Word of the Week - 142

Art by Fabienne Cinquin.

Word(s) of the Week:  WHEN IN DOUBT

In times of confusion, I turn or have turned variously to food, sleep, humor, dithering, weeping, growing quiet, snapping, any distraction like organizing my color pencils yet again, pondering and, as a last resort, making a very simple plan.

The holidays confuse me.  Relentless promoting of costly, material goods makes me sad.  It seems so anti-holiday.  I used to be able to participate so differently, certainly with greater energy and other resources.  That was a very long time ago.  What passes for The News confuses me for I mistrust most of it, either to be actually newsworthy or to be true.

While I would not call myself a tough cookie of the old school, neither am I easily confused so it takes a really large and seething mass of chaos to throw me any distance.  Also known as, when the holidays and news collide.

Which brings me to, "Ow-my head," and other home-grown things a bright girl can do.  A useful response to confusion is not unlike a healthy reaction to physical peril from, oh, a poisonous snake or other predatory, lethal life form.  For me, that means stand still for as long as necessary.  Do nothing big or noisy or fast.  Drawing, with or without coloring, fits that description.  When figures or forms seem too much, I draw words, often silly ones that somehow help me feel less disoriented.  As each of us is unique, what is medicine for one may be further confusion for another.  It is not one size fits all.

I freely admit to being a conspiracy theorist.  One of the suspected conspiracies involves someone/someones somewhere being highly invested in keeping us confused or distracted in ways that render us non-functioning.  This is not new business, this didn't just happen.  Our job is to be as present, as bright and alert as possible, as don't-get-fooled-again skeptical as we can be.  Getting caught up with all the other fish who swim around in circles renders us useless.

It doesn't matter how one combats this fugue state, just that we resist it.  There IS a way out.  It is our job to find it, to draw its picture so we'll know it when/if it shows up again, regardless of the disguise it chooses.  Each of us is responsible for being present, for being our truest and most solid self by our own definition.  There is much to be said for simply holding a place of certainty when doubt seems to have the upper hand.  It is not about being right, it is about being.