Thoughts on "I'm just not myself"

Look at that handsome devil Joe Purdy.

One of my favorite singers is Joe Purdy. I think I wrote about him when I was trying to explain “melancholy joy.” Listening to Joe is akin to an emotional journey. There is this dissonance between the music and the lyric. The music for the most part is hopeful; it is happy. The highs of the mandolin and even the piano create a place where your heart is contented and even joyful. But the lyrics…well, I’ll let me Aunt G explain the lyrics: “James this is depressing.”

So, that is kind of my genre of music. I like songs where the music and the lyrics are perfectly contradictory…which actually describes one of Joe’s shows that I went to in L.A. Joe had recently had a car company pick up his song, “Can’t Get it Right Today” for one of their commercials. This couple I know heard I was going to see him and asked to tag along. So, I of course agreed, excited to have someone go to the show with me, and we were all excited to hang together.

The show started late. This couple got tired, I was a little tired, but I was excited. The show was at The Roxy. Those of you familiar know that means there are no seats…it’s all standing. So, you factor in getting there an hour early, standing through an opening act, standing through intermission. It just made for a long night. Joe finally played the song this couple came to hear…but he completely changed it. Instead of the melancholy joy I describe the band turns it into a full on dirge. The couple looks at me, a bit disheartened and asks, “Can we leave? If you think he’ll play a happier version of the song we can stay. But we’re tired. We have church in the morning and really want to leave.”

This did not make me a happy camper. I paid good money for the tickets. I drove into Hollywood (not my favorite thing) and I was excited to see Joe, but these two were obviously miserable…so I left. But that song is resonating with me this morning.

I was having a conversation this morning where I caught myself about to say “I’m just not myself today,” but I stopped. For some reason I had one of those “apothecaries” (epiphanies actually, but that is a private joke with someone, I just can’t remember who, so whoever that is…I love you!). The epiphany was this: even when I’m not feeling well, even when I feel like ripping someone’s head off…that is still me. No matter what the mood, it comes from a place within me, and as such I need to own it.

What it made me realize was what we mean by “I’m just not myself today,” is actually, “I’m going to be a jerk to you right now, but you have to deal with it, because I don’t feel like making the effort, heck, I don’t even think I CAN make the effort to be congenial in this situation.” Harsh. I realize this, but the person I am slapping around most right now is me. The truth is “I’m just not myself” is an excuse to behave the way we want to behave. It allows us to do and say things that would be unacceptable in any other situation.

 

It reminds me of an episode of The New Girl when Nick keeps screaming, “Dead dad pass.” He was using the grief of his recently deceased father (which is a totally legitimate process, and are totally legitimate emotions) to get away with behavior he knew was unbecoming. It is actually a great picture to explain the phenomenon of, “I’m just not myself,” and I think that is what the writers were going for when they wrote that story line.

The truth of the matter is, when we feel out of sorts there are all sorts of legitimate things going on. Some people have chronic pain. Some people have seasonal depression. Some people have more on their plate than they should. Some people are working 70-80 hours a week to keep food on the table and being chastised for not being a better parent/friend/child. Every single one of these are legitimate problems that have the ability to steal our identity from us…because that is what we are saying. “I am working two jobs right now, so those jobs have stolen my identity” is what we communicate when we say, “I’m not myself because work is just too much right now.” And sure, what we are actually doing is just grabbing a common accessible phrase that communicates round about what is going on, but the problem is we believe it.

Why is it a problem to believe it? It causes us to be like the person in James 1 (the Bible, not my autobiography). We are people blown and tossed by the wind of our situations. When we believe that grief allows us to act irrationally and without accountability, we let it take over. Are you going to be irrational when you grieve? Absolutely. But…we, especially those of us who call ourselves Christians, should not allow ourselves to be overtaken by any situation.

And I will be the first to say this is a tricky balance. Many of us grew up in situations where we were taught, “Good Christians have to smile and be happy through every situation.” We were taught, “Someone died…let’s celebrate; you lost your job…let’s celebrate; you miscarried your baby…it was the Lord’s will, put on the big girl panties and move on.” And what has happened to a lot of us is this jaded response that rejects that form of Christianity and moves toward a place that says, “Surrender yourself to every ounce of that pain. Let yourself feel every emotion of it,” but we stop there. We don’t say, “Let yourself feel every ounce of that pain, and bring it to Jesus because He cares, and He will actively demonstrate His love for you in that place.” It’s like a marriage…it takes a long time to figure it all out, but you work toward that.

