Thursday, May 25, 2006

On Being a Needy Asshole

The other day, in email conversation with a friend I hadn't spoken with in a while, I painfully recollected a memory of myself as a needy asshole. This led to lists of needy asshole recollections.

As I write this the discomfort of these memories and the feeling of overwhelming neediness comes back to me and I feel somewhat paralyzed to recount them.

I am less of a needy asshole than I once was. This is not because I am not needy. First of all, I have big news, which would have been useful for me to learn at a young age, but I was forced to learn this one the hard way: being needy is human. So, yes, I am still needy. But I am less needy and I am more able to ASK for what I need.

Along the way I got the message that being needy was unattractive, pathetic and just plain BAD. But, of course, since I was human, those pesky needs just kept showing up. Needs bad, but needs won't go away... I decided (not what you would call consciously) that I would figure out another way of getting my needs met: passive agression, whining, guilt, submission, mooching, etc. All these tactics sort of worked only in that I thought I wasn't showing how needy I was (which would be BAD but which was sadly obvious, if only energetically). For instance, one of my clever ways to get men to like me (a need) was to act like I didn't need anything, especially love, and it helped that I didn't think I deserved anything anyway. Oh yeah, that one worked really well--I was an unparallelled man repeller/lousy man chooser.

As a struggling artist, I was often broke and really on my own without any typical support structures. I moved a lot. I house-sat. I slept on couches, etc. On the one hand I was ashamed of my predicament. On the other, I expected people to feel sorry for me. I sometimes outstayed my welcome because I couldn't figure out what my next move would be. I might complain about the art world or the difficulty of being an artist but I was never able to honestly and simply say how scary it was to live so out on the edge.

My asshole-neediness was so much about shame and not feeling able to say what was really going on with me. I really needed to be taken care of but that just seemed so unacceptable to admit. I feel that I was often a burdensome friend and I apologize to the many people on whom I unloaded this.

I know I had stuff to work out (and did) to feel less needy. For instance, for a while in my early 40s I was a single mom--talk about needs: try being a single parent. Even though I was ostensibly more needy and, was, indeed, exhausted and overwhelmed much of the time, I felt much more able to look after myself (and my daughter) than I had in my 30s--part of that was having the strong purpose of being a good mother. By the time I entered into my relationship with Dave I had developed some skills which have served me well.

I am now much more able to ask for what I need in the moment. (I also chose a man who wants to be part of the relationship equation). If I need a hug, I ask for one. If I need to be held, I ask for it. If I need him to listen without commenting, I ask for that. I say when I'm feeling vulnerable. I still feel shame around certain emotions or behaviours, but I am often (if only eventually) able to admit it. In other words, instead of energetically and passively emitting my shit onto other people by not acknowledging first to myself what is going on with me, more and more I am able to own what I am going through and ask for what I need. I also try to take it in stride if I can't get what I ask for.

That was also a problem in my needy asshole stage. I mean who can or wants to look after a grown adult? But that's what I thought I needed, particularly in an emotional sense. I've always been resourceful and good at surviving, but I always felt so outside and so alone. I had to fall apart (a few times) and put myself back together to learn that I could support myself. I am still dealing with support issues. Del, my Gestalt therapist says to tell myself: I don't need support.

When Dave doesn't get my art or when I feel like I'm not finding the right people to help me with this project, for instance, I get that all alone feeling. Del says: a) one step at a time and b) do it for myself.
In my needy asshole stage, I would do a good deed but I would expect something back (i.e. I didn't just do it because I wanted to, there was always this idea of tit for tat). Not a good recipe for friendship. I put that on my friends, too. And I apologize for that, too. Lucky that I'm growing up (better late than never).

Monday, May 15, 2006

My Man Dave

Some of my students (I teach Speech at Lethbridge Community College) were very curious about what the Human Body Project event was like for Dave, the guy I live with and to whom I will be imminently married.

Okay, it's one thing to be me: intense, driven, out there. But I'm used to myself. I often sympathize with Dave for being the person who is with me. When I committed to doing this (i.e. it was no longer just an idea), we both freaked out I think. I was panic-stricken at the thought of being so exposed. He did not like the idea of sharing his woman that way.

When I understood where his discomfort was coming from it was easier for me. I had thought it was about him thinking I was crazy and I have big issues with being dismissed that way.

Looking at the tape and photos from the event makes me very happy that I am going to be the wife of this man. In his eyes I see real love, respect and support. How he felt hasn't been a big subject of conversation (I did ask but perhaps you hadn't heard about men and how they aren't overly motivated to talk about their feelings?). But I know that I am supported and it means a great deal to me. Maybe he'll comment about it on the blog one day.

