12:31 post-counselor visit, sinking into cushions almost asleep

Ok. After seeing the psychiatrist.
This is for me.
Existential crisis I’m going through: There is no meaning except the meaning that comes from me. It has to come from me. Scary; I can choose to place my meaning in other things; friends, etc., but I will never be fulfilled through that – unless I find meaning in every moment for myself.
Katelyn’s defense mechanism to the stark reality that we are essentially all alone in the world: going full force into feeling things. People aren’t comfortable with that. Thank god she was here to teach me how to look deeper into myself in many ways. Nobody is the bad guy here. Not Luke. He is only trying to survive in the world the way he understands it, which is not wrong. It’s his perception. Not Katelyn. She is putting herself out there – she is giving what she can to the world around her – what she believes is the truth of herself for the good of the world. And not me. I needed (and still need) this time to look deeper into myself and to look at people not from a solely accepting “I love you” point of view, because there’s more to life! Of course that throws them off, they’re not used to that from me – or most people, especially in theatre… I haven’t been pushing them away, I’ve been wanting connection more than ever, on my terms, which has given me connections with some and not with others. I just have to learn to decide when it’s important that my terms be met and when I can compromise and meet them on their level. I still think that right now in my life there needs to be a balance tipped a bit more to my terms, because I’m an expert on their terms, and I still need to discover what my terms are!
How will I cope with the fact that life has no meaning outside what I attach to it?
You wanna know the truth? I have felt more fulfilled and like I was actually living in these past few weeks than ever before, because my meaning was held in the moment and what was right then, and not in what others wanted from me, especially not in what I had to do next. In that way, I think yoga is good for me because it brings your mind to the moment. Part of being in the moment is being aware – even if that’s just being aware that you need to watch a movie right now. Not sacrificing yourself for the sake of routine or habit, that’s what I want to learn on a regular basis.
Living to live.
The meaning is in living every moment.
Even if there is a God, what other meaning could there be? Why would he give us every moment if only a select few really mattered? What all the other shit for?

To know my body will be exciting, because that will help me be aware of what I want now, not what I think I should want. And remember what Melinda said about the nerve endings coming from the brain to every part of your skin and body – “the brain is the body,” there’s not really a separation.

I want to know that I am not willing to go back to my old patterns of relationship with certain people. I don’t think that’s entirely true – I would go back some, but not all the way – but still, the point is for me to fucking grow – that is what I want ultimately, more and more, as a person and actress, or else what point is there to living? To seek happiness in comfort and familiarity and rotting in happiness? Maybe for some people, not for me. Not. For. Me.

I’ve also been exploring petty emotions that are there in me – jealousy, jealousy, anger, hurt, things we’re not supposed to feel on a regular basis or express with any regularity, they’re “bad.” But I can’t tell myself they’re not bad to make them go away – that’s ridiculous. I choose to say, ok, it’s there – the only way to let it happen is to let it be there, I think, to say, ok, I know I feel stupid right now and I know you know I feel stupid right now – then I can experience it – yes, fucking experience it, which sometimes feels like poop - and let it pass, because that’s living too, as much as laughter.

Ok, so. How alone do I feel? The psychiatrist asked. Well,
At times… I know that no one can ever be fully understood by another human being. Ever. I should not expect that or think that anyone has me pegged – then I’ll let them define me, and it will always be a smaller definition than what I truly am or can be.
In that sense we are all UTTERLY ALONE…
But in that sense we are all utterly alone together. If we can understand that about each other, what freedom that gives us to give as much as we possibly can (as we choose to) to other human beings, knowing we don’t define them and can’t ever understand them; if we have something, some attribute/talent/trait/love/characteristic to give to others that will send the world a little further in the direction you want it to take, how much more free can we be with those gifts and sharings knowing that they do not bind us irreversibly to anyone we share them with – we are moving forward together, we are all in this together, for better or worse what we offer the world from the loneliness of the cell thatis our bodies contributes to the greater world around us, affecting us and other souls in the most shared sense possible. We share this place, this humanity – we could even go so far as to say this being – the trees, the beasts, and yes. We do affect the world around us, and we do choose how we do that, to a certain extent. And we can choose to ignore or deny that in our minds (and still continue to affect the world, of course) or to be aware of it and look more and more for what we decide we want more of in the world, and give what we can when we can.
Alone together.

And we will have feelings of jealousy and hate and searing pain – if we pretend they’re not there they’ll kill us. What if we could be more open and less afraid about saying “I love you” “I hate that you just said that” “I feel so small right now, and I don’t know how to handle your anger…” god, how much more of a true relationship would we have with each other? And how much more human would we be able to see ourselves as, and others as well? Human.

I am always, have been “programmed,” taught to be seeking ‘goodness’ and perfection. I am working it into my life against a community of opposition that there is no goodness, but there is cause and effect and what we call ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure’ and how we’ve boxed those into good or bad and seek one over the other and how there’s choice…

I feel a contradiction.
I want there to be far less ‘good’ and ‘bad’ labels on emotions and on activities and choices – things are what they are, we don’t have to judge them every time. But there is a sort of ‘goodness’ that I want to work toward in the world… and I think to clear up the contradiction I will use the word truth instead of goodness. And what is truth? That’s a whole other kettle of fishes, but I know seeking and not settling is something I want to promote in the world – especially though, being true to yourself, even if that means settling. I want to call that ‘good’. Ed my acting professor says everyone has their own personal goodness (yes, even those who ascribe to a goodness “outside of themselves”, such as the Holy Scriptures – they have made those laws a part of their personal goodness, and of course it’s always more complex than “I just want to obey these laws” – so we all have our personal goodness we’re trying to achieve, no matter what one believes). So if someone’s personal goodness is to settle, for where they are instead of finding out what more life has to offer (in the moment or on a ‘grander’ scale), I won’t agree because it’s not my personal goodness, but I will do what I can to help them achieve it for their good. Or maybe I won’t… maybe I’ll try to convince them that I’m right about how they need to live. And what if someone’s personal goodness is to murder and rape as many people as possible? Well, I could say maybe achieving personal goodness ends when you begin hindering others from achieving theirs (by killing them or whatever…). But I don’t know that murder could be a true personal goodness, because we are all connected and murder somehow denies that connection, and maybe personal goodness isn’t so much about personal goodness for me as I want it to be about world goodness – which brings us back to the question that has been peeking around the corner this whole time of what good is.
Of course I don’t know, of course I’m confused, of course none of this is written in stone in my mind, and I’ll get even more confused – I’m only exploring. Thank GOD! How will we get anywhere else if we don’t try to go somewhere we’ve never been, disorienting as it may be?