I received a comment from a good and close friend who said that my last post was “nice and heartfelt.” That’s when I knew I was, at the time of that writing, full of shit.
A little history. I’m going through a divorce. Average Goldy Locks divorce – not too nice, not to harsh. But, in getting distance from an unhappy relationship I decided to try reducing and eventually quitting the psychotropic drugs I was taking for depression, anxiety, and PTSD for the past 22 years. With the help of a psychiatrist at Kaiser I did indeed stop both venlafaxine and vilazodone. It’s been about two months for venlafaxine and about two weeks for vilazodone.
When I wrote the previous post, I was not drug free. And boy-howdy does it show. I have rarely written such sugared tripe. If I could wipe it out of the internet I would. But, unlike gravity, what goes up on the internet stays up forever.
I thought I could really pull it off – being a uncommonly nice person. But know what? There doesn’t seem to be enough other practicing good people out there to pull it off. All I’ve done is look like a clown – a pendajo, a smiling fool. I’ve learned and observed a few things in the past few weeks:
• The vast number of people think nice is the same as week, or passive aggressive, or as a prelude to a hustle, and I am willing to concede that they might be right.
• Almost all my good deeds and smiles were met with cynicism.
• Most people look for the bad in others – and find it.
The bottom line is that I am 70-years old, and I will not spend what time I have left being a naïve fool. On the other hand, I will not spend that time as an aging, grouchy cynic who thinks nice is stupid and weak and who looks for the worst in others.
Regardless of my frame of mind, I will always remain on the lookout for good folks – they are out there – and when I find them, I will work to build close friendships with them. Surround myself with them. But, once I see a mean streak or self-destructively selfish pattern in someone I will cut them loose much faster than before.
What are good folks? Well, I’m not really sure, but in the same vein as what United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said to describe his threshold test for obscenity: I’ll know them when I see them.
This attempt at a blog started out as a journal about using photography to help guide users out of a similar set of mental health issues as I had. But I’m not sure how big a part photography had in it. I must admit, I think I got the most help from having the courage to allow the end of a terrible marital relationship, as well as beginning to courageously face and actualize myself. Those have been the real tools. I think that photography and meds may have just kept me from killing myself until I could get the wherewithal to end a bad marriage and begin to face who I am. Sounds harsh but feels true. I am beginning to feel free now to pursue a wonderful art in photography. And, with the strength, trust, and conviction that I will no longer saddle myself with sadness and unnecessarily bad relationships that is exactly what I am doing.
As Carly Simon’s song says:
Suffering was the only thing
That made me feel I was alive
Thought that’s just how much it cost
To survive in this world… but
I haven’t got time for the pain
I haven’t got room for the pain
The time for the pain is over
Let’s go out and have some fun and make some great photos!
Scott Dixon, photographer