January 6, 2009
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Expressing Myself
In case anyone is curious, when I looked at the thermometer a minute or two ago it showed -33.3°F outside and 48.2°F indoors. The outdoor temp has been steadily falling for the past four hours or so, down from -27 when I first looked today. The indoor temp is on its way up, I hope. I have spent a lot of time on my knees in front of the woodstove, working on the fire.
I told Greyfox when he called that I had observed that I had gone from being snappish and testy a few days ago, to being whiny today. He misinterpreted what I said. That’s one of the benefits I get out of our relationship: I am continually challenged to express myself more precisely and accurately.
He thought I meant that I had gone from being angry to being depressed. That is way off the mark. I was happy when I was snappish and I’m happy now, even though my speech sometimes comes out in a whine and occasionally I hear myself whimper. I’m not bouncy or bubbly, but I’m happy. I’ll leave the bouncing levity to Ren and Stimpy.
When I was short-tempered and snappish the other day, I had been short of sleep for several days and had been dealing with a bunch of restless cats and a big husky dog with cabin fever. The cold temperatures were causing my muscles to spasm. Physically, I was challenged. Mental energy was going into coping with that. The strain came out in impatience and sharp responses. I was fatigued. If I had been angry in addition to the fatigue… well, I don’t want to go there.
These past three nights I have gotten more sleep, between six and seven hours a night. The cats have caught onto the fact that they are prime targets for stun darts from the blowgun while hanging off my Navajo rug, and they even seem to realize now that I don’t have a door into summer for them. Maybe they have some hibernation instinct. They are quieter this week.
Koji got to check his p-mail on a walk to the mailbox with Doug yesterday while the temp was up in the teens below zero. He’s not as restless today, not dogging my heels, whining at the door, or poking his cold, wet, black leather snoot at whatever part of me it can reach.. That lets some pressure off me, and I’m not feeling snappish today. When I was being snappish, as opposed to just feeling that way, it was unconscious. When I caught on to what was going on, I quit snapping at Doug. There was nothing to be gained by taking it out on him.
My whining today has nothing to do with depression. I know depression, and this is not it. This is simply M.E., the tight and unresponsive muscles, the random traveling pain and all-over discomfort. That time this morning when I caught myself whining, that was unconscious. *chortle* I just attempted to whine voluntarily. It sounded phony and silly.
Maybe I needed to hear myself whimper this morning. I don’t know. I don’t think the cats or Koji paid any mind to my whine. I probably didn’t affect the discomfort by whining, but I might have increased it by making an effort to suppress it. I’m pretty sure that sitting here in this draft is making my legs cramp. I think I’ll test that theory by gimping over to the couch, putting my feet up and spreading the 3 blankets there over my lap.
First, I have something to share, some words by a favorite writer and astrologer, Mark Krueger, excerpted from his December 23, 2008 entry:
Who you are is non negotiable. Who you are is not an attainment or purity. Who you are is not a gift or a lick and a promise. Who you are is your own being. The rest is dream spinning software of allure and a lore. The soul is the file of the stories. The body is the stylus. What is written is nothing more than an itch-a-sketch. You get drawn in for a drawn out affair of the heart that heads no where whilst you turn the knobs of yen and yank. Every time you try to get out, you are deeper in.
. . .It’s all loss all the time for the next fifteen years of wild abandonment. It’s dearth warmed over in the macro wave. All you ever gain is the loss of your self, and trinkets to boot. Now that the trinkets go bye bye, who ya gonna cull. People own a bag of shift, a bag of shift that never did work, but it surely worked them. Got the gumption to drop it? I dare you to your own delight. Otherwise, what I see is Pathetic mumboed jumble.
Comments (20)
I am finding that exercise on the treadmill is helping my achy and sore muscles…I am trying a different type of work put and I am working with a trainer to jump start things and on thing he changed was how I was walking on the treadmill by slowly adding an incline and increasing the time but actually slowing down the pace…seems to be working for the annual knot my back is normally in at this time…I am starting to feel better
As for the cold I am amazed at how you deal with 48 degrees I am very uncomfortable at 58 and finally bumped up the temp to 62…but then we are at 21 above so our bitter cold has moved through
@fairydragonstar - I miss exercise. I used to love workouts. I resisted using the crip scooter for shopping as long as I could, and gave in only when I realized how much damage I was doing by pushing the shopping cart around. Physical activity not only increases my pain and sensorimotor deficits (translation: stumbling and fumbling), but research in Australia demonstrated that it causes the disease to progress. My workouts, pick and shovel work in the garden, tae kwon do and karate lessons, and dancing might well have led to a lot of my current level of disability. That’s a horrible thought, but it was fun while it lasted.
Warmth and rest help my muscles. I take a hot water bottle to bed when I need to, and am usually lots better when I wake. I’m trying to adjust to the lifestyle change, but I still have the tendency to overdo and put myself out of commission.
