For roughly the past decade, I’ve owned two filing cabinets which I’ve filled up every year or two with a bunch of paperwork, including utility bills, bank statements, insurance documents, etc.

In a conversation with Mrs. O last night, we stumbled upon an interesting question: do I really need all of these documents? Why do I carry them all with me? After all, I am 30 years old, do I really need, for example, cable bills from 2001?

So tonight I started emptying them. Roughly 75% of it I was able to throw away immediately, but there wasn’t just “business” stuff in there. There was also some memorabilia from my trip to Europe and birthday/Christmas cards that I had saved and forgotten about.

As I flipped through these cards, I began to feel sadness… and for a little while I thought I missed these people–my family, some friends… but as I went through, it felt less like missing them and more it felt like complete loneliness… and back during the years I was revisiting–1997 through 2001–I did feel completely and utterly alone. What I might have missed–if it can even be called that–was the care and love of my family and friends who at best did nothing to help and at worst kept me in that place of loneliness and despair.

The primary reason I know it wasn’t because I missed them was because my feelings didn’t dissipate but instead grew more intense. When I realized I was feeling despair, the feeling diminished.

Maybe this is completely gross and inappropriate, but does it strike anyone else that the name of Ellen’s new show, “Ellen’s Bigger, Longer, and Wider Show”, looks an awful lot like a dick joke?

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During a drive yesterday (THIS is why I need a voice recorder with me 24/7):

We do not guarantee that you will become sane.
We do not guarantee that you will become insane.
We make absolutely no guarantees; did you think Stef had any guarantees in CT?

Somehow, I found this comforting.

We celebrate a lot of holidays that aren’t really holidays. In truth, there is no such thing as a genuine “holy day,” but some holidays have some sort of objective roots, even if it is just a seasonal celebration.

The most artificial of holidays are the ones where military personnel are “honored” for their “sacrifices.” Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day… these holidays are all about “paying your respects” for the people that murdered and were murdered in various wars throughout the last 100 years.

There is another war holiday, however, that is observed in most countries the world over.

This holiday is Mother’s Day.

Now, I totally grant you that this is a pretty radical thing to say. We’re told that Mother’s Day is “mom’s day”–a day for mom to get whatever she wants because she did so much for us, etc., etc. I will throw out a few ideas and you can tell me if it makes any sense.

First, the origins of Mother’s Day are war-based. The first petitioners for such a day date back to the Civil War era, where the purpose was to honor the mothers who had “lost”–as if they were misplaced somehow–husbands and sons in war. This went on for several decades until it was finally codified as just that–a day to honor the mothers whose sons were off to war, or were killed while at war.

In a time when the vast majority of young men were shipped off to slaughter and be slaughtered, this would encompass the vast majority of mothers out there.

Nowadays, that is not the case as much, and hence Mother’s Day became a day to observe all mothers, not just the ones embedded in the war machine.

This holiday isn’t really about respect, however. It’s about ameliorating the guilt a mother feels when she’s sent off the fruit of her loins to become minced in the great war machine. It’s about helping the mother continue to pretend that sending her children off to war is an honorable thing.

The state of the world is such that the virtues that are proclaimed the loudest are often covering the exact opposite behavior. A man who puffs himself up about his honesty is generally dishonest. However, a man that is genuinely honest does not need to proclaim his honesty–it is evident in his deeds.

Since Mother’s Day is sold to us as a way of “honoring” our mothers, we should be skeptical. It is much more likely the case that this holiday is about covering up the most dishonorable acts that can be imagined.

When dishonorable people do not get their counterfeit goodies, they become enraged. It’s a common experience for adult children to forget Mother’s Day, and for the mother to become aggressive, using guilt, manipulation, or even outright bullying to humiliate their adult children. (From mom, for example: “Why didn’t you call? Were your fingers broken?”; alternatively, the incredulous looks from peers when they discover you’ve not “honored” your mother.)

I’m not saying that the category of “mother” is a bad thing, not at all. It can be a powerfully good thing, like most any other station in life. However, the degree to which it can be good is the degree to which it can go horribly wrong.

I leave you with this pragmatic thought: if you truly do love your mother and wish to honor her, do not wait for the day when you are “supposed” to do it. If you do not feel the desire to honor her but do not know why, then talk to her about it. Do that, and see how you feel.

This is explosive, no doubt! However, it is far better for you–and especially for your children–that you strive to put honesty into practice rather than continuing to pretend that your mother is somebody she is not.

The conjunction of a recent premium podcast and part 3 on a series on depression (1 2) got me thinking…

I had to take a walk, just to get out.

It was about an hour, and I gotta tell ya… now my computers sound really, REALLY loud.

Of course, there’s so little going on around here after midnight. I could hear birds–owls?–as well as men holding quiet conversations over 100ft away. If I had been interested in eavesdropping, I probably could have.

But no… I was feeling anxiety, and anger, and … well, at least that much. I was beginning to think of the call between G and N. I realized that nobody gives me much feedback. Not that I don’t ever receive any, but I rarely get feedback from others as a general rule.

So the question that comes to my mind is, what am I missing? What am I blind to? What am I avoiding, and what am I withholding?

The other thoughts and feelings that were provoked by the depression series–especially the last one–was this realization that I’ve been living so small… and what would I do to make it big? Well, part of me knows, or at least has an idea, I think.

I’m also feeling some anxiety and irritation in the wake of depression part 3… like I’m being told to do something, and I just rankle against being told to do anything.

I don’t know if that’s all of it, and of course, I’m sure I’m missing something… but what?

I avoid, I withdraw, I disappear… I stay small, I don’t grow, I remain in pain, I don’t take care… so… what is it that I am missing? What am I blind to?

[Edited to add] – I didn’t explicitly ask for feedback originally but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts? If you do, let’s have a skype chat about it.

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… please stay tuned, we have some behind-the-scenes processing going on. We will return you to your regularly unscheduled blogging as soon as we can.

Wherein I discuss an epiphany, a conversation, a dream…

And to Rich: I apologize for acting out the other night. I was experiencing a great deal of irritation and had not even attempted to process it before responding to you.

And regarding self-excoriation: I’m not trying to beat myself up for the past–I cannot change it; I simply want to recognize what this habit is costing me, especially in what’s been going on recently.

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