Saturday, May 26, 2018

Intuition needs disciplined.


The Mormons who raised me wanted to call intuition The Spirit. But I think that put it in a box that it didn’t like. While yes, intuition is a recognized epistemology, somehow, The Spirit allows Mormons to keep truth in black and white lanes. While I suspect--I begin to suspect, as one does in one’s 30s--that intuition is valid and allows for much more nuance than simple True and False. I much prefer intuition as a shape-shifting target dodger and I think I enjoy the journey of the pursuit.

So, this is not what I mean about disciplining one’s intuition. Not defining it, or boxing it up. I think what I mean is that—now that I work as a scientist in a reference laboratory, this work forces me to exercise muscles that writing music doesn’t necessarily exercise. It’s helping me build this iron framework around which creativity is spiraling up like vines.

A runner goes to the gym and builds muscles in ways that running alone can’t build, but which vastly improves the running. Working on all my left brain accuracy and precision and analysis and problem-solving at work translates into having better analytical instincts for my music. And providing a clear and simple framework like this seems to free up the creativity. I’m not trying to discipline the little bursts of inspiration themselves. I can let them be, because I built a solid skeleton for them to flourish around.      

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

/r/exmormon reddit post by me

Title: Surprised by my feelings after receiving my resignation letter--anyone else feel this way?

Body: 


It was: panicked, unmoored, and regretful, in that order, for several minutes. Then a wave of what I think may have been actual mourning, which I haven't felt about the church at all, ever. I always expected, at some point, to feel very, very sad that the church isn't true, because I was a hardcore believer. I remembered reading about Joanna Brooks' intense affection for the church she has mostly stopped believing in literally, and I wondered when I might feel that. In all the 6-8 years of my faith transition, all I've really ever felt is relief at releasing myself from Mormon mind shackles, and anger/frustration about all the time and energy I wasted in them.

So the panic, the disturbed feeling of free-floating, and most of all the regret (??) were all very unsettling. I guess I had expected to feel immediate peace and joy. Release.

The regret was specifically about records: records of moments in my life, in my family---my baptism, endowment, sealing, the Mormon milestones--those records being held and kept somewhere, evidence of my existence, the sort of thing historians hundreds of years from now might scour for clues about our lives. Those records of me being erased. Even though I believe it’s all based on fraud and manipulation, those milestones did happen, and I did live them, and now, possibly, the don’t exist in their official place. (Or do they? Is it possible they still exist, but only now include the fact that I don’t believe the bullshit anymore? I don’t know.) I honestly hadn't thought of that consequence.

On the other hand, that does give me additional motivation to make something of my life such that there will be other clues of my existence.

And of course there are government records of me.

And what is the mourning about? Somehow removing my name has allowed me for the first time to feel the loss of what I used to hope and believe the Mormon church was. It is simply not what it says it is. Not the truth claims, not the Zion community, not the one true church of the one true God. It’s not even a healthy community. Since becoming an adult, it's never lived up. But long ago as a child, surrounded by the teachers, leaders, friends in the only church I'd ever known, it used to actually be those things for me. And I think taking my name off forced me to finally mourn rather than celebrate that loss.

Anyway, it’s all very surprising. What a journey. Any of you relate?

(A few hours after posting, there follow a few comments from fellow redditors. They are lovely. Maybe I will re-type and post a few of them as comments on this blogpost. Which is probably against reddit rules?? But only Michael reads my blog. Fuckit.)

(Early this morning I am also composing a set of themeless variations (yes!) that I am so excited about. It's so incredibly fun. I am one of my best ever selves when I am composing, seriously. That's making me feel better about life again.)



Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Just scattered diary stuff



So many people are talking and saying so many things, that I stop talking, and listen only. Consume only. And even don’t think my own thoughts all that much, just react to other people’s thoughts.

Ah. So the solution must be to stop reading and listening to other’s thoughts once in a while (not stop completely, of course) and start writing about my own—add to the conversation, contribute, produce, don’t only consume. But then there are even more voices in the fray. 

And it’s not like I have no faith in the value of my own contribution. I’m sure my contribution would be lovely and fine. But not that far above most educated people’s contributions. And so many educated people with such good thoughts are already contributing.  

I don’t really have faith in the value of my contribution in the current context of blogs articles social media posts videos podcasts lengthy comment sections subreddits everybody’s conversations ringing in my eyes and ears and brain.

The thing is, most people have a valuable contribution to make to some conversation, somewhere. And the conversations are all everywhere.

I’m mostly thinking of word spaces, but art spaces seem similarly cluttered. Fuck, actual space is cluttered. Too fucking many people in the world. It’s exhausting.  

It’s possible that I have a need to be the only one at something. I’m a niche-finder, and there aren’t really that many unoccupied niches. So possibly I should abandon niche-hunting? Abandon the hunt for recognition? It’s not like I have much hope of being recognized as anything special anywhere, at anything. And I’m not saying that in a depressed way, necessarily. But the part of my life where I was chasing ambitions is over and I’m slowly realizing I need to figure out what to do now, what to do next.

What do I do with my gifts? I know I have gifts. It’s actually all I have, really. Well, I have survival. That’s what my life is mostly aimed at—working for the man who gives me insulin for free. He’s not a bad man, ok? There are much worse men. They’re mostly politicians, I guess.

Aside from survive, what do I do now? It’s fun that my life is ahead of me, but also depressing. I don’t see any uncluttered space to grow into. I’m very entitled, to think that I should get that.   

....

But this is all the wrong question, the wrong orientation to the world. Well, maybe not WRONG exactly, but not helpful. Because maybe it doesn’t need to be about what does the world need? Which space is open and waiting for me to fill? It’s about—what do I need to do for me to be whole? What is it that me at my best is doing, when I’m in flow and fulfilling my reason for being? And what comes about is incidental. It might receive recognition and accolades, and might be so many undiscovered piles of dust, but what does it matter to me, if while I lived I really lived. (She said after writing several bars of music.)

Thursday, January 4, 2018

The Thing To Do With Your Intense Emotions


is to encode them in micro-phrasing. The most intense ones for the tiniest movements--this voice moving from this note to that one, this little two-note dissonance. Then they are well-hidden and you can continue to keep your shit together. And it makes the best music. I like the instruments to say the craziest shit, AFTER the text has been declamed. And then it's even more covert.