I love this part of the quote…”People own a bag of shift, a bag of shift that never did work, but it
surely worked them. Got the gumption to drop it? I dare you to your own
delight. Otherwise, what I see is Pathetic mumboed jumble.”
Thank you for the accidental encouragement. hugs
cold
I am snappish most of the time and have to suppress it because others get highly upset with me. I’m just not patient with idiots.
I think I would have been snappy and a bit whiny if it was that cold here! Something about being cold that I just don’t handle well. Hope you got the woodstove red hot.
I complain about cold here and can’t even imagine living in the cold you describe. How did you come to live where you do? I’m not being nosy just interested in you and your choices having just started to visit your site.
My bones & joints ache in the cold here… I can’t even imagine dealing with that kind of cold. I’d love to visit Alaska some day… when it’s nice out, but… pretty sure I couldn’t live there.
@GoodGuyTheBoss - There is a narrative list of memoir links in the right-hand column on my main page. The story of how I came to Alaska is there. The trip itself is “crab boat to Kodiak.” You’d have to back up a few episodes from there to get to the motivation, etc.
Like a few others have said, I’d be whiny (albeit happy) if it was THAT cold. Get that indoor temperature up and stay warm.
I think I see you as more snappy and testy than whiny. It’s the vibe I feel sometimes and part of the overall impression I get of your character.
Do you have a certain hardness which makes you less whiny until you get worn down? coz I have little idea
I also see as you keeping things inward much more than being outwardly expressive. Sometimes I sort-of guess things like possible considerations of yours that go above and beyond your words, sometimes I just feel them. And I wonder how often I’m on the mark.
Liking those words.
@Apocatastasis - No “hardness” here. I’m a softy, easily moved by the pathos, tragedy, pain or loss of others. Your question seems to imply that whiny is a natural state and I might have some resistance to it. I don’t think that whiny is any more natural than chirpily cheerful. I marvel at people who are habitually either whiny or chirpy, and I tend to suspect that at least some of it is faked for effect.
I was heavily influenced in early childhood by a big man who was of the strong silent type. I was a little girl, but he said I was too big to cry. I don’t know how much that influenced the fact that I hate the sound of a whiny voice coming from anyone, especially me. It could be a karmic thing, for all I know.
I cry rather easily at emotional moments in books and movies, but don’t get my feelings hurt at all by what people do or say, so there’s never any reason to cry about the things most women cry about. I don’t hold back tears unless I need to be able to speak or see (to drive a car, for example). I can hold back tears, but I understand that it is not healthy to do that, so unless there is a real need to blink them back, I let them flow at will.
“Testy and snappish” is my first level of response to stress such as sleep deprivation or intense pain, both of which I was experiencing recently. I suspect that what you perceived as testy prior to that was nothing more than my normal level of “not suffering fools gladly,” for want of a better term.
I’m not as tactful and diplomatic as the norm, because I am not as needy for approval and external validation as the norm. I will go to great lengths to make sure I am saying what I mean, without considering how it will be received. It does come across sometimes as hostile, just because it is NOT ingratiating.
Whining indicates that I have exceeded my stress tolerance and need to back off and do something about the causative factors before it progresses further. I am strong but not hard. I can take a lot of shit but I’m not unbreakable. I would never whine if I was “relaxed,” and I never “feel” vulnerable. I know how vulnerable I am and in what ways, and that doesn’t change from moment to moment.
Since you can’t hear my voice, you wouldn’t know if I was whiny, of course. If you ever want to know about anything you sense or suspect “beyond [my] words,” just ask. I’ll tell you. Most of the time there’s not much unstated. I like being explicit.
@SuSu - I really should be more careful with the way I phrase things so that I’m not misunderstood, I get relevent responses, and we stay on the same page. it happened here. meh, i cant be bothered remedying it. I’m so sloppy
Yeah, you’re fairly boorish, hey? I’m perfectly in the middle, conveying the truth in an honest but tactful way – or so I’m told. But I’ve mentioned that before
“I’m not as tactful and diplomatic as the norm, because I am not as needy for approval and external validation as the norm.”
There are other motivations for being tactful and diplomatic that you didn’t take into account, you know that right? I’m needy for approval, mostly for logical reasons rather than ones of emotional fulfillment. I think about the advantages it brings… eg. more contacts = more opportunities = more power = easier road in life. But I am hesitant to go about it in an insincere way, that’s not my style at all. plus, the more genuine, the more effective
The biggest aspect of power comes from how you’re percieved by others – the more I can manipulate that, the better. Think about the trumpets and the fall of Jericho… they thought there was a massive army outside their walls, but the Israelites didn’t have shit on them. Or maybe it was another bible story. I’m too tired to think it over fruther. Anyway, I can put that power to use in helping myself and others – social power can be amazing. Maybe people’s need for approval and external validation stimulates social interaction. Well, of course it would if you’re less self-contained and more dependent on other people to meet your psychological desires.
I know people who ask for comments on their myspace photos all the time: a perfect example of the yearning for approval and external validation.
