Be the problem you have with the world

So Zen teaching informs me that I am the problem. Intellectually, you can poke this bit of wisdom with a stick, wondering if this is wise or insanely self-deprecating.

I want to note tonight that this indecision about the issue is everything that has felt unbalanced for me in the past 3 years, the time when I have began to draw into myself responsibility for my life.

Okay, I acknowledge that I am the problem. That can be liberating, but used incorrectly, it is really a heavy burden to put on myself. I think I've been using it incorrectly.

There were a few shining moments - I can even remember the exact look of the Sodo at Chokaisan Zendo when I had that brief illumination - when I think I slipped into the positive aspect of this admission: I am the problem. I've been getting at it a little bit these past few days.

But I need to remember how much I've been dwelling in the negative. What is the essence of the negative aspect or malfunction of this teaching? The dizzying sense that even though I know I am in control, I continue to choose to put myself in such harsh situations, think negative thoughts, make poor use of my time, choose to feel tired and powerless and useless and unattractive. It makes the idea of choice confusing to me. Why would I choose these things, if I really had a choice, and there are no real obstacles? If there are obstacles, then it's not really my choice to believe these things about myself. I can only indirectly affect them by removing the obstacles, maybe. In many ways, I am suspicious that, as great as the idea of free will is a good antidote to earnest beliefs in powerlessness, on a microscopic, molecular level, free will and control over life are both illusions.

I don't think all these thoughts are really where I want to go, but I'm not going to delete them. I'll leave this post as a rough sketch. Having negative thoughts is, in itself, an ugly thing. I am not afraid that these thoughts are real - I'm afraid of making them public and being pinned down as depressed and self-loathing, which is the self-expression equivalent of drawing stink lines around yourself. And why shouldn't I be afraid? Any expression of emotion in my house would lead to a diagnosis of some kind. (For those who don't know, my dad is a psychiatrist and my mom was a psychologist.) It was actually not that bad - really, I can't use this as an excuse for what are ultimately my choices of how to view myself - but it's interesting to make this connection. It makes it a little funny. Everything I did was kind of analyzed - not in a terribly cartoony, self-conscious Freudian-jargon spouting way - but in a kind of subtle way, like there was this extra thought process going on when my parents responded to my most emotional moments, rather than just relating to me. I ended up in therapy when I was about 8 - I guess for depression, but I don't really know why. I didn't understand why I was there or what was going on. All I remember is playing on the therapist's computer and having cute little philosophical conversations appropriate for an 8-year-old - nothing really deep. Did it help? Was it really necessary? What did I want at the time?

As I write this, I can feel this vague sense of disappointment in myself - being too wordy, not getting to the point. Then up comes the resentment that it is so easy for me to do things wrong, to go astray. The path should have been outlined better, there should have been a handrail, blah blah blah. What about choice? Where's the choice in it? There is a choice in this, but I just can't see it - - -

I am so fucking eager to see the choice in this - where is it? Show me what the stakes are. Please.

I go to observe the small patch of sheets for 20 minutes.

Good night.