And so I end with this: I am reading Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. He talks a lot about emotions and feeling things. The big message in this book on meditation is that we come to a place where we acknowledge what we feel, but are not overcome. Grief is a reality, pain is a reality, but they do not dictate the center of who we are…they are simply a part of who we are. We meditate, we reflect and we acknowledge what is going on, but we do not give ourselves over to the internal videos that we play and build and direct. We instead look past these things toward what I would call God. We don’t ignore pain…we look through pain to see God. This isn’t the Christianity that ignores the problems we face…it’s the faith that says we are greater than what we face, but what we face is indeed very real. And that is something I can get behind. Something that says there are things in this life that are great; there are things in this life that are small, and we don’t have to ignore either. Instead we learn to find the One who helps us put these things in their proper perspective so that we do and say the things that we know we should, because they are a reflection of the true self that emerges through our trials.

On Bon Iver, Ecclesiastes and Rob Johnston, Part 1

So...let's start with my initial inspiration for this post. Watch this:

If you happen to follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook (which I kind of assume is how you found my blog) then you know about my love/hate of Bon Iver. I guess it is actually more of a love/jealousy thing when you get down to it. Their music just blows me away. I don't understand how they are creating this sound. So beautiful. So melancholy. Somehow still makes me happy.

Bon Iver is the latest in a line of bands/musicians that captures this thing that I have called melancholy joy. I think we all have those songs, bands, movies or books that we know are expressly sad, but still somehow bring us joy and even hope. For some it is that cathartic movie that you watched alone at home every Friday night after that break-up. For some it is that album that expressed your grief after you lost someone special. Though they are sad, they still somehow bring immense comfort and joy.

Some examples for me are the movies On a Clear Day and Lars and the Real Girl, and musicians Chris Thile and Joe Purdy. In a sense these are my textbook examples. It's easy to understand when listening to a song like The Beekeeper or I Love the Rain Most what I am trying to communicate. Both of these songs demonstrate a pang of loss in the midst of hope...or reverse that. Either way.

So...now let's scroll back to Fall quarter 2006. I got wait-listed for Theology and Film with Dr. Rob Johnston. I was excited, because somehow I got in. I got the syllabus and was taken aback a little bit. It had to be a typo. There was no way that we were going to read Ecclesiastes every week...twice. Yeah, we had to read that depressing book twice a week. I just didn't get it.

But Rob communicated something in that first class that has stuck with me ever since. And it is one of the starting places for this post: Ecclesiastes is one of the most relevant books for today's society. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we live Ecclesiastes...and that is not as depressing as it sounds. So, here's the deal. This, in my mind is the first part of a two post series about two juxtaposed thoughts on our identity as humans that seem irreconcilable, but are both nonetheless true. More simply? Here are two thoughts that can't seem true at the same time, but somehow are.

Before this gets too depressing...here's a bear playing a trumpet!

Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? - Ecclesiastes 3:19-22

All go to the same place. All come from the dust. All return to the dust. This is human existence. We all live. We all die. Everything we work toward is then entrusted to others. In other words, as we all know from Ecclesiastes, and is quoted above: everything is meaningless. And we can and should somehow be okay with that.

So, above I posted a Bon Iver video. The reason being was this line: "And at once I knew, I was not magnificent." That lyric has been sticking with me for quite a while. There is something expressly profound about proclaiming the normalcy of our human life. We are not that special. We are not all that talented, all that unique. We are human, just like those around us, just like those that came before us, just like those that will come after us. We just aren't all that different.

Before I came into contact with Bon Iver this same idea was communicated through a Fleet Foxes' song called Helplessness Blues. Here is a little video of that song. I can't really vouch for the video quality, but you can at least hear the song:

The first line is, in my opinion, quintessential melancholy joy:

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

The realization that everything special about you is somehow just not true is tough to stomach...but at least the Fleet Foxes communicated it beautifully. It somehow makes it more palatable. There is in this humble lyric of resignation a recognition that it is still okay. It is fine to be normal. It is fine not to be a "snowflake distinct among snowflakes." It is fine to be part of the greater part of Earth and her cycles and not somehow not be one of the movers and shakers who changes everything.

At the end of the day, my life is not that special. At the end of my life I will return to the dust. All I have is to enjoy this meaningless life. Or as it says in chapter 8 of this biblical text, "So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun" (verse 15). 

So, in summary, there is nothing better for me to do than enjoy this meaningless life that is not all that unique. There is nothing better that will come about than to somehow enjoy my labor, eat, drink and be merry. My soul will be all the better for acknowledging that there is nothing that great about me. Somehow a thought so depressing, so melancholy so anti everything that I was raised to believe is truth. My life is very much meaningless.