Cheese and morphine are second cousins. There’s a pain relieving substance found in milk fat called casomorphin. You know that blissful body rush you get after downing a pint of Haagen Daz, half a large cheese pizza or an entire wheel of Brie? It’s our getting a little high on opioids and sugar. Of course, this short lived bliss is usually followed by constipation, diarrhea and self-hatred but hey, everything in moderation right?
So last week I filmed an entire video and it was complete crap. Rather than subject you all to the worst editing ever, I deleted my Sunday, considered it yet another lesson and tried again.
This week’s video was inspired by a memoir released in June; The Elephant in the Room by Tommy Tomlinson. I bought the audiobook after reading an interview with the author in Rolling Stones. I’m about halfway through and loving it. Tommy holds nothing back and his story, observations, even his blind spots are fascinating. No offense Tommy. We all have them. My car is covered in tiny dents marking many failed attempts at parallel parking.
His story got me thinking about a theory that comes up again and again in my work on my self and what I see in others: the ways in which systemic oppression, modern day stress and our ruthless version of Capitalism, keep us all stuck in repetitive cycles of unmet need, reactive, fear-based parenting, reactive, fear-based attempts at adulting and various forms of addictions we adopt to help fill in the holes where love should be.
Can I get a amen?
Hopefully that message is made clear in this week’s video. If not, let me know. We’re all learning as we go.
My hats off to you Tommy for your gutsy memoir. I hope it changes the world.
ps: sorry I’m staring off to the side through the whole video. I…I’m learning. 🤷🏻♀️
Born in Providence 
It is a lot to soak in but makes perfect sense. I was never that one who blamed my parents for all that is “me” but as I got older and saw how I am, I realized maybe they did have something to do with all that is me. I see it in my son, and of course I see all the “bad traits” (not that he is bad, just the things in me I wish I wasn’t so quick to jump to traits, if that makes sense) of mine that he inherited but others tell me how great he is, tender hearted, polite, etc, etc. I was glad you said that we might have gotten or been all of the parenting types because I was thinking up to that point well, I was all of those LOL. I think you did well on the video E. I gave presentations for years for companies and you did great for a being a newbie 🙂 I need to go and watch the first video you talked about as I haven’t had a chance to do so yet 🙂
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I love cheese!
Sometimes I feel as my diamond is folded over. I cruise along, in sync with the base of society’s expectations, then some unexpected bump throws me into the lower half. This tells me that there is something that I’m probably ignoring in my processing, a trigger or triggers that perpetually keep me from lifting to the heights.
Lately I think I have been inherently stressed. It may be a genetic situation because when I mentioned it to my younger daughter, she said she has it too, even though I never really felt I directly expressed stress in my life, until recent years.
I used to meditate. But that didn’t seem to help. I tried for several years.
Not necessarily blaming but questioning, I wonder how the direction of society develops stress in people for a myriad of reasons.
I smoked lovingly through my twenties. It was the perfect relationship, woke me up in the morning, to sleep at night, calmed me down when I was anxious, picked me up when I was down, before meals, after meals. I remember the feeling of the rich warmth moving into my lungs and the pleasure of releasing the clouds into the world. It was highly meditative.
I knew that I would quit one day. When I finally did, it was because I met someone and she had a nine year old daughter. I wanted to be a good influence, a good parent. So once I decided, I quit fairly quickly.
A few weeks after quitting, I had a dream. I was smoking and it was the most luxurious experience I had ever known. The next day, I felt I had to try it. It was very disappointing, not half as good as the dream. For the next several years, I bought a pack here and there when I went solo camping, but never started up again. Decades later, I still miss it.
You mentioned different people respond or recover from similar situations differently. It’s a great thought! Society has another version of this, again not blaming but understanding. We do what we do because it’s what we’ve always done… easy. We do what we know, what can be predicted.
Inherited solutions, may also work or not work for an individual, where it might have been effective for the predecessors. As you said, the solutions are based on simple concepts. But how they are implemented may or may not be easy based on a person’s upbringing or aptitude.
I think that sometimes society, like the individual, often shows its true condition under crisis. Not that it doesn’t happen with individuals or at various points with individuals. But when things go wrong, disasters occur and the dominating elements of humanity expose themselves. Some reach out and rebuild stronger community, helping others regardless of general opinions and judgments. Others will loot, steal, and brace themselves for the fight.
I’ve got an event today, so I don’t have time to read what I’ve written. I hope it makes sense and doesn’t just repeat everything you are saying in the video…
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