What if I trusted myself to use this intense energy wisely?

Dear friends, I spend way too much time trying to be someone other than who I am. Not so much different, but “more”, “better”, “greater”… I seize upon my interests and take them as far as I’m able before my fuel runs out. Even that is part of who I am; I take on challenges as if my life were a series of short, intense races. But where am I going?

I’ve got more than fifty books on philosophy on my top shelf, nearly a hundred on religion, a quarter of which are Buddhist, another fifty fiction, another twenty on the craft of religion and poetry, sixty or seventy web and database programming books, at least a few dozen on running my own business, some on organizing myself, maximizing my potential, awakening the giant within… and I’ve read almost all of them with zeal.

In the past ten years, I’ve been a student, print designer, advertising consultant, newspaper editor – college and professionally, web designer, HTML developer, web programmer, database developer, usability consultant, information architect, computer consultant, computer repairman, freelance copyeditor, valet, hotel supervisor and again – a student. I’ve poured myself into every last job I’ve had, trying so hard to be the best I could be. The knowledge I amassed while working in the publishing and technology industries astounds me still, even though right now it remains mostly dormant, when I look at everything I taught myself.

I know how to program in PHP, ASP, SQL, Javascript, Java, and to a more limited degree C++ and Perl. With a little practice, I could write Regular Expressions like the best of them. I used to speak some Japanese. Before that, I used to speak some German. Before that, I used to speak some Russian. And I can still speak some Latin, having spent 5 years of my life prostrate to the Caesars.

I love tea, so I have a large tea collection collecting dust as I consume it much more slowly than I bought it. I’ve come to love photography, so I own a $400 camera and a $200 printer and it’s my new favorite creative expression. I love poetry, so I have a whole slew of old poems, and occasionally find inspiration to write more. I love to write, so I have all these notes and snippets and half-done essays and stories.

When I set my mind to transforming my physique from the highly obese body I’d allowed myself to achieve over the years after college, I hewed off most of the fat and produced a ton of muscle in less than a year. And then again, having taken up yoga, change has occurred with extreme rapidity: I am thinner and fitter than I’ve ever been before.

My Buddhist practice, even, shows signs of this intensity: I’ve been devouring Buddhist texts, from the simple to the complex, like they were food. With three or four group meditation sessions a week, a daily yoga practice, and such intense reading, I barely have enough time to sleep a full eight hours some days. In fact, many days, I don’t.

Even in love, I’m intense. I’m overwhelming. I want to understand, and I want to understand right now. Not only that, but I give so much, so fast, that I don’t even always know what I’m giving until I realize I’ve given up too much for my ego to handle healthfully. I’m absolutely committed to your well-being when I’m in love with you, and would do nearly anything to help you, to give what you need.

It’s no surprise that most of my relationships have been with abuse survivors still dealing with some or most of their trauma; they asked for so much from me, challenged me to give tremendously, and I encouraged that so that I would have a beneficial outlet for my energy. My problem in those situations has not been when I’ve been needed (I think that my help – even if just in giving love – provided some energy or space that assisted their own process of healing), but rather when I’m not needed; having accustomed myself to such intense levels of connection, I find it difficult to step back.

But that’s not all “me.” I feel, in some ways, that I’m accelerating. Perhaps that’s my practice helping me to realize just how fast I’ve been going, how hard I’ve been pushing myself. I don’t want to give all of that up; I’m proud of that ambition and drive. But on the other hand, if I wasn’t pushing so hard, would I be able to sustain my interests for a longer period of time?

I have tremendous tension in my shoulders, as if I were holding up the weight of the world. I disagree with a friend who says we should take care of ourselves first and others second – not so much that we shouldn’t ensure that we take care of ourselves, but when we consciously and continually focus on that, we repeatedly ask the question, “what am I missing?” And our minds are all too happy to tell us what we’re missing, catching us in a whirlpool of lack, and leaving us no time to consider others. My mind says do this, and do this, and when are we going to do this, and this, and this?

And that’s AFTER I’ve taken my Adderall and done my meditation.

I’m hoping that this explains some of my behavior. Some people know me as incredibly calm and easygoing, and others see me as intense and prone to melodrama. Those who are closest to me see both polarities. The calm arises, to some degree, from the incredible strength it requires not to simply become a Tasmanian Devil, and this easygoing nature arises from being mentally too busy to think about little decisions like where to eat. My intensity reveals itself where human relations contact the storms raging within me, and melodrama kicks in when I’m asked to have patience with my emotions.

Sometimes I feel like the character Storm in the X-Men comics. She possesses incredibly powerful energy, but must keep it well harnessed as a result. I’ve always been physically strong, but what’s inside is my dark secret. I’m scared of this energy because nobody I have ever met has been strong enough to deal with it. There is no specific character to the energy except its intensity: it may be expressed as love, anger, joy, anguish, sadness, desire. All are consuming in their own way.

So I harness it into projects. I become those projects for a while, until I lose the focus necessary to keep the energy going in that direction. How many unfinished projects have I started?

Some of you, dear friends, may be unfinished projects.

I love you tremendously when I am thinking of you, yet may neglect you when I am not. If that has been painful, know that I’m truly sorry.

Some of you, on the other hand, may be engulfed in the intensity of my current focus, and if THAT has been painful, I am also truly sorry. I know you each understand the friendship I offer, that I will not falter in my support of you when you need it. I know the benefits I give to those for whom I care, so do not worry that I see only my dark side.

All of this effort, even this message, comes from attempts at reform. I think this mistrust at the energy inside me came from attempts at reform when I was much younger and less experienced. I built mental and physical armor around it in order to protect those I loved. Part of Buddhism’s appeal to me is that it promises to work with the most powerful expressions of this energy and help me relax my attachments to them.

What if – just what if – instead of always diverting this energy for ‘projects’ and expressing it in brief & intense bursts of fiery emotion, I learned to harness the energy in my daily life for the motivation and drive it’s always given me, and to use the energy as fuel for a more alive, more dynamic sort of relating to others?

What if I trusted myself to use this intense energy wisely?