Wisdom

Reverb 10 Prompt (from Susannah Conway): What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

They say insanity is expecting a new result from the same old choices. If this is true, then I’m not sure if my big decisions this year were wise or simply breaks from the madness. Further muddying the waters, the two more important decisions I made this year seem to offer contradictory pearls of wisdom: “Don’t focus so much on yourself, asshole!” and “Focus more on yourself, asshole!”

The only consensus is that I’m an asshole, but I didn’t achieve that status through a decision making process per se.

I love my wife, and she loves me. Still, 2009 was a tough year, as was 2008 and 2007. My wife is an anthropologist and she cares a lot about the plight of disadvantaged people. Her education and work have taken her places far away, for long stretches of time. I miss her when she’s not around and sometimes I feel neglected and sorry for myself. By the beginning of 2010, it had been three years since we lived together and shared in each other’s day to day lives, aside from a few brief stretches. Sometimes, for weeks at a time even, we couldn’t even communicate via email or telephone. When we finally did come together, my pent up, unexpressed emotional glop would eventually erupt, and rarely in a productive fashion. It was all “Poor Bob.”

Despite the best of intentions, in 2010 my hopes of domestic bliss dawning at long last were dashed once again by the cruel vagaries of destiny. The familiar feelings brewed, bubbled, and rose up to the brim of the blowhole, but one of my better angels made a decision to change course. Instead of focusing on the holy trinity of me, myself and I, I resolved to pour every ounce of available energy into supporting my wife. After all, she was struggling too. She was overwhelmed by the demands of finishing a Ph.D. and moving into a new phase of her life. I decided to suck it up for another year, quit my belly-aching, and simply be the most loving and supportive husband I could possibly be. And 2010 has been a far, far better year. As individuals and as a couple we’re in a much better place — whether or not we’re in the same geographical location most of the time. Last night, as it happened, my wife fell asleep right here in my arms, and I gotta tell ya, it was pretty freakin’ sweet. She also stole all the covers and caused me to freeze my ass off, but that’s another issue altogether…

So, it seems reasonable to conclude that the fortune cookie should read, “Drop self-absorption. Focus on compassion.” But if wisdom follows a set of rules, I sure as hell can’t figure out what they are.

In June I decided to hang up my bass guitar and no longer be in a band with my best friend Eric. From the day I saw Eric playing Radiohead covers on Franklin Street a dozen years ago, I knew he was someone special. He was all soul, and my admiration for him and his uncompromising pursuit of his dreams has only grown over time. He dropped a very lucrative career and years of training in electrical engineering so that he could play his guitar on Franklin Street with the full force of his spirit. He’s been putting it all on the line ever since, and has inspired me to do the same.

For years I would tell people (and myself) the story of how I turned down a full scholarship to a doctoral psychology program in Pittsburgh so that I could move into an old house with Eric and start a rock band. Deception tends to be insidious, especially self deception. True, I made a dramatic, eleventh-hour decision to ditch graduate school in favor of moving in with Eric and a few other musicians. True, I resolved to dedicate myself to realizing my creative potential. Funny though, how I had forgotten the fact that I was one of the two guys living in the “Rock n’ Roll House” who wasn’t in Eric’s band. I wasn’t sure what I was doing exactly, but the idea was to dive into my writing projects and maybe, as a side-project, also improve my guitar playing and songwriting skills. But music for me was strictly for my own enjoyment. The thought of performing made me want to poop my pants (still does). It was only after the original bass player “didn’t work out” that I joined the band. As time went on I discovered that it was far easier to ride Eric’s coattails than to face the onslaught of doubts and fears that assailed me as I struggled to develop my own creative powers. It was true Eric and I shared a common aspiration — to put everything on the line in pursuit of creative self-realization — but somewhere along the line I started pretending that we shared the specific dream of being in a successful rock band, when deep down I knew I was only avoiding my own creative ambitions (however poorly I could articulate them). And despite realizing all this on several occasions, despite leaving Eric’s band in 2003, moving away and pursuing my own path for several years, as fate would have it I would find myself back in town in 2010, Eric in need of a bass player, and myself in need of inspiration, direction and companionship.

And so, even though I told Eric from the beginning that I was only stepping in temporarily, to help him get his new band and new record off the ground, I found myself getting lost again, funneling just enough time and energy into the band so that I would have nothing left with which to face my own demons. Sometimes it’s easier to warm yourself by another person’s fire than to go out and chop your own wood, to blister every finger trying to create a spark, to sit alone lashed by the cold winds of failure and self-doubt. Eric will always have my love and active support, but in June I made the decision to bundle up, grab my ax, and head back into the thick of that dark, frightening, unfamiliar territory: My own destiny.

How is that decision playing out? It’s too soon to say for sure. It’s cold and lonely out here trying to figure all this shit out. Just this past weekend I found out that the new bass player, the one who replaced me, “didn’t work out.” There’s that open door again, the one I keep returning to, and I know it’s warm in there, beside the bright fire of a man who knows what his dream is and who fights every day to make it real.

Me, most of the time I can’t even figure out when to focus on myself and when to focus on others. They say wisdom is about knowing the difference between when to grab the reins and when to let go. If this is true, maybe my best decisions this year weren’t wise at all. Maybe they were just lucky guesses. Or maybe things haven’t played all the way out yet. Maybe, like a boomerang, these issues will come back around and split my head open when I least expect it. Maybe nothing’s ever decided and done with, but rather we must choose again and again in each moment, sometimes turning inward, other times reaching out.

Maybe I’m just an asshole.