Perplexity

As defined by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:

Main Entry: per·plex·i·ty

Pronunciation: \pər-ˈplek-sə-tē\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural per·plex·i·ties

Etymology: Middle English perplexite, from Middle French perplexité, from Late Latin perplexitat-, perplexitas, from Latin perplexus

Date: 14th century

1 : the state of being perplexed : bewilderment 2 : something that perplexes 3 : entanglement

Synonyms of the word 'perplex' by Roget's Super Thesaurus: confuse, puzzle, mix up, *discombobulate, confound, muddle, befuddle, mystify, baffle, bewilder, dumbfound. ANT. clarify, enlighten, *show the light.

As defined by Carol S. Martinez: stewing in your own juices.

Now, you might be asking, what in the name of St. Peter's pajamas has all that got to do with anything? Well, this post is going to be a long, rambling diatribe in an attempt to explain. Of course, the short of it is the word sums up my current state of existence. Feel free to stop reading right now if that explains it well enough for you. Otherwise, you're welcome to read on and hopefully you won't end up in a state of perplexity, too.

For a long time I've had an internal war raging in my head, in my heart, and it's beginnings are based on those age old questions: What is the purpose of life? Of my life? What am I doing? Where am I going? What am I supposed to do and how do I do it? It's the journey of spirit and I don't think there are many people who haven't asked themselves those same questions. If you haven't, well, bless your heart. Stand up and take a bow ... then tell the rest of us what your secret is. 'Cause we'd really like to know.

Over the past few years the war has gotten louder, stronger, and increasingly more difficult to ignore. Oh, sure, the mundane worries of life sometimes drown it out for awhile. Then it rears it's ugly head and shakes a fist in my direction. It demands attention, much like a two-year old having a full fledged tantrum. A heap of flailing arms and legs, sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the department store isle, wailing and screaming echoing to the rafters.

And there is naught in the world which will console that raging two-year old. No demanding. No placating. No pacifying. No promises of cookies and sticky sweet oceans of candy. Nothing but to drag it out of the store, your shoulders hunched in defeat beneath your flaming red coat of embarrassment and humiliation, and cart it's screaming ass home. By the time you get there you're hopeful it will have expended it's nasty little temper and fallen asleep in the car seat, angelic expression on it's innocent face. You spend the next hour, as it slumbers peaceful and quiet as a church on Saturday night, wondering why in the Hell you thought procreation was a good thing. And you wonder what set that wee bit of humanity off to such an extreme in the first place.

It's a right of passage with two-year olds. Ya' know - the terrible two's. The reasoning behind a tantrum is rather simple ... when confronted with what feels like an intolerable situation the reaction (although an overreaction) is to have a angry melt-down of epic proportions. A monumental cleansing purge of emotion. Like a good cry or a mind blowing orgasm. Being totally in the moment. Being the moment. It occurs on all levels of mind, body and spirit, with complete abandon. When looking at it from a world worn and weary adult perspective it's really an enviable thing.

But, if you're still reading, you're probably asking what the war is all about. What's it's subject? Who is fighting and why are they fighting. The answer to that is both simple and complex. The 'who' is, as you would rightly guess, Me #1 vs. Me #2. Why we are embattled will lead you straight back to those aforementioned age old questions. But that doesn't really explain anything, now does it? So let's roll up our sleeves and get down and dirty.

Me #1 spent most of her life in a cocoon. Dysfunctional childhood and all that psychobabble crap you'll find plastered on the cover of 2.2 million books on the shelves at Barnes & Noble or Walden's Books or wherever you shop for reading material. You can find it all sweetly and safely packaged in the 'self-help' section. I mention it this way because a couple of those very same types of books smacked me between the eyes like a two-by-four way back in 1990. Adult Children of Alcoholics by Jane Woitiz fractured my little cocoon. The second was My Parent's Keeper: Adult Children of the Emotionally Disturbed by Eva Marian Brown. Well, damn. I sprung a leak. It's been a wild ride ever since.

