Now I lay me

I succeeded in going to bed by 10:30. I expected to have a hard time getting to sleep, especially since I had forgotten to take mirtazapine until I was getting ready for bed. Usually I take it an hour or two earlier to help make me sleepy. Of course I frequently ignore the sleepiness and stay up to do whatever I feel like doing; precisely the irresponsible behaviour I need to overrule, but forgetting my medication doesn’t help.

Still, I managed to get in bed on time after the usual, obsessive fussing: looking around uselessly for the book I wanted, finally finding it, going pee, relocating my laptop into the bedroom for reference, snuggling down before realizing I wanted the alpaca blanket from the living room to keep my shoulders warm, stalking naked through the cold apartment to retrieve it, snuggling down again only to find the alpaca too scratchy, and by that time it was still only 10:27, then remembering I had only committed to turning in by 11:00 this early in the game, but I didn't care.

I finished the winter chapter in Cultivating Sacred Space, then dug back into About This Life by Barry Lopez.

Amazingly, I started to feel drowsy before long. When I closed the book and rolled over to turn out the light, the clock radio said 10:57. I fell almost immediately asleep, but woke up at 2-something and had to pee again, which is unusual in the night. I had no trouble settling down again. The radio at 6:00 did not disturb me much. Since the shop will be deserted today except for me, I had allowed that I might sleep in, and I surely did until almost 7:30. It was the best sleep I have had in ages. At this rate I might make some headway against the darkness around my eyes, though I don't suppose every night will be this easy.

Martha Graham, on unhappiness, um, I mean dissatisfaction

On the other hand I wonder whether or not I should purpose in life to be happy. Joanna Paterson of Confident Writing welcomes the New Year by posting a quote from Martha Graham. Now I don't know much about modern dance, but I understand Graham's influence being compared (on PBS) "to that of Picasso’s on painting, Stravinsky’s on music, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s on architecture." Finding the source of the quote, I was fascinated by the entire context; also the final part, which had been omitted, about artistic dissatisfaction. It came originally from Alice de Mille, another dancer of Graham's generation:

The greatest thing she ever said to me was in 1943 after the opening of Oklahoma!, when I suddenly had unexpected, flamboyant success for a work I thought was only fairly good, after years of neglect for work I thought was fine. I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I talked to Martha. I remember the conversation well. It was in a Schrafft's restaurant over a soda. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me, very quietly, "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

I have referred to the idea of the artist's "divine dissatisfaction" before. I don't know whether Graham was the original source, whether I heard it somewhere else, or how it came to me, but I have often been aware of it.

Western society idolizes the human right to happiness. I don't believe we have any intrinsic rights. People have invented all of them, for good or ill. I don't deny anyone the value of pursuing happiness.

However, it is unnatural to be as happy as many people want. Any observation of the natural world reveals stress, drama and tragedy plague the lives of most animals. This would be true of plants, too, if we could perceive their responses. When I struggle with (clinical?) anxiety I am keenly aware it comes as a natural response to stress. So does dissatisfaction. Without dissatisfaction we would quickly die of starvation or some other basic negligence. Surely wild creatures experience happiness, too, and so should we. However, we cannot claim any right to pleasant emotions unless we accept our entire natural, functional inheritance, also including the feelings we don't want.

I have at times experienced too much anxiety, depression, exhaustion, distraction or demands from others to experience any happiness, create anything or be much real use to anyone. I can't live that way, but surely some people must. I am grateful to find a way out, to have power and resources at my disposal. So I work hard to look after myself, become better. I try to look after my own basic needs (which include community, love, and the responsibility to support others in their pursuit of wellness). Maybe sometimes I get distracted by happiness—it tastes so sweet after long deprivation—and start believing it is the end goal.

If you truly want a creative life, you cannot earn happiness by being yourself or doing what you do best. You must open yourself, like Graham did, to disatisfaction. Find a strong enough footing to let stress propel you forward. Don't block it. You will probably encounter some happiness (and I hope you will, like a bonus), but all you can earn is experience.

I can relate to Alice de Mille's fear "that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy." I often find most people can't relate to what feel to me like my truest, baldest expressions. Just because they are real and raw doesn't mean they are good. Just because they aren't good enough doesn't mean I should stop, if Martha Graham is any authority. I must stick with them, but it gets lonely, because I am wired and conditioned for loneliness, and it is the stress I dread most.