SDL: The Cure For Perfection: My Response

A couple of days ago, my nephew, Dan, wrote a follow-up column to his very widely read post "The Disease Called 'Perfection'".  In one week, more than a quarter of a million people have viewed that page.  Yesterday, he posted a follow-up column called "The Cure for Perfection".  In it, he admitted that he could not possibly offer the balm required to heal the galaxy of sorrows and injuries that people posted on his first post.  Instead, he asked his readers to write the column for him, through the comments.  He asked for people to write what was their greatest struggle ever, what the person they are now have to say to the person they are then, and how the Perfection post affect their lives.  My abbreviated post is too long for even Intense Debate's generous allowances, so I posted my comments hear.

My Comment to The Cure for Perfection

There were 8 whole comments when I first started writing this comment yesterday morning.  I've given it a lot of thought, a lot of writing, a lot of deleting, and finally decided it's impossible to put 35 years of struggle in two paragraphs, or to leave religion out of it, since I would have never reached any of these conclusions without my faith.  However, the biggest factor in my deciding not to go into detail: this is my husband's story as much as my own, and I have to respect his right to privacy.

Engagement photo November 1979

THE STRUGGLE (In a nutshell):   

I've had lupus since I was 14.  I got married when I was 17.  My husband had just turned 19.  I gave birth to our first son when I was 19.  He was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus when he was 21.  The first 15 years of our marriage were a long string of tag-team hospitalizations, the drain of medical expenses, both of us struggling to control our disease, major surgeries for me, and the high-risk pregnancies of three sons, all bound together with under- and unemployment when my husband got kicked out of the Air Force for having diabetes.  To say we had a rocky marriage would be an understatement.  Our expectations of marriage were diametrically opposed.  Our life together was one very small, very leaky boat caught in a raging storm that never ended, with both people trying to captain the vessel and no one manning the crew.

Tidbits: A Shadow's Honor

Pierpont Durant clinging to the last vestiges of his faith and hope in the future.

So there he huddled, desperate for the cool fresh air which poured through the cracks and crevices, smelling sweet and unadulterated, free of the filth and dank of the cell.  Piper permeated his lungs with the lilac of spring and the spice of fall and some exotic scent of summer he could never quite place.  He bathed himself in the light that warmed and cleansed him and fought back the creeping blackness.   

He told himself to be a man and accept his just sentence, admit his weakness and set aside his dependency, but it was an insidious, seeping, creeping thing which leant strength to his soul and corroded the shadow’s defenses.  Despite the excruciating pain of that exquisite half-life, he despaired that he would ever conquer the addiction.

Altered state of consciousness

“A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.”     —W. H. Auden

“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”    —Neil Gaiman

When I was writing a sequel, I knew who my characters were.  At the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, the wonderful Mr. D. is reserved, silent, and rather contemptuous of his surroundings and the people in it.  A pretty easy write-up.  All he has to do is stand around looking hunkilicious and disdainful, and shoot off a few zingers at our heroine once in a while.  And, since I was writing pretty much from her perspective, I really didn't have to do that much to change it.  (Which actor did delicious and daunting best on the screen is a topic for another day).

Even though I was writing a prequel as much as a sequel, it was pretty simple.  Little Miss Put-Upon went through her trials year after year after year, and the white knight popped in on occasion to ruffle her feathers by being the man of mystery who refused any intimate acquaintance.  He gets a few of his own scenes, but they are only snapshots, as opposed to Miss PU's live satellite feed.  Then, voila!  The next time he appears, he's all soft and gooey, giving into his lustier more tender inclinations and marrying her.  The biggest problem I had was keeping on the path.  The more I wrote, the less the love birds resembled Jane Austen's characters and became more my own.

Before I decided to abandon the sequel idea altogether, I had brought the first novel to submission stage.  The one-edit run-through I began with my brother did the dastardly deed, it died an ignominious death, and the manuscript was declared dead in the water.