I'm not going to go into a big elaboration of the effects of reading those books. Suffice it to say my eyes were not simply opened, my eyelids suddenly felt as if they had been peeled off. Once the light comes on, it's on, and slinking back to the dark corner isn't an option 'cause there are no more dark corners to slink off to. You pretty much have to sit and stew in your juices, like it or not. It's not fun, it's not happy-happy-joy-joy. It's growth. It's illumination. It's your life and you have to live it every day. You chose ... am I a victim or am I a survivor? Y'all, there's a big difference. Me #1 was a victim.

Me #2 (survivor) surfaced after the rude awakening of Me #1. Presumably, making the choice to be a survivor and saying hello to the light is a positive thing. Well, certainly it is. But it's hard work. Newly awoken survivors now have to learn just how to be a survivor. Being a victim, though miserable, is relatively easy. You sit back and blame the world for what's wrong with your life. You're not responsible. You don't have any obligation to fix anything because you didn't break it in the first place. Survival means realizing you really did play a part in breaking it. And even if someone else helped, it's still solely up to you to fix it. That partner(s) in destruction is probably still being a victim. Unless they get their eyelids peeled back too, they will remain in the dark, they will remain a victim and there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it. You're in a boat, in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight, and you've got two oars and a travel bag with bare essentials.

So now what? You start rowing. Most people will start reading every self-help book they can get their hands on. After all, you assume that with 2.2 million of them on the shelves somebody has figured it out, somebody has an answer. I know I did. Then comes the realization that all those books talk a lot but don't give you a perfect answer. It takes a little time, but soon you begin to comprehend a scary truth: it's a cold, hard fact that there is no perfect answer. Nobody really knows the true way of survival. You've got to figure it out on your own. Remember - one boat/two oars/travel bag. That should have been your first clue.

You row a little further. Sometimes in the distance you think you see land. It's a faint, hazy gray spot on the horizon and you start rowing for all your worth. Now, if you recall from older posts, my personal opinion is that the Divine has a really twisted sense of humor. No matter how hard you row you never seem to get any closer. Sometimes it disappears from view so completely you'd think you were in the middle of a desert having some whacked out mirage experience. You're sitting there in your little boat yelling at God, saying stuff like, "But! But! But it was just there! Land Ho! and all that, damnit!" Sometimes, the Divine likes to remind via mind tricks of disappearing land that you just have to tuck those oars into the boat and take a siesta, even when you're not sleepy. Just try to make a two-year old take a nap in the middle of a really good play session. Oh yeah, you can bet your bananas a tantrum will ensue.

Sometimes it goes the other way. You're all snuggled in with your blankie and the Divine whips up a nice tropical storm. Ya' just thought you had those oars stowed away all secure, didn't ya'? How about a real bit of excitement? Let's just see what you can do with hurricane season, smarty pants. Thank you very much, God. Appreciated that. Boat floods. Oars scattered to the four winds. Wet as a herring. Snugly blankie all soggy. No nap for you #2. No sir. Can't have you sleeping on the survivor job. I have been known to give the Divine the finger a time or two. Great act of defiance with only momentary and fleeting amounts of satisfaction. Trust me on that.

When you do finally hit land your shoes are good and squishy, even walking on sand. But damn, you think, that sand feels good just the same. It's spring time and there's warm sunshine, salt breeze, swaying palm trees and coconuts. You think you might like living on the beach for awhile. Were it not for the way sand can gets into everything, including your skivvies even when you're fully dressed and theoretically protected, you would probably stay right were you are. But sand in your skivvies is not a comfortable thing. So you move inland. You wade through swamps, trudging through the mud and the muck, searching for higher ground with fewer creepy-crawlies and no mosquitoes. Again, the Divine only gave you the oars and a travel bag with essentials, not bug spray. You have to keep moving, learning what can help you navigate and survive.

