SamadhiMuse

         Why Rose has a right to expect me to work full time:
         Its because of the years she spent
         helping me thru college.
         Its true I was responsible for half of our income
         but that doesn’t mean I’m not obligated to her.
         I chose school for itself.
         She chose to help out and sacrifice stuff
         she could have otherwise had for the end result;
         my earning a good living.
         I can see now where my basic method
         of approaching life’s problems derives from:
         The successes I had in improving my self image
         and general happiness in high school stem
         from the strategy I employed then
         and its the same strategy I unconsciously rely on now
         to cope with most problems.
         Its a blind act of willfulness, direct and brutal.
         Its unsophisticated and immature.
         I simply know or think I know what I want
         and I begin to get it by simply shuffling priorities
         and commitments until I’m there.
         This always worked fine so long as there
         wasn’t anything I couldn’t stand to part with.
         Now there is and I need to learn compromise.
         Early on, because of my insecurity,
         I needed to dominate Rose.
         I did and she became convinced of her shortcomings
         as I became convinced of my superiority.
         I’ve always been very gifted verbally
         and whether my arguments were sound or not
         I’ve almost always been able to defeat her in discourse.
         In time, as the bullshit became more apparent,
         she began to recognize that logical discussion with me
         was a loosing proposition.
         If she listened I’d win and leave her bewildered
         or misled much of the time, and this,
         not on my argument’s merit but on my verbal skills.
         Later, as she regained her self esteem,
         she defended her mental integrity
         by simply refusing to listen
         whenever I suggested a logical discussion
         of this issue or that.
         She often knew in her mind what was right and she no longer
         believed that just because I could convince her logically
         that it meant she was wrong.
         She was right about this while I, for my part, still thought
         that the winner of a ‘logical’ debate had to be right.
         Now, wanting to be able to really talk to her,
         I realize that this door has been closed a long time to me.
         We have not communicated by real discussion in years.
         We exist with mutual affection when things are going smoothly
         and work out our differences by emotional pressure
         when they are not.
         She despises my logical approach to things intuitively now
         without consciously knowing why.
         And I’ve ridiculed her emotional responses as childlike
         blackmail…but only now do I realize she responds this way
         because I abused the normal and fair methods of communication
         with my domineering intellectualism.
         I’ve been in this rut so long that it took Ernie
         to give me some perspective on it and how it could be
         and should be.
         The worst of the situation is its near irreversibility.
         For me to make her conscious of the situation requires
         discussion of the problem and discussion is just
         what she won’t hear.
         She will emotionally block me to prevent herself
         from buying anymore ‘logically’ sound bullshit!
         Ernie said I would have to implement my insights
         without discussion and wait for her to directly
         apprehend the changes.
         When she has the things of me that are her right
         in all fairness then her resistance
         will fade away with time.
                            Ideas
            1.  Make a community fund for house and/or car
                downpayment.
            2.  Work on alleviating my discontent within
                the five day work week.
                a. Change jobs.
                b. Night school.
                c. Ignore my discontent on the theory that it is
                   my nature to become repeatedly discontent.
            3. Accept community purchases which lighten her load.
               I resisted the dryer as a community purchase
               because I was afraid it would cut into my three
               days a week concept.  It was irrelevant that she
               did all the wash and it would be a great time saver,
               even that she did all my stuff I ignored BUT it
               should have been a community purchase.
            4. Try to establish logical verbal communication,
               possibly with Kathy Naegeli’s help.
         Crazed fool at thirty racing across the land
         don’t know what I’m doing struggling thru the sand
         almost done with looking, never found the key
         to the anxious angry wanting, the questions filling me
         and all I’ve gained in essence is the brink of sanity.
         She says she’s going to leave me if I don’t catch my pace
         and I care more for loving than solving time and space
         hey, I’m going to go home and I’m going to take it up
         the burden left to everyman, I’m going to drink my cup.
         My omnipotent visions have led me in the end
         to choose the arms of she who was my very patient friend.
                                       gallagher
                                       1 Jan 77
                                       on a bus, returning from
                                       Eugene, OR

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —