082. ...perpetual zoetrope of sepia toned criticism.
(morning thinking)
Reflecting this morning on today's entry in last year’s journal entry I can see that Back Then Me had three negative encounters with strangers. On February 2022’s corresponding evening I described the encounters as “confrontational, unwarranted and unwanted” but gave no more detail than that. He/we went on to reflect that he/we would, “in the past, have ruminated pointlessly and endlessly over each experience” but that “taking some perspective, zooming out and looking at each actor as protagonist, as hero, in their own play rather than as minor sources of conflict in my own” had removed a good amount of day to day anxiety.
I don’t remember these three strangers, 2022 Paul could be frustratingly enigmatic, focusing on the feelings rather than the details, but I suppose that’s what was important back then. I probably won’t know what happened unless it comes at me in a flash later today. Those unhappy little vignettes and their players are gone and that’s really no loss other than maybe for context.
The experience 2022 Me was referring to, racing whirling recriminations and intrusive critical thoughts, that I remember very well. A repeating negative feedback loop of second guessing and self doubt that brings to mind the tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy in bed, room shaking as her waking life whirls by her bedroom window. The broken record of my inner critic would serve up a carousel of fear and doubt and scary mocking baddies.
2022 Paul noticed that pointless rolling rumination on negative experiences doesn’t seem to happen any more and reading his pencil written journal entries a year later I am encouraged and emboldened by the consistency of my ongoing freedom from the intrusive thoughts. The changes in perspective seem to have worked to end that perpetual zoetrope of sepia toned criticism.
That doesn’t mean that intrusive thoughts don’t land anymore but it does mean that when they show up at the door of my thinking space, intending to barge in and race about making a mess and preventing any focus on anything more productive or pleasant, they are politely refused entry. None shall pass.
There was a point when I would second guess and revisit every social interaction picking over my behaviour, looking for ways that I’d messed up. I think, in part, that was because I’d held onto a childish perspective of myself as the centre of the universe. With this as the foundation for my thinking I would take every negative or troublesome moment as a direct attack, an insult to my personal story.
With hindsight and (finally!) some little amount of maturity, I’m able to see how obviously silly that attitude is.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows sites Sonder as…
the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
Reading old journal entries each morning and adding my own, year later, reflections is shining a spotlight on my progress. And sometimes highlights where there’s still work to be done.
I don’t think, technology permitting, I could have time travelled back to the year two thousand, or earlier, to give Then Me a definition of sonder and a lesson in context . I couldn’t have said, “it’s not all about you Paul!” and expected an instant transformation into Zen Me, I think it’s a necessarily slow process. I do think Sonder is the antidote though. This current version of me is not always all that Zen but I do seem to have flipped the switch on the scratched, broken record of intrusive cycling thoughts and that is something of which I am very proud.
The word Sonder was introduced to me by JB Seal. You should have a wee listen.
Thanks for reading. These morning monologues are pretty much therapy sessions right? Odd to be sharing them, rambling them out into the digital metaverse.
As usual you can add your own thoughts, like, subscribe and share. I hope you do, will and might.
Thanks again for reading, Lambie.