is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Problems Solved By Cats, Friends, and BrainYoga.
When my doctor was asking about various health concerns so that he might come up with a diagnosis of my heart condition, one of his questions was �do you have panic attacks?�. And my first answer was: �No.� But then of course I added, �Well, not very often.� He gave me a look. I can�t help it. My personality is divided into the part that acknowledges the messy aspects of being who I am and the part who speaks to people during the daytime hours and always appears to have all things running just as they should.
I�ve tried in past years to smash through that division, or at least to render it more permeable, starting years ago with this article which isn�t really like much else I�ve ever written except for occasional entries in this webdiary. After a traumatic experience of not saving someone�s life, and having to deal with the after-effects of people�s reactions to that and of their discomfort with how to act with me with regard to it, it occurred to me that only giving the world the face of the person who has all things running just as they should is a form of cruelty. And it�s not only self-cruelty I�m talking about, since self-cruelty can be very useful, and not in a masochistic way. (It�s Nietzsche and Levinas who teach this, and no matter what anyone thinks or says, both of those thinkers have made me into a better person. You wouldn�t like me if it weren�t for them. Or at least I�d make it much harder for you.)
It�s not only self-cruelty. Because no one in the world benefits from thinking that anyone is immune to the tremors of self-doubt or deep sadness or uncontrolled fright that do contribute to making every human being what she or he is. It helps no one to think that anyone is free from those things. But we (by which I mean people raised in a certain set of western traditions) are so sure that the public is separate from the private, and that the two are kept apart for the sake of justice�for god�s sake (and literally!)�that we often are blind even to the political cruelties involved in such a division, let alone the personal ones. �I won�t ask if you won�t tell!� What kind of a bargain is that?! It says: �As long as you promise never to do or say anything that betrays the ways in which your life might be unimaginable to me, indeed, as long as you swear never to challenge my worldview at all, I promise to treat you fairly, and to keep my own self guarded as well. On that basis we might just continue to get along, my friend.�
And who needs friends such as these?
I can see the limited sense to this as a terrible political compromise made in a difficult situation. But even then I would hope for a better solution than Don�t Ask Don�t Tell. Like maybe: Get Over Yourself. (And that could even be a colloquial translation of what is already a metaphor in Nietzsche�s work, of leaping over one�s own self�s limits.) Or, more properly: Interrupt Me, I Deserve It. Or, in case that is still too shorthandy (by which I mean, wrapped up in a set of thoughts that are clear to me but to no one else): I Seem To Stand For A Worldview That Pretty Much Preaches Tolerance, So Call Me On It.
You could call that self-cruelty, because it means you�ll have to be ready to have your view of the world constantly challenged, de-centered, re-viewed. But you would only consider it cruelty if you were excessively attached to an idea that calls itself tolerance but will only tolerate what it could have predicted it would have to tolerate. And I would argue that that is precisely not what tolerance is. Tolerance (and here�s where I admit that I truly hate the word and would rather just change the discussion to focus elsewhere, but that�s another topic), at least as it functions in a certain political history, if it is to have any meaningful political resonance, will have to stand for tolerance for what challenges and interrupts our ideas about how the world works. That is the only way we can really associate it with a conception of justice.
I Seem To Stand For A Worldview That Pretty Much Preaches (sic) Tolerance, So Call Me On It. We could take it farther, asking why we have to wait to be called on it. Why it is always the job of the outsider to demonstrate her status as such? But I doubt there is any political theory capable of fixing that particular structure of human thought. There surely are theories better and worse at leaving the margins permeable. And that, perhaps, is what we should imagine when we think about what matters about being a self, or a group, with an aspiration to justice, or simple happiness. Borders that define belongingness are arbitrary. They always need to be rethought.
So I woke up this morning, and yesterday morning, in the midst of a panic attack. Ha! Remember how this all started? It was about ME. It�s odd to think that panic attacks could be caused by leaky heart valves rather than emotional terror, the weight of various stress factors, or intellectual overload. But of course I doubt it is possible to separate all those things from each other. Anyway, whenever I am panicking I find that it really helps to lay on my back. That calms me down a bit. And it helps even more to lay on my back with a cat on my chest. Duster was really good at that. The Rhombus was also good at it, and was especially effective with his immense sixteen-pound catbulk. (Maine Coons are huge!) Who could panic when weighted down with a mass of purring catmeat? Hans Blix, in his glory days, would have been great at it, too (Norwegian Forest Cats are huge!), but he would have none of it. No Laying On Chests was one of his slogans. Keep It To Snuggling Up Against Legs or Thighs was another. That�s OK. He has other charms. However, the new version, the incredible shrinking Hans Blix, manorexia deluxe, is fine with laying on chests. So we chatted a bit. Things got a little better. And then they went up and down throughout the course of days.
There doesn�t have to be a reason for a panic attack, but usually there is one, if you�re me. It might be about knowing that it will cost roughly $10,000 give or take 3K between now and September to move to New York and that I have none of that money, none at all. It might be about a cat who may be dying, and will I know when to make a decision about that. It might be about paying bills this month. It might be about love, or fear, or bravery, or scaredy-catness. And, who knows, it might be about being dehydrated and having heart palpitations. Apparently those things make a difference. However, today Evany said to me: �Panic attacks are the brain's version of the soreness that comes from yogastretching yourself to a new plateau of flexibility.� So maybe soon I�ll wake up and everything will seem normal and fine, even though the conditions are the same.
11:27 p.m. - April 04, 2007
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