I like attention, but I don’t think it’s for those reasons of approval and validation: whether anyone approves or not doesn’t matter to me; I don’t care if they like it or hate it. attention is something I’m psychologically dependent on other people for… well, I could do without it, but I do thrive on it. Maybe I went through a lack of attention or had a poor attachment style as a kid, and so now deep down I have that stronger need for attention/fame/etc than many people along with deep-seated insecurities. some freudian stuff along those lines.
You’re around 1/4 right, only some of it was the “not suffering fools gladly” thing. That saying doesn’t apply to me very well; I don’t mind the company of people who say stupid things all the time. I don’t even mind the company of assholes whose behaviour I would rail against if the situation were any different. Maybe it’s partly because I say a fair share of stupid things myself, even when I know they’re stupid (albiet to a lesser extent). You would’ve noticed it by now
You’re right, I’ve never been able to percieve whinyness from you or infer it from your writing. I could call you sometime… then we’ll see
.. lol
Well I don’t normally ask, and some things I don’t want to ask. But okay, I’ll start guessing what the thought process is behind some of the things you say. you tell me how close I am, and i’ll refine it
by “letting yourself feel vulnerable”, maybe I meant “letting yourself be vulnerable”. letting your guard down when you feel relaxed (your guard being that hardness i suggested as a possibility) and as you relax in the comfort and safety of your own home, the harder outer shell you protect yourself from the mean old world with dissapates, and out comes the whinyness. you say otherwise so nvm that
I’m not quite sure what you mean when you infer that I see whinyness as a natural state. If it exists, it’s natural. It’s a universal experience; it happens to everyone at least once in their life (often while young, if not when older), so I suppose it’s natural in that sense too. hmm.. maybe it could be said that whinyness = one possible reaction of the ego to circumstances percieved as unfavourable, a hassle and/or unexpectedly bleh. that kind of psychological reaction (the ego being resistant) sounds natural to me.
I rambled too much. But not enough for me to be motivated to hit backspace.
@Apocatastasis - Whining is natural to mammals in general, to express pain and distress. Humans do it manipulatively as well. That is unnatural and pathological. Humans have greater scope in language to express pain and distress and ask for help. I sometimes spontaneously whimper to myself when I am in pain, but it is more effective to speak to others when I want help.
I don’t crave power (have plenty) or attention (get it effortlessly, just by doing what I please) or the “advantages” you desire and manipulate to get. I have a number of natural advantages, one of which is the ability to perceive some subtle aspects of reality most people ignore until they are smacked in the face with it. I got to where I am through years of striving, not for what I now have, but for things I no longer value.
For me, the major advantage in my style of blunt human interaction is that I will never need to wonder if anyone likes or accepts me for myself, or if they are just responding to a mask I wear. Besides that, masks get in the way, impede perception and impair communication.
@SuSu - Pathological, probably. Unnatural? I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re saying when you appeal to nature.
We all want different things. I enjoy having lots of contacts, and the unexpected opportunities they bring. Am I fake in acquiring these contacts? Nope. I’m a pretty nice guy, and naturally tactful while honest at the same time (it is possible to be tactful without misrepresenting something), so it just happens for me. I like talking to these people, but I do have that alterior motive.
Masks are designed to impede perception, silly. To make the glass deceptively opaque rather than crystal clear. I don’t like them too much in normal social situations, but other times I’ve worn them only for the purpose of getting something for myself. That’s how I got my old teacher’s hat back in grade 3… hahaha. People like people who are like them. You sympathize with their value system, prejudices, beliefs etc. , and they lump you in as being on “their” side. Situations where I want something badly enough to do that are few and far between
Nature= innate “instinctive” actions as opposed to learned behavior. A baby whimpers naturally, and learns to do it manipulatively if reinforced. Any attentive parent or caregiver can clearly recognize the difference in a young child. Inattentive or careless parents and caregivers who reinforce manipulative whining initiate feedback patterns through which children learn to refine their whining to be more convincing, becoming skillfully manipulative adults. You can substitute many behaviors for whining in there and it will remain true: lying, smiling….
Mask impede perception for the person wearing the mask, silly.
@SuSu - If that’s how you’re using the word, a lot of things are unnatural. So much is learned behaviour. Okay then, I get you now.
“Mask impede perception for the person wearing the mask, silly.”
They do??
elabor8. This isn’t apparent to me at all, it sounds interesting
@SuSu - Ok, if you don’t wanna elaborate, just tell me one thing: as an actor, would wearing masks harm me in some way?
@Apocatastasis - Why play around this way? We were not discussing an actor’s work. In a very concrete way, masks can physically narrow one’s field of vision. If it caused an actor to walk off the edge of a stage, yes it could hurt.
In interpersonal relationships, figurative “masks” elicit skewed responses, and the longer an exchange based on false perceptions goes on, the less real it is. Anyone can be “hurt” by acting upon false data, even if it is no more than a waste of time.
@SuSu - I was actually still talking about figurative masks and not literal ones. As an actor, you become someone else.
Again, a misunderstanding?