Quiet Intensity

Intense: Strained; tightly drawn; extreme in degree; excessive; stressful and tiring.

I spoke with an ancient friend on the phone yesterday, one of those guys who knows me almost as well as I know myself.  During the course of our conversation the question arises, inevitably: How am I doing?  Most people who ask this question of me get a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, total fabrications, and brilliant misdirection.  I don't do this to be a dick - I really don't think I know how I'm doing.  Moreover, I don't know what kind of an answer people expect.  Do they want a glossing-over of anything unpleasant?  Are they being polite while remaining uninterested?  Do they really want to know?  That would be alien territory for a guy who is completely bored by the lives of everyone else and has trouble understanding why they would be interested in mine.  They want a lot of details?  Jesus, really?  I can't fathom this.  I'm sure that they must want something and I'm going to do my best not to give it to them.

I told him that I'm doing my best to remain engaged with the world while trying to avoid wrestling it to the ground.  Progressing but no longer as an Unstoppable Force.  I used to be like water - harmless enough in its resting state - trapped in a pressure cooker that was sitting on a blisteringly hot flame.  The whole kitchen was shaking - it was always just a matter of time before something blew up.  I was a feral human engaged in mortal combat with demons who kept coming at me, wave after wave of relentless demons.  I was always on the verge of being completely overwhelmed.  Sobriety enabled me to build a small cage so that I could keep the demons just out of reach - I could still hear them out there in the darkness, snarling and gnashing their fangs but they couldn't get their razor-sharp claws through the bars.  Today I live in a mid-sized compound with electricity and running water.  It's pleasant enough - not euphorically so, but then again the fact that I don't fear for my life every waking minute passes for euphoria.  I'm not sure I should take the risk of attempting to reclaim more jungle to make my compound bigger and cushier - I'm wary of what lies outside the compound.  I'm careful I don't take on too much while still trying to move forward.  

I try to achieve without asking too much of myself because when I fail to meet my unmeetable demands I get frustrated and afraid and look for release, and I have to be goddam careful of my outlets.  I have a history of very bad outlets, very destructive outlets.  I've got the pressure valve open and the flame turned low.

There was a movie called . . . I can't remember what it was called.  Hello, Google Search - I see it was called Beautiful Mind and I have no reason to doubt this.  Anyway, the protagonist was crazy enough that he took instruction from a few really destructive constructs of his mind, phantoms that he could see as clearly as I can see this somewhat blurry computer screen.  The movie progresses, the protagonist begins to recover, the denouement shows him seemingly healed, talking to his therapist or someone about how good it must be to have banished the evil constructs to the fires of hell.  The protagonist agrees, then looks over his shoulder where a couple of the most troublesome hallucinations are sitting quietly, smiling and nodding at him.  

That's how I feel about my recovery - the demons are still around.  I haven't gotten rid of them yet.  It's more of a detente.  They don't fuck with me as long as I don't fuck with them.