Eventually you get to a spot with soft grass, maybe some shade trees, gentle rolling hills with a scattering of wild flowers. It's summertime and the sun is high. Might get lucky and find a fruit tree or wild grape vine. You think, "Nice place. I'll stop here and rest for awhile." You've learned a thing or two about making use of the things in your surroundings. You've learned that small, dry sticks make a warm fire when you're cold. Leaves and grass make a soft bed and your now dry blankie is snuggable again. Through trial and error you've learned what plants to eat for nourishment and strength, what plants heal wounds, what plants repel mosquitoes. Life seems pretty darn good. The Divine didn't tell you about autumn. Didn't tell you about winter. Oh no, you thought those summer days were endless. You were wrong.

Fall is really beautiful with it's changing colors. The crisp blue sky and a slight chill in the air. It's refreshing after a hot summer of survival. Slowly but surely you see the landscape around you is changing. The colors fade and the leaves fall to the ground. The blue sky shifts towards gray and the chill in the air isn't burned away by a bright sun. Nope, that sun is steadily growing weaker, paler. Little warmth and pallid light. You can't live out in the elements anymore so you start searching for shelter. Before the first flakes of snow start falling on your head, you pack your new travel bag, the one you made when your first one wore out, with all your stuff and start another journey. You head for the distant mountains, where you think you might find a cave to live in, a place to ride out the winter storms.

It doesn't take long to reach the foot of the mountains, to find a suitable cave to inhabit. You've developed skills through the previous seasons. You've started to understand the responsibility of being a survivor. You know it's hard work but you've achieved a measure of success and reaped a bit of reward for your efforts. The Divine patted you on the head. But to make sure you were really paying attention, while you were all secure in your blankie during you're first night in your new cave the Divine called up a blizzard with twenty-two inches of snow and ice. Maybe you learned some stuff, but snow and ice wasn't in the program. You spent all your time in a warmer climate. You were wearing sandals. Sand in your skivvies seems like bliss compared to frostbite.

But the beach is a long way back, down the mountain not up. Survival means you have to make another choice ... freeze to death or figure out how to keep warm, how to find food and nourishment in a frozen world, how to protect your delicate little digits from frostbite. After a nice tantrum, you use your hands, wrapped in pieces of your blankie, to dig underneath the snow and ice. You find wood, moss, sharp stones. You discover snow melts into water when heated. You learn to tap trees for sap, strip bark for weaving. You learn to hunt. You learn to survive through ways you hadn't thought you were capable of. Hadn't even imagined. Your skills develop to an entirely new level. You've mastered your environment vs. it mastering you.

Spring comes 'round again and you start feeling a subtle Divine nudge to move up the mountain a little further. After all, you are a survivor, on a journey of exploration, heading for your mountain top. You know summer will follow the spring and living will be easier. You're experienced and believe you can be well prepared for the fall and winter. Surely there will be shelter up there. Surely there will be everything you need to survive. You pack your travel bag, slip on sturdier footwear and set out. Feeling confident and capable. You climb a distance up the mountain and suddenly you notice some really big rocks scattered here and there. "No problem!", you think to yourself. "I'm a survivor." Oh you foolish, foolish child. You got cocky, thinking the Divine was going to leave you to your own devices. You'd proven you could survive a hurricane at sea, a blizzard at the foot of a mountain. You thought you knew stuff. You didn't know squat. And God was watching.

Gradually the rocks become a little bigger, a bit more concentrated. You have to climb over some, navigate around others. You stumble over one or two. Some, you discover, are half buried beneath the underbrush and leaves. You have to watch where you're stepping more than check out the sights of what's around you. You also realize the mountain is far steeper than you thought. Periodically you have to stop and take a breather. You didn't know the air was thinner up here, didn't even cross your mind. You didn't know the ways of the mountain. You were a flat lander. You weren't as prepared as you believed and it's disconcerting. The travel bag gets heavier but you're afraid to cast anything aside lest you need it further up the mountain.

Days you climb and nights you find a place among the rocks and trees to rest. Spring turns to summer, then autumn. Being a survivor, you know already that the coming winter won't make good traveling so you start hunting and find a new cave to shelter in. You know to prepare as much ahead as possible to help you get through the coming storms, the snow and ice. You've gathered lots of firewood, nuts and berries, you have stones and moss and warm moccasins instead of sandals. You think winter will be a good time for resting, for storing up your reserves for the spring and resuming your climb up the mountain. You have visions of reaching the summit and believe you're going to make it through just fine and dandy.

