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I'm self conscious
Why do I put myself in these situations?
I am sitting here shivering, blasted by wind and dust. Pouting and feeling so angry at Me-From-a-Few-Weeks-Ago who somehow thought signing up for this bracing adventure would be a great experience for Me-Now.
Why am I so terrible at that: making good decisions for Future-Me?
There's this psychological concept I've come across called Poor Affective Forecasting:
The idea of not being able to predict well how we will feel in a future scenario: to see our Future Selves as somehow completely different people than we are now, with completely different needs and capacities and feelings.
Ever left a task for tomorrow — you know, when you'll have more energy? — only to discover, come tomorrow, that it feels an awful exhaustedly lot like today?
So, fine... At least it seems I'm not alone in this.
But misery-loving-company notwithstanding, I still just can't help feeling sorry for myself as I sit here shivering, blasted by wind and dust... still.
Which I feel annoyed and — to some extent, I suppose — embarrassed about because, again, I chose to say yes to this! As this present frigid gusty moment came closer and closer to manifest reality, I had ample repeated opportunities to back out... yet I did not.
And so now here I am... suffering.
Because here's the larger issue at play here.
The act of taking care of Myselves across the mysterious chasm of spacetime feels a near impossible task for Me-Now.
The discernment required to tease apart the difference between...
A challenging yet enriching experience, pushing me just enough outside my comfort zone to allow me to integrate new growth — like the muscular micro tears responsible for strength building — ultimately resulting in a more capable, more resilient and wholer version of myself: aiding me to deepen and better my work in this world...
... Versus ...
An overwhelming and largely counterproductive expenditure of energy and resources, which — in its intensity and bypassing of my current capacities and thresholds — will ultimately lead to a pendulum like rubber- band- snap back into entrenched patterns of numbing out and comforting: thereby inhibiting my ability to show up for deeper, better work in the world and making it harder for me to take on needful challenges as they arise.
It feels like a tight rope of a fine line I have yet to learn how to skillfully traverse: knowing when to say yes and when to say no.
I know how to unilaterally say no: shut the world out. Hide from everything I can. Shrink my world down to the smallest possible set of repeated behaviors and compulsively comfort seeking habits.
I know how to unilaterally say yes: to say yes because it's something I believe in. Or something I want to be good at. Or because of internalized conditioning telling me I should say yes to it lest my egoic identity as a strong, resilient, up- for- it, tenacious, go- getting, easygoing, capable man be called into question.
Or because what I'm really saying yes to is actually the idea, rather than the thing itself.
The idea of spending two days on a cold, windy, desolate, deserted island with nothing to eat but the food and supplies I've schlept on my back and no way to get in touch with the mainland no matter what happens until the boat comes back in 48 hours... for example.
The idea of a thing... I understand it so much better than I understand the actual experience of a thing.
At least from the vantage point of Present-Time-Me, at which point I'm actually making the decision, based on the ideas, that Future-Me will then be stuck with the practical experience of!
As evidenced by my present reality:
Lying here as I am, tossing and turning, and trying to practice... surrender.
Not sure to who or what exactly... I suppose, in a way, surrendering to the consequences of the hypothetical idea -based choices past me decided to make.
But, on a deeper level, I suppose I'm surrendering to the Tide: to the Way of the current circumstances — regardless of how I'd prefer them to be. Surely it will take less energy, I reason, to learn how best I can navigate the currents and eddies of this stream- of- now as they are, rather than attempting to change the Rivers course.
A tricky thing, though, when it comes to holding on to a sense of empowerment at the same time.
What a dangerous weapon such a deeply nuanced piece of wisdom might offer to those looking to wield rather than understand it
Yet... eventually... counting these philosophical quandaries like intricately fleeced sheep must have yielded something of benefit because, gradually, I emerge from the half- dream- half- wakefulness of the night's ironically described respite to the bright sunlight of a new day's opportunities.
While the wind certainly hasn't died down, the sun's optimism and perhaps my late night existential musings lead me to throw myself into the nearby freezing body of water — Noticing the stark difference between the choiceful sharp shock of salty sea and the draining disheartenment of the Gust's incessant consistency.
As I emerge to dry, I find a spot sheltered enough to not be wholly bowled over by this impressively pertinacious gale, and I sit— eyes closed. And I breathe.
For the first few minutes, my mind is consumed, as per usual, with the unsolvable preoccupations of the not- today's day-to-day I shall soon return to, but which have, of course, followed me with their usual tenacious temerity even as far as this remote spot.
But then... after a few minutes... I become aware of two simultaneous sensations, one on each side of my body.
On my left side, from the top of my temple to the tips of my toes, I feel the wind — Cold, Forceful, Insistent — as if it needs me to understand something only it can convey and it will not stop its tempest tantrum until I do.
But on my right side, there's a subtler sensation: higher up and at an angle. I feel the warmth of the sun penetrating through and beneath the wind's chill: exciting my cells. Somehow transmitting to me from millions of miles away a sense of calm, of peace.
Like it's all going to be all right, somehow... even as the wind continues to blow.
Eventually, I open my eyes and look around and suddenly I seem to see for the first time the beauty of the landscape I am immersed in, and the meaningfulness of the sharing of this experience with the person sitting by my side.
And the wind's still cold.
And the sun still warm.
And I feel a strange gratitude for Past- Me's lack of awareness of what it would feel like getting to this moment, because it would've meant that Present- Me couldn't be having this nuanced and complex experience of peace and presence and wonder and... cold!
Which brings me all the way back to this notion of Poor Affective Forecasting.
Apparently, while it can of course be detrimental in its inability for us to make good choices now for our Hard-to-Imagine-Future-Selves, at the same time sometimes our so-called Focalism — our tendency to narrowly focus on a single aspect of a future circumstance... Our inability, in other words, to accurately imagine the full slog of the situation to come — can help us to say yes to circumstances which, despite the strain, we'll ultimately feel grateful for.
And I still don't know exactly how to discern where that balance lies...
How Me-of-Right-Now can best identify what will turn out to be just enough of a challenge for Me-of-the-Future... and what will be too much.
But, for now... With the wind on one side of me — Cold, Forceful, Insistent — and the sun on the other — Emanating, Glowing, Deeply Warming — it seems the balance has tipped just enough in this one simple moment of sensational awareness.
So who knows? Maybe I'll come back...
Maybe.
I don't know...
What do you think?
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