Showing posts with label envy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label envy. Show all posts
Friday, June 1, 2012
Making Friends with My Monster
I want to talk about envy.
I will start right off with saying this. Yes, I suffer from
envy. Often. No one gave it to me,
forced it upon me or is responsible for it. It’s my monster. So, do not hide
your good fortune from me thinking to spare me the pangs of envy. I’m good.
You see, it isn’t necessarily an evil monster. Envy is just
an emotion, albeit one that is considered a negative emotion. I admit that most
things associated with envy end in tragedy.
But it can be one of those emotions that
push one forward.
Sometimes it works that way for me, but often it just
demoralizes me as I moan about what a terrible person I must be to feel envy
and damn it, why can’t I just not do this ANYMORE?!
Heh. Well, that doesn’t work. I mean, envy is just a very
natural emotional state. I think the trick is to not dwell on it or give it
more weight than it deserves.
Envy is my monster and I freely admit to suffering from the
occasional association with this beast. I’m not sure many people are so open
about their envy. At least, I certainly have met few who will come right out
and confess to envy.
Sure, the “Girlfriend!
I hate how good you look in that dress! I am so envious!”
Right, that is not envy. That is…blather. Societal
blather. And it’s a bit fun, but it
isn’t serious.
Though sometimes it is, but it’s hiding.
I don’t hide my envy. I have learned that hiding it doesn’t
make it go away, it just looms larger and with more menace. And a hell of a lot
of extra self-loathing comes with hiding things.
I don’t celebrate my envy. Though when I manage to rise
above it, I celebrate and pat myself on the back. Generally because it wasn’t a
matter of beating it, it was a matter to facing it eye to eye and acknowledging
it was there. There’s a secret there, to acknowledge the presence and strength
of envy.
No big deal. I’m human. It’s there.
I have had to remove myself from yahoo groups because the
posting of good news brought me to a state of panic. I had no good news to
share and that must mean something was wrong with me.
Pathetic, ain’t it?
But, I saw it. I admitted it was there and I knew if I was
going to save my energy for writing and doing the things I needed to do, I had
to remove myself from opportunities to indulge in envy.
After years of dealing with this, I succumbed to the smarter
path. I distance myself from the things that fill me with self-doubt. I hear
the voices that say if I were a better person, I would just celebrate their good
news and dance around with excitement and…
Nope. I just can’t do it. Just as I can’t pretend chatter
about envy.
I believe, and I write characters that believe, in the
sanctity of every human emotion, even envy. My current WIP deals with a woman
who has spent decades living with an alien species, who brought her back to
life after she committed suicide, surrendering to the despair at the path her existence
had taken. In returning her to life, they found her emotions disturbing. (And
they were, she kept trying to kill herself, still in shock over waking up in a
body 40 years younger, surrounded by aliens…but I digress!) In an effort to
keep her alive, they ‘programmed’ her to stand remote from emotional out
bursts.
They even set a trigger in her so when faced with strong
emotions she becomes weary and can’t resist falling asleep until her body
chemistry returns to a neutral state. This is her new normal. (The aliens have
no idea the psychological time bombs they are setting up.) The book opens with
her first human contact in 26 years. And she realizes that she is missing
something that makes her human… Sam makes her feel human. But it’s scary and
it’s terrifying and what if she finds herself looking at a thousand foot fall
again? And wants to jump?
But it’s more important to her, at my present word count of
75k, to relearn how to be human and risk the lack of balance that drove her to
jump from that cruise ship in the first place.
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to end with this
book…it’s a romance, so more than likely, Sam will…well, you know! But how I’m
going to get there, I’m not sure. (Actually got there, but it’s really rough
and gonna take some more work to get it into submission shape. I’ll let it sit
a few months.)
If Ria is going to be return to fully human, she has to
embrace all the emotions of humanity, not just the pretty ones.
And I guess that is my point of this blog. That envy is
human. It might not be pretty, but it’s necessary to the human experience. And
suddenly, I feel better for knowing my monster so well.
Have you a favorite, or least favorite, monster out there that you find
difficult to claim? To write about? To read about? Does the good news of others
make you smile and then, beneath that smile, a tiny little twitch of envy rises?
(It’s okay, no judging today.) Let’s be real though. Confession is good for the
soul and I bet…I can find a rational and even positive aspect to anything you
can toss out here. I’m good at this!
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