcome arisen after much analysis and deliberation. Unless of course they're close enough, just before, to hear me say: "fuck it."

And then I can only hope that I won't, once again, be thwarted by circumstance.

* I was feeling pretty disappointed about that initially because I didn't hear back from any of them. But then I got an email, and another classmate called this morning. Which made be feel a lot better about things, even though the one called back later this afternoon to cancel because her plans changed unexpectedly.