"Haven" is a six-painting series that traces my attempts since the beginning of 2022 to examine my own behavior in certain situations, to reduce my levels of selfishness, and to become a more understanding and accepting person. I was not an ogre by any stretch before this and have also not become Mother Teresa since; what I have done is try to put others before myself more often which is something that has never come naturally to me.
This panel represents the initial event that triggered my latent obsessiveness and need to control things that I can’t, which was a surprise since only a few months prior I had told a friend it was an either/or circumstance about which I felt ambivalent, but now that was turning out not to be true at all. I hadn’t felt this level of agitation in almost a decade, and my mind was overclocked for weeks looking for a solution to a situation I could do nothing about. The text is a paraphrased snippet from the end of Molly Bloom’s closing soliloquy in James Joyce’s "Ulysses".
To spend time with me one would think I am an easy-going, “take it or leave it” kind of guy, and under most circumstances I am. But there are times when a near-intractable need to control things takes hold and steamrolls any sense of logic or rational behavior I have. I end up acting upon feral instincts that have never served me well and yet in my mind always seem like the correct choice. In early 2022 there was a situation onto which I would have normally tried to impress my will aggressively and obnoxiously, and to no doubt disastrous results. It involved someone I cared about very much, and for once I asked myself if anything would really change for the better if I attempted to take action. The reality was that what I wanted would only benefit me and no one else, not even the person I kept telling myself was incredibly important. That realization did not make staying idle any easier, but it forced me to accept that this was how things needed to be even if my heart was saying otherwise in the loudest manner possible.
“The Way Things Are Now Is Not The Way They Will Always Be”
Near the end of February 2022 my sister could see I was clearly not handling things very well. Even though I was working on accepting something I could not change, my head was stuck in a rabbit hole that was difficult to pull out of. She told me “The way things are now is not the way they will always be.” Well, yeah. But as superficial and obvious as that statement sounded, it still helped to hear it. Russia had invaded Ukraine only a few days earlier, and images of tanks rolling through the streets and countryside were littering the news. It felt like the entire world was just an open, raw nerve.
I tend to fall for empathic women, most likely because they have many of the qualities I don’t: they’re kind, caring, thoughtful, and willing to put the welfare of others before their own without hesitation. Not that I completely lack those traits, but they’re way down near the bottom of the list—most people would say I’m funny, creative and unusually multi-talented long before they got to sympathetic and compassionate. Understanding an empath’s thought process is difficult for me, though, which when you’re attracted to them can make their behavior both frustrating and baffling. But I’ve found if I interpret how they think with an extreme analogy (such as “Would you kill a friend if it meant protecting yourself and your family?”), I can get some insight into why something that seems like a no-brainer to me can be an agonizing decision for them. This has been a difficult concept for me to truly put into action, and even a year after having this realization I can still find myself bewildered by empaths’ actions.
lways been a fan of This Mortal Coil’s version of “Help Me Lift You Up”, with its ethereal and echoing vocals, and what seems like the contradictory action of the title. Yet last year I found myself in just such a paradox as I felt compelled to raise the spirits of someone for whom I felt very protective, and yet what this person was experiencing was so far outside my realm of understanding that I wasn’t quite sure of what to do. My usual M.O. would have been to release a flood of praise and affection, but this time I knew that approach would have the opposite effect of what I wanted to accomplish. I tread cautiously instead, and looked for clues from them for guidance; sometimes I hit the mark with my attempts, more often it felt like I fumbled so badly that it curdled my stomach and made me think I was only making things worse.
Ultimately, I can’t say how big a difference my foray into self-improvement has had. I know I’ve made strides in having less angry reactions to situations that would have previously chafed me, but my temper can still rise like magma inside me. My ability to accept things out of my control is also still a challenge, although I periodically attempt radical acceptance (the idea that to accept something is not the same as being in agreement with it, merely that you acknowledge it exists without judgment). I feel that I now put others before myself a bit more than I have in the past, but that doesn’t mean I’ve become more compassionate, and I know that I will do this at times for attention and reciprocation instead of from unadulterated selflessness. But I also don’t see me reverting to the person I once was: self-centered, callous, immutable. And maybe that’s the most remarkable thing, that this exploration has not given me the external rewards I was expecting, but has helped me get better at the intangible craft of letting go of negative behaviors. Do they still exist? Oh hell yes, but their influence is currently on the wane.
“My Heart Was Going Like Mad”
“That Which I Despise Most”
“Empathy Is Forever”
“Help Me Lift You Up”
“It Might Just Be Fantastic”