The Joys of Service

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

—Michael J. Fox

Maybe it is because I spent so much time today reading the heartbreaking comments so many people have posted on Single Dad Laughing, that I feel so compelled to post today.  The button on the bottom right will send  you to Dan's amazing post, 'The Disease Called Perfection', a serious delve into the anguish caused by the pressure people put on themselves and upon others to appear as the media's contorted perception of beautiful, behave pleasantly, never feel lost or uncertain, never make mistakes, never feel anger, never doubt, never sin, never fail to meet the expectations of others or mold yourself into their misconception of you.  

As Dan so poignantly points out, lives have been lost—lives of children—because a person feels encompassed in darkness, trapped in their horrible situations, and there is no hope of that ever changing.  They feel they have betrayed God or God has betrayed them, or they have disappointed their families or shamed them or angered them or whatever overwhelming despair overcomes them, and they take their own lives because they see it as their only means of escape.  Because of the despair of imperfection in a society that demands it.

The point of Dan's post is to encourage people to stop castigating themselves that they are not the super model or the super mom or the ubber-dad or -kid they believe society demands of them; to be kinder to themselves; to know that they are not alone and that no one has experienced anything that has not been experienced by somoene else.   The perfection in which they feel surrounded is only an illusion.  That illusion distorts our vision. We see everyone else more perfect than they are, and ourselves far, far less.

In response to that blog post, readers have poured out their hearts to the great anonymous void of the internet, hoping to somehow connect with someone—anyone who will listen, receive some validation, or just get a virtual hug.  In one day, almost 500 people have shared this post with their friends via Facebook, and almost 200 have made comments on the blog, either sharing their own sorrows or attempting to uplift those who so desperately stand in need of it.

I'm going to share my own comment here, just to follow Dan's example and be real, and dig up the courage to not do it anonymously.  

There is no new thing under the sun

Didn't Shakespeare pen that?  Isn't there something somewhere in one of his plays that he uses that phrase?  I mean, after all, as Jane Austen says in Mansfield Park,

 Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. . . . His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions . . .

Well, if the Bard did use it, he borrowed it from Ecclesiastes 1:9, which was penned at least a couple of thousand years before his time.  Thus, my argument that there is no such thing as original thought.


The ultimate proof of my claim: 



This is a very, very funny comedy bit about how Pachelbel's Cannon in D has permeated modern music.

This Is It

Dear Reader,

How to begin? . . . . I originally started this particular blog to explore the whole process of creating/writing a novel. I got it started, then abandoned it because I couldn't make the nifty-keen-o template I found work, and then I abandoned it. It also didn't help that I wasn't writing anything.

Originally, I set out to write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. That was back in 2001. Since then, I must have written millions of words, thousands of pages, and got at least seven sequels going in my head or in various stages of rough draft or outline or notes or something. But, my great book never produced itself because a: it was tooooooooooooooooooo long; b: in was scattered and confused because I tried to build in an element of mystery to it, and c: in the beginning, I was a totally wretched writer. I read my very first draft and cringed.

Fight FOCA » Sign the Fight FOCA Petition

As much as I abhor the very thought of abortion, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that if abortion is illegal, only criminals will provide them, and women will die as a result. Therefore, I believe that for the protection of the adolescent, poor and uneducated, as well as in the case of rape, incest, and mortal danger to the mother, abortion should be legal, safe, and rare.

6 Unspectacular Quirks

Okay. Ginger tagged me for this way back in November. It looked like a fun little exercise, so I decided to do it, then promptly pushed to the back burner—way, way back in the back. But, now I've got a minute, here it is. The trick for me is limiting the quirks to six.

Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you and comment in the comment section on their original Quirk post.
   
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
   
3. Tell 6 unspectacular quirks about you.
   
4. Tag 6 or more by linking to them.
   
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

The Art of Inspiration (or lack thereof)

What is it about a computers that make my mind as blank as the screen when I sit down to write? Why do I lay in bed desperately trying to fall asleep but unable to quiet the ideas bouncing about? Why can I compose in my head while I'm cooking or washing dishes or taking a shower, but I cannot use my fingers and my brain at the same time?

Of course, I can't use my mouth and my brain at the same time, so maybe that one is not quite so surprising.