I Have a Nice Body

I'm spending the next several weeks working on Human Body Project material (and getting ready to be married on June 10). My plan is to have work (photos, art and writing by participants) posted on the site before the wedding; definitely by June 24 which is the opening of the Southern Alberta Art Gallery's show of local contemporary artists (working on my contribution for that, as well).

I am frickin thrilled by the video footage. The video will be the strongest document. The time-based nature of the event is a quality that, I realize since watching the videotape, is very important to the translation from event to document. Watching the video will create an experience for the viewer that is similar to being at the Human Body Project event. I'm thinking of it like a concert film in that it will basically run in real time. (I'm not sure yet how or if I'll display it on the site).

It's very interesting for me seeing the tape. First of all, I'm surprised by how my memory is quite different from the sequence of events that actually occurred. And, funnily, I look at the naked lady (me) and think: it must feel weird to be standing there naked like that. Also, I'm pleased to report and observe that my body is not as hideous as it appears in clothing store dressing rooms the world over.

It's weird enough watching oneself on video. I'm not used to seeing myself that way at all. Then throw yourself--naked--into a roomful of people! Definitely a strange experience to watch myself. But I'm finding myself actually being loving to that naked me onscreen. In my younger days, I would have decided I looked fat or stupid. But I look at myself with a fair amount of forgiveness and compassion as I struggle along here with the editing program. Watching myself naked on video in a roomful of people has given me a new appreciation for my body. Somewhere on the tape, after it's over someone says something like: she has a nice body. I find myself agreeing. This is what I call progress.

The most interesting and painful thing for me to see about myself was the way I speak. I had no idea how tightly clenched my jaw is nor how closed my throat sounds. To me, I look like I'm holding myself back when I speak. I want to free that up. (A friend of mine also said she was surprised by how little I said. And when I answered questions it seemed to take me forever to form cohesive sentences. This was probably caused by the overwhelmedness I was feeling.)

It's a pleasure to see the event again on video. Alone, dressed, in a video-editing suite, I am more able to take in what people said, for instance. The blog entry I wrote about after the event and the thing I frickin love on the video is how awkward it all is (like my ponderous paragraphs), but also how sincere. It's very beautiful and I can't wait to do more.

Friday, May 12, 2006

A Natural History of Peace

The title above comes from the title of an article in the April 2006 issue of Harper's magazine. The article is written by Robert Sapolsky, a professor of neurology at Stanford University, and I read it shortly after the time when I was writing below about critical mass. It gave me great hope because it seemed to confirm that concept but comes at it from a different angle: primatology.

The article summarizes recent thinking in the study of primates (i.e. monkeys, i.e. our closest animal relatives). Sapolsky first writes about how in the 60s the violence of primates became known. They, like humans, kill each other, use violence strategically, use toolmaking skills to make better weapons, and even engage in what can only be termed warfare. Sapolsky says this gave rise to a prevailing theory of humans as killer apes; that violence is part of being human.

But newer evidence has emerged that offers hope for people like me who believe that humans (and other primates) do not intrinsically need or wish to be brutal. I believe that given the opportunity to survive peacefully, people will choose that route. It seems like monkeys go the same way. I'll simplify Sapolsky's evidence: several experiments have indicated that moving highly agressive monkeys (in particular, young males) into a different more peace-loving, "affiliative" cultural group caused the violent, young alpha-monkeys to change their behaviour within hours and to retain their less agressive behaviours. These changes continued into their descendants.

In one study where a group of agressive monkeys had died because they had all foraged at the same infested dump, the baboon troop was left with less agressive males. Agression died down significantly in the whole troop. Males even groomed each other on occasion, an almost unprecedented behaviour in baboons. Sapolsky says this is not only because of the female-male ratio but because of the types of males that were left. What is really interesting, though, about this particular study stems from the fact that baboon males will leave their birth troop to mate. Twenty years later none of the troop's males were born or grew up there--they grew up in more agressive cultures--yet the peaceful culture of that troop prevailed.

Sapolsky also mentions studies that have shown that humans are hard-wired to distrust those who are unlike their "tribe"--seeing foreigners sets off the amygdala, the so-called reptile brain, setting off, in turn, fear. This has given rise to pessimism about the innateness of xenophobia. But newer evidence suggests that when testing subjects who have experience of people of different races or by subtly biasing subjects ahead of time by asking them to think of people as individuals, the amygdala remains undisturbed. Humans, it turns out, are flexible.

Writes Sapolsky: "We have fashioned religions in which violent acts are the entree to paradise and religions in which the same acts consign one to hell. Is a world of peacefully coexisting... possible? To say it is beyond our nature is to know too little about primates, including ourselves."