Happily, you do just that. You weather not one, not two, but four or five snow storms through the long, gray winter. The skills you've learned have proven you can take what comes and survive. But God's still watching, waiting in the wings, preparing you for the next leg of the journey. Letting you get good and ready before the trap springs. And it's a real doozie. Caught between summer and autumn you stumble and roll part of the way back down the mountain. Laying there in a daze you check yourself for broken bones, a punctured lung, a fractured skull. The wind really got knocked out of you. Half the contents of your travel bag are scattered across the terrain like dry leaves in strong breeze. You lost a moccasin. Suddenly it seems just too hard to keep going. The mountain is too steep, there isn't enough time left to climb back to where you were and still prepare for the next winter. All the things you held dear and important in that travel bag are scattered and broken. You think you just aught to give up. Lay there in a little heap of pathetic humanity and stop trying. But then you remember you're a survivor. Now is a good time for another tantrum. It isn't productive, but it damn sure feels good. You then get busy, hunkering down right where you are, gathering whatever you can to get you through 'til you can resume the climb.

Slowly, year after year, you begin to realize just how far up the top of your mountain really is. You also begin to suspect you might not get there, that the act of climbing is the point, not actually reaching the goal. This is an unpleasant consideration. Everything in you has urged you onward and upward to the top of that damn mountain. This is when you discover a very subtle, sneaky Divine kink in the works. Doubt. It's not a physical situation to deal with. It's a mental one. Doubt opens the door for a host of other things to come crawling in. Doubt is the harbinger for perplexity, the instigator of wars, the fly in the ointment.

Here we get, at long last to some nitty-gritty. Me #1 was a classic victim. I wasn't the problem, the world was the problem. I had an alcoholic father; a not so stable mother; I wasn't hugged and snuggled as a baby; my first bike was a $6.50 used hunk of scrap metal and rubber from the Salvation Army and not the flashy, brand new bike my brother got; I had to make my own cake for my 16th birthday and celebrated alone; blah, blah, blah. Everything and everyone else made my life miserable. It wasn't me. I didn't do anything. After all, I was the victim. It sucked, but it was easier.

Me #2 woke up and smelled the coffee. Me #2 chose to be a survivor. I chose the hard road, the uphill climb to the top of the mountain. I chose to struggle through the mud and the muck; the storms of winter; head-long tumbles down my mountain just to get back up and start the climb all over again. And for what? What was the point of it all? Just what did I think I'd find up there at the top? What would I do with it when I found it? What difference would it make in my life? To be honest, I really can't answer any of those questions. I don't have a clue. And therein lies the delimma. Yet there, hidden somewhere in those answers I don't have, lies the key to winning the war. No two-year old tantrum will give me the answers. I have to keep climbing, keep making the journey up the mountain.

Recently I read a book, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and while it wasn't a novel of epic proportions and life changing pros it still made my head swim with thoughts and created even more questions than I already had. Stoked the fires of war a little more. But let's get to the heart of it. More than just down and dirty. True confessions at it's most bare. I'm searching for the meaning of Me #2. I'm searching for what makes my soul dance and the way to always hear that music. The way to live the dance once I've found the tune. I want to know how to live in this material world with peace in my heart yet I want to live in a cave on a mountain and come to know who and what God really is. I want to not have questions with no answers. I want to know what I'm supposed to be doing with me and my life.

Sometimes it's really hard to get up and do another day without feeling any sense of real direction and focus. The mundane worries of life seem to feed off my energy and I don't want to think about the bigger picture of God and my soul and my life's purpose. On the flip side, there are days when all I want to do is sit somewhere, quiet and alone, and wait for God to whisper in my ear and tell me the secret to living. Sometimes I think if I have to answer another phone call, open one more bill in the mail, clean the cat's litterboxes, get in my Jeep and drive into town, dust the coffee table or make the bed just one more time I will lose my mind.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Not looking in the right places for answers. I've read literally hundreds of books about life, spirituality, the meaning of it all and how to have a wonderful life. Every now and then a little nugget of wisdom shows up and gives me a spark of hope, a few more days of willingness to climb a little further up the mountain. Sadly, yet oddly and inexplicably, the hope seems to fade and I'm stuck right back where I was. Full of unanswered questions and a heart full of frustration.

