Guardians of the Secret
copyright © 1998 by Cary Shulman
All Rights Reserved
11.
Michael's week was an agony. He filled the days with catching up on his security business which he'd let hopelessly lapse. He almost made it through without anybody noticing he didn't have the slightest interest in what he was doing, only in something that would take him somewhere else. He was trying to be all business as he was giving an estimate of a security system to a woman who shared the desire for elsewhere. After sharing their interest in jazz, he was about to leave when she tried to book passage.
"You ever mix business with pleasure."
"Only at my worst."
"Leave it to me to bring out the worst in a guy," she added, half disappointed and half still trying.
"The best and the worst both..," Michael started to say with frustrated intensity. He could see it was too much. He quietly explained. "It's not that I'm uninterested. I'm too interested. I just can't handle it."
He sat in his car getting himself together. He noticed he was sweating. "The strain of restraint," he muttered to himself. He said it again. It was a favorite phrase. It summed up. He went home and listened to his answering machine. "This is United Parcel. We did have a delivery in your general area yesterday. Hope that clears everything up."
"Oh yeah." he said to himself. "Like this is going to do," he added as he poured himself a large drink. Several large drinks later he had the "clarity" he was looking for. Unfortunately, it was accompanied, as it often was, by an unruly inner dialogue.
Losing it. Shooting a gun with kids around. Am I losing it or already lost it. Five shots into that damn package, I'm thorough I'll say that. Today, got through today, didn't make a complete fool of myself. Can't believe my instincts are that off.
In excruciating detail he remembered the radio show, Sara's outburst, the parcel truck, the party, the package, the gun. He replayed the sequence over and over as if doing so were going to wear out the links in the chain of events and free them from their inevitable conclusion.
He finally caught a glimpse of himself on the not so merry go round. Time for a change. He lowered the lights and picked out one of Nimé's tapes. He noticed the title, "Guardians of the Secret", as he started the tape. "Let's see how the guardians do with Coltrane." He turned on the jazz CD and adjusted the volumes. He liked the effect. You could get lost in the sound if you had to.
"We began last time with Gauguin's questions. "Where do we come from?, What are we?, Where are we going? We were discussing how sexual fantasy helps us in answering these questions. One way was by showing us something important about our past. How we got into this fine mess as Oliver Hardy used to say.
"It dramatizes crucial turning points in our lives, unresolved conflicts that remain central to our development and gives clues how to overcome them. So sexual fantasy is a drama both in its entertainment sense as well as in its power to reveal meaning.
"The interesting question is why don't we allow ourselves both excitement and meaning. What would happen if our hearts, minds and genitals were all moved? Mishima the noted Japanese writer thought that was only possible in death. But it's our birthright to be totally present.
"We have a morbid fear of the complete person. Divide and conquer is not only a time honored strategy in the political sphere. On a personal level we have been divided and conquered and now we continue the job ourselves. We have been set off from ourselves, against ourselves. Here we lost the ability to speak forthrightly, here we lost some hope, here we lost some trust in others, her we lost some faith in our strength, our feeling of being beautiful, here we forgot how to dance...It makes us less, but more manageable. The political implications of this I'll save for another talk. Right now I'd like to move on to Gauguin's third question, "Where are we going?"
"The people that are going to help us answer that question are the people in your fantasies. They are where we've put our excitement and it's through that excitement that we can find meaning if we let it.
"So what is excitement? Excitement is movement toward that which would complete us, provide what's missing in our lives. As simple as a hot dog if we happen to be hungry. It can be the need of a moment or a lifetime. Excitement moves us toward unfinished business, undeveloped potential, poems unwritten, paintings unpainted, trips not taken, griefs not mourned, joys not chanced.
"Since fantasy is about arousal, it involves exciting ourselves. You can't tell yourself to get sexually excited the same way you tell yourself to move your arm or figure out an equation. We have to communicate with the source of our ecstasy, the unconscious. And the images of fantasy are how we do it.
"The figures in fantasy are mediators between you and the source of your ecstasy. Instead of having them play out their usual roles, using our imagination we are going to try to talk to them directly and see what they have to tell us. I'm sure you're saying to yourself, what possibly could they have to tell me, they're just something I made up.
"First of all I'd say that they're not just something that you made up. Who they are and the roles they play reflect your personal history. More importantly they occupy a unique place in your life. Through them you connect to the most exciting, vital depths of your being. That puts them in a privileged position to be witnesses to your inner life. Rather than having nothing to tell us, they have so much to reveal we'd rather have them play out their roles to convince us we're just having a good time and nothing more.
"So how to begin this remarkable conversation? What sort of questions do we ask? I mean these people are so extraordinary, so intimate and yet they are strangers to us. They remind us of how much of what we are and what we can be is astonishingly foreign to us.
"And how do they answer? Through your imagination. I think you'll be surprised at what your "imagination" comes up with, how real their response is and how meaningful it is to you. In freeing the figures of their stereotypic roles you are freeing your imagination to make connections with untapped, unrealized energies in yourself.
"You can begin by asking them basic questions. Who are you? The answer to this question in itself can be surprising and very revealing. It can give the first clues that the person you're addressing has much more depth and richness than you expected. It can also give you a feeling for what further questions you'd like to ask. Do you have something to tell me? Why do you excite me? Why are you in my life? What is our relationship like? Who do you remind me of? Do you have to something to say about where I've come from? Who I am? Where I'm going?
"Sometimes the figures are reticent to speak. Asking further questions like Why are you silent? What are you keeping from me? can start the conversation. Be patient. A good deal of meaning is hidden in that silence.
"This has all the awkwardness of a first date, which it in a way is. To the degree we all don't know ourselves, a blind one at that. You move on with the excitement of discovery , your interest and compassion.
"Fantasy is an existential message about growth. But we are all fearful. So rather than growth, we settle for repetition and stagnation. That means holding on to stereotypic roles in our fantasies. It's comforting in a way, but stifling. We have to allow the figures to live. If we allow them to change, then we change."
Michael was thinking about the tape as it went on. He thought about facing these images so casually created, about speaking to them and letting them speak back. The imagined conversation seemed to take place where there never had been a visitor let alone a conversation. Letting them in was like letting whores into a church, and what was more difficult was finding a church inside of them. Something lost in him was in their voices, did he want to hear it?
copyright © 1998 by Cary Shulman
All Rights Reserved