What’s more frustrating than not being understood, than feeling as if your deepest most powerful thoughts and emotions are being directed into nothing more substantial than a gentle breeze?

It’s understanding something you had not seen before in a blinding flash of inspiration long after the moment when that understanding could have been useful. Of having said and done the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time and then…and then realizing that you had taken a path…and then…and then getting a fleeting glimpse of that path not taken.

From a pure science perspective, this is fascinating. From an emotional perspective, this is devestating.

Why is this happening to me every day these days?

Everyone has had the moment of the perfect come back, the perfect line, the perfect phrase thought of long after the moment has passed.

[note: there’s a French phrase that means this perfectly but I can’t find it right now]
[update: toneman eased my troubled mind by pointing out in the comments that the phrase I was looking for was “l’esprit d’escalier”. I’m so happy he told me. That was pissing me off.]

This is what I’m experiencing right now, at this very moment, chugging coffee, sitting in a coffeehouse avoiding doing real substantial work that might get me out of the hole, wallowing in a moment of understanding that is completely useless because it came WAY too late (about two hours actually). Thinking only, “I am an idiot!”

Strange seeing how that story you tell yourself can blind you to the world. Strange knowing that this is happening and feeling your mind run with that story. Strange also knowing that you’re working through a story in your head that has very little to do with the outside world, knowing that story you tell yourself is destroying all that is good and pure around you, and yet you run with it anyway. Strange almost being able to watch yourself from the corner of the room say the most asinine things and you think, while you’re saying them, “Man, that guy is a fool. Look at him prattle and strut. Watch this! It’s going to go to hell. And there it goes. HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Goddamn, I thought I had gotten past this shit. Fuck! I’m so mad at my brain right now. I’d give it a good thrashing if I thought it would help.

I’m going home right now and getting a hammer. That’s it, man! I’ve had it with my brain! No more of this crap! It’s either me or my brain! It’s a death match! A futile battle of dimwits! Who will win…me or my brain!

I think it’s already won…bastard brain…

[note and update: The above happened when I had a sudden and overwhelming need to reread an email “The Recently Lost One” (as described in too many places in previous posts) had sent in response to an email I had sent. In that previous email, I was sure, confident, and righteous in my logic and certain I understood it all, every moment and deed between us has run through my head in the past few weeks. I was on fire!

So I was rereading her email that caused me to post the previous thing about the absolute frustration of not being understood and I had that moment of perfect post-facto understanding described above. Originally, I was going to leave it purposely vague and then I realized that I was being dishonest so here I am again.

I am here again because on the frist reading of her email I saw only what fit that story I had been telling myself. My fucking useless brain had filtered out all the stuff that even vaguely contradicted the story of my own brilliant logic and ultimate righteousness. I saw what the self-destructive side wanted to see. I thought I had slaughtered that drooling idiot (or am I the drooling idiot?) a few weeks ago. I thought with understanding came acceptance and moving on.

Turns out that mental demons are much harder to destroy than I had hoped.

I sit here and I can’t help but wonder why. On rereading I saw entire paragraphs I did not see the first time through it. It was as if my world was momentarily edited by a censor who put blackouts over everything that it needed me not to see. The self-destructive story saw what it wanted to see, what it hadto see to keep up that story and took my mind over for a few minutes. Just long enough to say something truly stupid and insipid, and then gave me back control like it was just a joke. Like my own mind was playing an evil practical joke on me. What’s up with that?

The beauteous part of this is that with each new glimpse into this self-destroying mechanism comes a whole new wave of horror about what has just happened. And even more beautiful is that I get to experience this moments later like I’m watching video of my own beheading.

An amazing side feature of that momentary flash of inspiration was that I realized yet another silly and horrifying thing about myself. That little of this confusion, bad feelings, or misery over the past year would have happened if, just once, she had said, “I think you’re wrong, but I suppose I can understand that.” That simple affirmation of my right to exist would have washed away much of my angst about the twisted up situation. Because that didn’t happen, it gave the self-destruct mechanism something to latch onto, to dig into, to harp about, to bore away into the flesh like a parasite, growing and growing, until it was all.

Or on second thought, the little fucker in my head probably would have found something else to pick at, to tear apart, to rend, to destroy like it needed to, and knowing that is hard to cope with.

Oh, yeah, I’m definitely getting a hammer when I get home.]

[note and update 2: I walked around Tucson for quite some time yesterday in complete and utter shock, the kind of shock new people describe after the bombing, the kind of shock you have when wake up and find yourself falling from 20,000 feet up. No real thought. A few sounds of dawning acceptance just to pretend like I had power and was able to cope with the revelation, “Okay…wow…huh..okay…yeah…okay…okay…okay…”

And then I woke up and drove to work to start heating up food for a breakfast catering job and I thought, “Okay.”

I actually got to see the wizard hiding behind the screen. I got shake his hand. I got to live through the moment in Fight Club where the Narrator sees Tyler in his hotel room and says, “Tyler, what the fuck is going on here?”

Okay. I’m going crazy. Yep, I’m going crazy. This is not cool at all.

Or maybe I’m going sane in a crazy world?

Yeah.

Okay.