Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. – Rainer Maria Rilke

Unearned suffering is redemptive. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

{t-20}

Suffering. Lots of it.

Cialdini has an interesting spiel on how beliefs are like tables. They may be raised originally on a particular set of cognitive legs, but once they are up, more legs soon join – this he calls “commitment and consistency”. Eventually, one may even remove the original causes of the belief without it tumbling, for all the additional legs now bear the weight.

I wonder at the source of my misery. I wonder how much of it is based in new-found feelings of spiritual accountability; how much in fear of the unknown; how much fear of end-of-childhood, of leaving the nest, of leaving all I’ve ever had and everyone I’ve ever loved; how much of it is the stress of too-many-things-still-left-to-do; how much the “Yitzi Plays Zelda” webseries I’ve always wanted to make, the one which is now-or-never, and which every day slides slowly towards never; how much the final damned graduation which I’ve sought so long, yet always avoided.

Dave Allen says a mind is for having thoughts, not for holding them. I’ve been holding a lot of stuff recently, and each cognition seems to take its turn punching me in the gut.

I tell myself that it will all end when I board the plane, and that indeed seems likely: much of the weight of “doing a good job in Sydney” will indeed rise from my shoulders. I’m pretty good, usually, at avoiding regret. Lately it’s been slaughtering me, but that might just be because I’m already weakened from fighting all its fear-based friends.

I’m going to sleep now. I pray the Lord grants me an open heart and a firm hand tomorrow.