Teddy bear on the shelf

[shadowkat]

I considered deleting my livejournal last night, not in a fit of pique or because anyone annoyed me nothing specific like that but rather because I felt a bit like a non-consequential voice amongst the cacophony. Insignificant. A speck. A dot. Alone. Disconnected. And I wondered vaguely what would happen if I did? You know delete the thing in one fell swoop, assuming of course such an action is even possible.

It's the George Baily syndrome I suppose or what I have decided to call the George Baily syndrome, I have no clue if there is such a thing - I more or less came up with it the other night out of the blue. The feeling that the world would not notice all that much if I ceased to exist or more to the point, that I was never born. It came over me the other night when I was attempting to answer that annoying question - a two-fold one, which springs from an exercise that I saw literally reproduced on the television drama Nip/Tuck - you know, what would your friends and family say at your funeral? The point of the exercise is "what legacy do you wish to leave behind you?" And within that, how are you significant.

Failing that exercise, I was told to come up with a list of things I would like to explore - the top ten things to do if you knew you'd die in 6 months, or something to that effect. As a means of answering a question I find unanswerable.

Pondering this question last night, I wandered around lj, not very far, not much farther than my own little flist or correspondence list - and felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Been feeling that way a lot this week, which seems odd considering how many people I've interacted with. But the in-person interactions at work, during class, felt oddly superficial and disjointed. Like jagged marks of chalk against a blackboard, easily erased.

Walking home today from work, after picking up a few supplies at the local health food store, I found myself writing the post I'm writing now, in my head. Far more lyrical and sensible there than it is here. And again I pondered, the question, would anyone on the net miss my posts if they were to suddenly disappear? Oh, I'm sure a few people would. Possibly for a month. A day. A week. Then as time passed, they'd motor on, and the connection would fade along with the memories. I wonder the same thing about friendships...

When I was a small child my favorite Aunt gave me a teddy bear. Well she was my favorite at the time and this was when our family was still exchanging gifts with the extended family. We did it by lottery, each person drawing someone to buy a gift for. My Aunt drew me and gave me what was in essence my first Teddy Bear. Fluffy, half my height ( I was very small at the time), with a pink bow. I know this because my parents took a picture. It was for years my favorite. I haven't spoken to the Aunt in 10 years. And to be honest, I'm not sure what I would say to her now if I did speak to her, more then years stand between us, I suppose. No conflict, nothing melodramatic. Just well our paths do not cross, even though we are related. The teddy bear...ah, it sits in a corner of my bedroom, the stuffing half falling out of it, one of the eyes nearly torn off, the nose dented, the fur matted, and leg half torn, amongst all my other stuffed animales. Forlorn, set aside, due mostly to allergies, no longer sharing my bed or even so much as a look. On top of a sheet covering the comic books. I've almost thrown him out more than once, but something I can't quite name keeps me from doing so.

At times I feel much like that teddy bear in my friendships, past present... the few I have. Not nearly as worn. And certainly not as battered. Just sitting wondering....yet, at the same time, I know I'm not that bear, since I am moving about and have filled my life with new endeavors, making it difficult to schedule time for busy friends and family. It would almost be easier, I expect, if I were a bear on a shelf, waiting to be picked up at someone's leisure. But...I'm not. And I horde my time, especially the private time to write and ponder and watch tv and read like a miser. Feeling guilty all the while for not showing up to everything social activity or opportunity that arises even those that don't. The Woody Allen statement about making your own luck by showing up to everything, quoted so often now it has almost become trite in the quoting, feels more like a weapon than the sage advice intended. (So much so that every time I hear it, I feel an overwhelming desire to punch out the lights of the quoter, a desire I've squelched on more than one occassion.)

But back to the question at hand...do I have a legacy? Is my life significant? Am I tiny little voice in the cacophony of voices...the hundreds that dot your correspondence lists. Whether you read this one or not, just a matter of random chance - the click of a finger. And if it disappeared along with all my other countless posts and ramblings, would you truly notice? Would you care? And what would you think if I deleted it? The death of an lj. Do we have funerals? How silly a notion. Yet many think it's silly to blog to begin with...