When I look around at other people I sometimes see what appears to be a person who has found a few of those answers. I get both excited and envious. I want to ask them how they did it. What was their trick, their secret to success. But I'm not really even sure how to ask. I know what works for them isn't what will work for me. That's the sneaky part about spirituality ... it's highly individualized. Your way to God will not be my way to God. You can tell me to pray Hail Mary's, to meditate, to open my heart, to open my mind, to chant and whistle and shake marracas 'til the cows come home but that doesn't mean it's going to work for me. I still have a wall and I don't know how to tear it down.

And there you go ... the heart of the matter. I feel disconnected from my spirituality, from the Divine, and I don't know what to do about it. I want to do something but I haven't a clue what that might be. I don't want to spend months and years learning some transcendental hoo-hoo levitation technique (okay, yes I really would like to be able to levitate). I know living isolated on a mountain for twenty-one years ain't gonna' happen. Hell, I find it difficult to sit and meditate every day much less have to get into some complicated metaphysical wand waving, crystal chanting, marraca shaking, drum banging, ceremonial hoop-la.

Then again, my mind rationalizes, ceremony and/or the faithful practice of a spiritual routine creates a safe place to open your heart and puts you in a quiet enough place to hear God whispering in your ear. But why does it feel so ridiculous and fake and foolish whenever I try to do it? And don't think I haven't tried. I have. I've got rosary beads and sage bundles and guided meditations CD's and crystals and statues of Buddha and candles of every color in the rainbow. I've sat in the woods in the day time. Sat in the woods by firelight. I've sat in the middle of a creek and I've prayed in candlelight while soaking in the water scented luxury of my garden bathtub. I've gone to lectures and watched DVD's and read more books on spirituality than God and the law should have allowed to be printed.

Nothing clicks. Nothing sticks. Nothing sparks and lights me up and fills me with hope and spiritual union. No nirvana. No Zen bliss. I'm at a loss about it. I'm at war about it. My heart cries out for something it can't even name. My head tells me it's right there - I'm just not looking hard enough, not climbed my mountain far enough. But I'm so tired. I'm so disillusioned with everything. I'm staring in horror at a world of material greed and chaos, which is falling apart at the seams with corruption and monumental sadness, and I'm lost. I want to DO something but haven't a clue as to what to do. I'm seeing how far we all are from anything deeply moving, deeply meaningful and fulfilling, and I don't see an effective way to change it. And I feel smothered by it. I keep thinking that if I find my own spiritual union I'll find an answer. I'll find hope. I'll find the reason for my life and the purpose for living it.

When I look at the blessings in my life I feel ashamed. I have a warm and safe home to live in; a good husband who cares for me and supports me even if he doesn't really understand me; amazing and beautiful friends I'm not entirely certain I'm worthy of; a new business that has done better in it's short existence than I ever imagined it would - and which also provides me the opportunity to help others; I have relatively good health and insurance to help keep it that way; and I have dozens of other little things that bless my life with abundance to the point I should have absolutely no reason to complain or feel lacking. Most anyone would ask me what the Hell my problem is. Why am I having a tantrum when I've already got so much?

I won't lie to you. It's just not enough. It isn't satisfying and spiritually nourishing. It doesn't feed my soul. Would it matter what car I drove or what job I had if I woke every morning to the feeling of the Divine's light in my heart? I hardly think so.

As I said way back at the beginning. A long diatribe of rambling thoughts that lead nowhere. An attempt to explain what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking about, where I am. I'm sure I'm not alone in these thoughts, feelings and questions. Again, what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another but I would still like to know what you think. What's your opinion? What are your own questions? What do you think the answers are? Would you be willing to share them with me?

Namaste, y'all ...