And, it doesn't matter what I write, from chapters in a book to personal letters to answering email in some sort of coherent fashion. There's a turn somewhere between the input and the output that I can't quite navigate at times. In point of fact, when answering email, I usually hit the send button before my brain engages, so I end up sending addenda, corrections, retractions, post scripts, ad infinitum.

This is how it works. Today is missionary letter day, so I resolve to write a decent one. I even know what I'm going to write. I sit down at the computer, and of course, I have to check my email. There's usually a fair bit of that, so I have to delve into the politics of the day and express my trite, inconsequential opinions lest anyone be in doubt that I have any (ha!). Then, it's imperative that I check out the absolutely last day of free shipping and internet only offers at Coldwater Creek or L. L. Bean or Old Navy. Someone from Relief Society has a question of utmost import, so that has to be researched and answered.

And, look at that! Lily Evans has thrown a sheep at me and Cami has written on my wall and Dixie says it's my turn at Scrabble and Julie has beaten my best time on puzzle 19582237, so, off to Facebook I go. It would be extremely rude to ignore such gestures of good will. With 165 friends, there's always someone wanting something. Hmm. Flora wants to be my friend. Flora?? Oh! I know you. You're Paul's best friend's second cousin once removed. Silly me.

D2 says Facebook is a waste of time. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

After meeting all my social obligations, I decide to eat breakfast (sometime closing on noon), and one can't write while eating, so the only thing to do is solve puzzles on Puzzlebee. There goes another hour. Then, while zoning out on that, an idea pops in my mind for one of the blogs. Gotta take care of that while it's in my head! And research! People want to know these things and I'd better be right if I'm going to tell them. And, maybe just one game of mahjong. Just one. I promise.

Did I mention that I'm the website coordinator/approver/whatever for my ward? Can't slack off on that responsibility. Notifications have been sent. An activity for the Primary has been added to the calendar and needs approval. While I'm at it, new callings have been issued. Releases have been made. The leadership rolls need updating.

I'm also the ward dry-pack specialist and there's that whole post-Ike preparedness evaluation I need to write, but first, I'll write the letter.

And another thing: Christmas is coming. I better order the presents for the daughters-in-law while I still can. They tend to disappear closer to Christmas. One must research, shop, compare, evaluate, bid, rebid, re-re-bid. It's exhausting.

Maybe just one more game of mahjong.

The clock sneaks up and bashes me upside the head. I load WordPerfect. (My rabid hatred of MS Word is another subject entirely). I stare at the screen, then pop up to put some clothes in the washer, wash the two bowls and a three spoons that are in the sink, get something out of the freezer for dinner, make my bed (really make it, not just tug the blankets straight when we get up in the morning), and pull out the Swiffer to get the sticky spots off the kitchen floor.

And, of course, the entire time stuff I will write bounces around in my head. I think my ideas are like vermin. The light goes on and everything scurries back into the walls.

Ten hours later, here I sit writing about how I can never write. Dinner's over, the dishes are done, the laundry is fluffed, folded and put away, and Dallas (the hubby) has retreated into the bedroom to sleep in front of NCIS. I guess I better start that letter. I think I procrastinate until he's home just so I appear industrious. It also helps to have something quiet to do to keep from disturbing his nap.

Plus, he doesn't catch me playing mahjong until my eyes glaze over.

Dang. Eight o'clock. Time to take a shower so my hair will be dry before I go to bed. I'll write the letter after that.

To Blog or Not to Blog

Although the fact may be news of no consequence, I have created a new blog. However, when one considers the fact that I have already authored five different blogs, the temptation arises to beg the question, why another?

The answer to that question is simple---or, at least, it is to me. This blog is my blog, meaning all that stuff that which just bounces around in my head and requires some sort of receptacle. Considering I have no 'pensieve' into which I can store my extracted thoughts when my brain gets too cluttered, a blog seemed the simplest solution.

The more complex answer to the need and/or impulse lies in the content of my other blogs, each of which I created for a specific purpose. Given their individual natures, none are suitable for my random, haphazard, everyday musings. One could even go so far as to say I wanted a blog that is solely my own.