I've heard it said that you can not appreciate a painting if you stand too close to it. All you see are blotchs of paint, texture, the paper, you can't see the picture or the pattern. It is gibberish, meaningless. And if you stand too far back, you can't make out the details, you may see no more than a speck. I can't help but think looking at a person's life or even their writings or what they've left behind is a bit like that. George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life stood too close to his life to see it for what it was, it was not until he was literally detached from it, yet still in it, that he saw what it contained. They say writer's are their own worste or best critics, depending on the writer. Can that be true of a life as well?

It's hard to find the balance. I find myself either standing too close or standing too far away. But hunting balance has been something I've been struggling with for a while of late. Balance between the analytical side of my personality and the wildly artistic. The other night, holding clay between my hands, pressing it into shape on a spinning wheel and watching it flop from too much pressure, I was aware of an odd peace. Peace from thought.
From worry. Just being. And I realized something - I don't want to plan my life, I just want to live it. But I want to live it with others...and I worry at times that I keep them at bay. Placing them on a shelf in the corner of my room much like my teddy bear, except unlike my teddy bear they disappear...and I worry that in the end no one will remember me when I'm gone. That worry is I think what tempts me to delete the live journal...just to see if there's an absence. But I stop myself each time for numerous reasons, priniciple amongst them, I'd miss the journal, the posts I sweated over, cried over, rejoiced over and just let pour out of my head like so much mindless babble. It may be selfish, but there it is.

Now...I just have to somehow come up with a list of things I want to do and explore. Things that are just fun and crazy, as well as things that lead to what legacy I want to leave behind. Can you come up with such a list?
I'll let you know when I do. Assuming of course...you're out there to begin with and not confused by my mixed analogies and metaphors.

Comments

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

I'd notice.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I considered deleting my livejournal last night, not in a fit of pique or because anyone annoyed me nothing specific like that but rather because I felt a bit like a non-consequential voice amongst the cacophony. Insignificant.

I think most of us have felt that way at one time or another. As I've said before sometimes, it's difficult to think of things to reply to people here even when you know they really could use a friendly hand outstretched. We all have our little problems; some bigger than others. It doesn't mean we aren't listening.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I would miss you. One thing I have found in life is that we all feel alone, unconnected to others at some level. I think when we spend a lot of time analyzing the effects of other's lives on the world, we forget that we effect the lives of others as well. Sometimes a small stone thrown into a pond can create a very large ripple.
I think I understand what you mean here, because I wonder about things like that too. If I was no longer here, would I leave an empty space in someone's life? For me, the legacy I want to leave is that of a life lived, and experienced as fully as possible. However that works itself out. I often think of what my Dad had us put on his gravestone: He had fun. Not a bad thing at all to say.

[thepackrat741.livejournal.com]

I don't comment all that much ..but I always read ... and think .. alot.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

As always, deeply thought-provoking.

do I have a legacy? Is my life significant?
Anything I could say verges on the banal, but what hum in my head at these questions and the post as a whole are passages from George Eliot's Middlemarch - which is, among other things, about the role of apparently trivial contacts and the unseen contributions of those who are barely visible to history. And about perspective and how things change with a change of angle.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I have to say that your posts are the ones I look forward to reading the most. I have only a very few people on my friends list, and I love hearing what they are all doing, but you are the only one thinking 'deep thoughts'.

I've been wanting to publish my sister's art work, she died and left behind a wealth of beautiful interesting images that I don't want to have lost forever. Too often wonderful intelligent women live and die without leaving anything behind....

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you.

Read my private message to rahael above. What rahael did was demonstrate something to me this morning - she posted an amazing response to my entry above, then deleted it. But I still remember the response. It lasts in my brain. Whether or not she intends it to. She can't erase what I read.

You're sister's art work isn't gone, it lives inside you. What you can do is share it with others or publish. But whatever you do, it won't disappear because you remember it. Just as if I deleted the above post, you'd still remember and if you deleted your work from your journal I'd remember that as well.