OBSESSION

The other day I was remembering a period in my life when I was obsessed with a certain kind of pottery. I covered miles and miles of Southern California searching for it in antique malls and flea markets. When I found a piece I wanted, my heart would race, I probably was flushed - and I just had to have it. It didn't matter how many pieces I already had; I simply had to have more. 
     I can see the benefits of that kind of obsession. It focused my time and my thinking. There was no guesswork to planning the day; my time was structured around the hunt. I didn't have to think about anything else - all the things I wanted to do, the things I wasn't doing, any of the feelings I had which made me uncomfortable or depressed or fearful. An obsession is an easy way to get out from under having to take a good look inside. I was afraid of what I'd find there and I can remember times when I was very low thinking how much easier life would be if I was a heroin addict. My life would be about only one thing, getting the next fix, and everything else would fall away. In fact, I was afraid of heroin and I think I see why: I sensed that some part of me craved addiction itself, understood its powerful seductions, and felt how easy it would be to become hooked.
     Have I had any "good" obsessions? I'm not sure but I know they exist. I think of the mathematician going sleepless trying to solve a problem, or a painter making painting after painting trying to solve the riddle of the canvas. So many socially acceptable obsessions...
     But each of us knows when our interests are veering off into self-destruction or just something I'll call self-waste. There's a tipping point, and suddenly something or someone is taking up too much room, getting in the way of things we have to do or explore. Obsession is all about lack, the need for something or someone to fill the hole inside, to "fix" us. We know when that hole has torn through the fabric of our daily lives and become all we can think about; we know the pain of that enormous need.
     When I think about how obsessions, both small and large, used to rise up and claim me, I see how much I've changed. It's not that the part of me that is available for obsession has completely disappeared. It's that the part of me that wants to come out from under its sway has grown stronger. I recognize now what it feels like to be consumed by a particular hunger and I don't want to feel it. I know now I don't have to be claimed or consumed and that's what makes the difference. I've learned that even the strongest feelings of obsession are ephemeral and can be released bit by bit, as if I'm peeling one finger at a time off a prison bar. What I think, what I feel are all creations of the choices I make. I may not get free quickly, but knowing that I can, that it's possible, has permanently changed the dynamic. The part of me that feared the seduction of obsession, the part of me that craved it, has come so far down to size, it's lost the power to prevail. 
     That's all I can ask for. I don't want to be transformed, all my struggles washed away. I want only to understand them and see that I have a choice.
     

SEMPERVIVUM

I had a friend in high school who said that, since our brains have limited capacity, it's conceivable that we'll have to forget something in order to fit something new in. That in turn reminded me that in One Hundred Years Of Solitude, everyone in the town of Macondo develops amnesia.  They realize it's happening and begin labeling everything with its name - chair, table, etc. before total memory loss descends. 
     I thought of this while talking to a friend about succulents. I know something about them. When I had breast cancer a few years ago, I developed a passion for succulents of all kinds. I found nurseries online that were happy to ship them; I haunted local nurseries which inevitably had a limited stock. I joined the succulent society which has a sale once a year and some of the best ones I have come from those sales. I was well into this obsession before I learned that a genus of succulents is called "sempervivum," always living. Of course, I thought, I'm still in treatment for cancer. Of course I want to be sempervivum. I doubt that it was a coincidence.
     I've had many of these obsessions; I plunge right in. I love sub-cultures; I find it very human and very touching that people want to come together to share something they're interested in, even love. The succulent society, the antique watch society, the first editions society. I once ran across a man who collected barbed wire which evidently comes in different wire weights and a variety of knots. I don't know if he found a group of like-minded people, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did. 
     Another way to describe this succession of passions that claims me so often is that I have a continual need to learn something new. Sometimes I ignore work that I should be doing but I think it's a fair trade-off. Becoming interested, learning something I didn't know, fills me with an energy that spills over into the rest of my life. It's the energy I crave along with its bonus of new people and new facts, new ideas. My mind is directed outward, into the world and that's always a very good thing.
     Passion and learning - sempervivum indeed.