In the past, I have written nice, long newsy letters scattered with pictures and only the best events of our lives the previous year. I enjoyed it and fancied others did as well, until I heard from two different siblings that they absolutely hated receiving Christmas letters and considered them disingenuous and artificial. I left off, but still felt rather guilty for not maintaining the contacts that I treasured. However, indolence combined with apprehension of becoming an annoyance served to deaden those pesky little pricks of conscience which occasionally chastised me for failing to foster connections within our very large and far-flung family. I finally decided that I would keep a blog and that, combined with sending out simple Christmas cards with our URL would serve. Those who cared could check in on us from time to time. Those who didn't wouldn't simply refold a 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper completely filled with 8 point type.

After Dallas II (hence forth referred to as D2) and Lynda tied the knot in May of this year, I decided it was time to act. I created The Fabulous Family Freeman and registered our URL because I thought it was so terribly clever and didn't want to risk losing it. Then, because 'I knew it was a matter of considerable import and required my immediate attention', I started actually creating posts about two months later.

I still primarily post letters of the newsy sort which I have written to Elder Freeman. Despite the blog later I created for that purpose, tales of erupting sewers do not really have a place on pages dedicated to spiritual things. However, the time is fast approaching where I will not have that resource, so I will have to make myself compose specifically for that blog he comes home. Hopefully, I will convince my daughters-in-law to do so as well. (My sons never would).

Despite the secular nature of FabFreeFam, it is yet intended for family news. I do not care to clutter it with my treatises on Charles Dickens vs Jane Austen, Twain vs Alcott, Tolstoy vs Karazamov, my favorite heroes and heroines in literature, and modern values in movie productions and script-writing vs the accurace of social norms in the period pieces they create.

Steadfast Faith in Christ: a Missionary Journal was created as a means of sharing the letters home from my son, Elder Paul Freeman, as well as the pictures and video he has sent. Then, realizing the missionary tool it could become, I invited the various members of my family to share the letters from their own missionaries. The authors are the missionaries themselves through their letters which are posted. I consider myself merely the publisher and but one of the editors.

A Mormon Family Journal was created as a companion to Steadfast Faith in Christ, with the equal intent of bearing testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of his church here on earth, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From their love and support of their missionaries, parents, loved ones, and friends often write letters to their missionaries inspired by the Spirit of God as a means of providing instruction and encouragement through those difficult two years. Neither would my rattles be appropriate here.

A Mormon Journal I created to have a forum exclusively my own and perhaps through a different service gain a broader audience with which to share my testimony of the Gospel, but I have done next to nothing with it since. I use it primarily as a mirror site to A Mormon Family Journal. I need to get more in the habit of writing things of an eternal nature.

Then, along came Olde Oaks Relief Society Weekly Update. This I created, as the title indicates, as another means of providing news and information for the sisters in our ward, and especially to connect to the Relief Society those sisters who serve in other auxiliaries or who are otherwise out of the loop. I was then the secretary to the Relief Society presidency, maintained a group list, and published a monthly newsletter. Of course, we needed another less restrictive and/or conditional means of reaching all the sisters in our ward, not only those who showed up to get the newsletter or who knew how to access the information on our group site. Again, helping spread the Good News was/is my primary objective. I am now no longer the secretary, but I do not mean to abandon the site. It's good stuff to share, and hopefully the newly reorganized presidency will continue to use it as an information portal, as well as help it reach its full potential.

So, here I am, creating my sixth blog and using a really cool theme that I found on Jackbook.com (thanks Gosublogger). I guess one may say I liked to compartmentalize everything (which I tend to do), that I'm just a tad bit obsessive (only a tad?), and that my life tends to be boring (not news to anyone). The most interesting things go on in my brain (so interesting that I tend to get lost in there with increasing frequency), so, here this is, my brain pan.

Hmmm. Perhaps I should change the title to My Brain Pan. Nah. That has probably been used at least a dozen times over. How could that possibly reflect the imaginative and unique products of my all-too-fascinating mind? Besides which, I have changed the name of this blog six times already.