A Five-Haired Beard of Wisdom
All my life it’s been difficult for me to comprehend what I feel. I’m good at thinking. Sometimes too good because I get lost in my mind. But when it comes to feeling, or knowing what I’m feeling? That takes time and work.
It’s like deep sea fishing. My feelings are like big fish that swim deep underwater, so I have to stabilize and immobilize myself, strap myself into a chair and hold tight to a braced rod so I can catch them and reel them in. And only then, when I am exhausted with blistered fingers and bleeding hands, only then do I begin to discover what I’ve caught.
But that’s only how it is sometimes.
Other times, I am the fish. My feelings catch me. I’m dumb, hungry, swimming along and minding my business when I bite the baited hook. The line jerks, the hook pierces my jaw, and no matter how hard I try to swim away or shake it loose, the feeling has me. Even when I think I’ve moved past it and will just have to learn to live with another pain in my cheek, even then, I’m still caught. I try to swim far enough fast enough to break free, but all it takes is one tug, and I remember it’s no use.
The feeling lets me swim and shake until I can shake and swim no more, then it reels me in, and I go, willingly, because I’m too tired to fight it and because the sensation of being pulled up through the water toward the light is exhilarating.
Finally, though I fear some great powerful force has captured me, I’m so tired that all I see is relief in the blue sky beyond the surface of the water. But when the feeling has me in its grasp and lifts me into the air, I can no longer breathe, and all I want is to escape or get thrown back, to dive down deep where, even though it’s darker and lonelier, at least it’s safer and simpler since I can swim around with the illusion that no feeling can ever catch me again, where I can return to being a dumb, hungry fish who would rather starve than risk getting caught by a feeling.
And yet, this dumb fish can’t help but be grateful for the adventure of being hooked, though the pain lingers long after. This dumb fish loves his scars because they prove he felt something. And lived.
