I’ve spent a few years cleaning up my act.  I’ve done a good enough job that, in general, I find talking about my life to be sort of dull.  Excellent.  Additionally, I’ve gotten my act together enough that I have a sufficient living and a house with a shop and, eventually, gardens and orchards and things.

Lovely.  Good.

Somehow, though, in the span of about six weeks, I am fraught with drama again.  I didn’t want it.  I don’t want it.  I don’t believe that emotional turmoil improves life, nor is necessary.

But here it is.

I’m still parsing which bits I can speak of publicly without causing myself problems, so I’m afraid that’s about what I’ve got.

At the behest of Aberdeen:

http://www.brokenpatternltd.tumblr.com

That’s pretty much it.  After a decade of credit rehabilitation, we have purchased and are living in a house.

… and for reasons I can’t explain (cause I don’t know) I am less frightened of repercussions for displaying my life and my feelings.

I have been sent away to Seattle, bereft of home, hearth, an my honey.  Life is empty, life is drear.  I took part in the computer geek activities that took the first portion of the day, and had a couple hours to kill.  Nothing called to me, nothing sang my name soft and low, so I walked through the cold rains where none knew me and all eyes were filled with suspicion as I passed.  I went down and north, then down and south, and north again.

Until I came to Beecher’s Handmade Cheese.

I had no need of cheese, but the glamorous and brilliant-edged Libby, daughter of my soul, once worked there, building her mighty cheese-making arms and honing her magnificent tourist-cutting grin (both thumbs up, of course).  I had my own grin, and the tourists were wary of me.  I walked around the place, viewing it from all angles, considering the ways of it, how it changed the environment by laying as it did.  I thought of cheese that came my way, and stories of the thankless anguish of a cheesemaker’s life, and how things taste better with a bit of good cheese sprinkled over — or how life is better with a bit of a cheesemaker in it.

I pressed my hands and face to the window, hoping that one of the captive cheesemakers within would display their mighty thews or favor me with a well-cheddared grin, but was disappointed and had to make do with being chased off by the proprieter.

Thanks, Libby — I needed the grin.  How you did that from so far away is beyond me.

If one is being channeled into decisions or values that one doesn’t agree with, that is a form of oppression. If one gives in to this, one’s natural reactions will generally be rage or identification with the oppressor — adopting the oppressor’s values and expectations. Once one is identifying with the oppressor, one’s inner conflict is manifest as dissatisfaction with one’s own qualities, that one is falling short so badly.

…and, if one is constantly urged to not exhibit anger, this is an attempt of the oppressor to make the decision between rage/identification.

Oh.

No lengthy analysis. And no single cause. But.

I am enjoying the opportunities afforded me by a host of others who want things of my behavior. They either want me to do things — “because you want to, not because I tell you to” — or to refrain from doing things — because that’s how I ought to act (if I had their values, not my own).

Then the punishment free and frank exchanges of ideas begins, because I am an utter failure at being what most people want me to be, or even understand me to be.

I’m not entirely certain what, if anything, is appropriate to do in these cases. On the one hand, it seems self-annihilating to feel one set of things and act in an entirely different way based on the expectations or demands of others. On the other, that’s what keeps me from being arrested in civilized society. I imagine there’s some sort of continuum rather than polar states, but I confess that the discrimination to see the gradients eludes me.

I will note here that my expectations of others is that they will behave as they see they ought, and that they will act in their own interests where they can — whether that benefits me or not. My expectations are generally met, and that strikes me as appropriate; I don’t believe that others would benefit from living their lives to suit me (however much they would benefit from my superior judgement).

I’m also not entirely certain how far is appropriate to go to avoid the punis– the exchange of ideas. Obviously I don’t need to welcome them, but do I need to permit the venting? Do I run and hide? Strike back? That last doesn’t suit me; I don’t, in general, see much point to angry confrontation.

Hrmph.