I like to imagine myself a very pragmatic gal. I deal best with order, rules, systems, and analysis. Math, logic, details, patterns; all very stoic left-brained shit, right? I actually test as middle-brained, so I'm generally quite good at integrating the order, rules, systems, and analysis of the left brain with the softer side of life, or the right-brain functions, like philosophy, an understanding of symbols, focus on the future, compassion, listening, imagination, and ideas.
I usually try to hide the fact that I'm a devastated romantic because romance and romanticism are just so wildly impractical, but I'm just so wildly enthusiastic and expressive that everyone who knows me knows better. My iTunes library betrays me to myself and I'm perpetually caught up in the emotion carried over a system of rhythmic patterns, melodies, harmonies, and major and minor tonality. Music is the greatest joy of the middle-brained mind.
Even this blog is a betrayal of my forced self-perception as über-composed, resolute, and unflinching. The combination of emotional/personal expression with the rules and order of language and grammar excites and titillates my middle-brained-ness. Most of what I've posted so far is rooted in deep emotional experience. It's the academic and intellectual pieces that are sitting in draft form, unfinished, being researched and pecked at, outnumbering the published posts. [Poetry from a self-proclaimed pragmatist? Who does this gal think she's fooling?]
So what typically happens in my brain is this:
Right Brain: "We have an idea!" or "We have a feeling!"
Left Brain: "What does it do?" or "What is the feeling?" or "That's great, RB, but what do you want me to do about it?"
Right Brain: "Let's make an art thing!" or "It's this electrifying combination of passion, excitement, and fear! We're incredibly enthusiastic about it; in fact, we are really into this feeling!" or "How are we supposed to know what to do with it? We're too busy painting stars on rainbows and crying into this cup of tea!"
Left Brain: [annoyed] "Well, we need to DO something about it. For the love of God, stop carrying on, it's keeping us from creating a strategy and plan of action."
Right Brain: [ignores LB, imagines what everything in room would look like if it was made of glitter] "Sorry! Too busy entertaining 47 possible outcomes! La la la!"
Left Brain: "Okay, seriously. Pull our shit together."
Right Brain: [exasperated] "FINE." [scowls in the corner, knowing it will be back]
Left Brain: [sighs] "Finally. Some quiet around here. Now let's plan and organize ALL THE THINGS."
Right Brain: [jumps out like the bogey man] "A-HA! Here, have some FEAR, LB! Let's see how you do with THAT! HA!" [laughs and claps maniacally at its cleverness]
So, as you can see, neither one is getting much accomplished in this rivalry.
The sometimes painful truth is that I am an utterly devastated romantic. I want to believe in everything: love at first sight, overcoming the odds, philosophy and spirituality as tools to greater understanding, love conquering all, happy endings, art, beauty, simple gestures resulting in profound emotional response.
This passion for the potential beauty in all things leaves me frequently disappointed. The bitter reality of the ugliness in humanity breaks my heart. I am human, too, and fall short. I hurt others, or they inadvertently hurt me. Fear runs everything, and moments compound to years wasted in worry. Sympathy and empathy gut me. I spend eons in private, tormented lament.
And then, just like that, I exclaim with joy over some adorable antic of the cat or dog, swoon over the backlit fog settling over the centuries-old stone buildings I admire from my porch or bedroom window, brighten with happiness at seeing a beloved friend, melt with the enjoyment of beautiful food, explode into dance when the greatest song of the moment is playing, come alive and acutely alert in my skin at the simplest human contact, and laugh like my life depends on it.
I don't know where the balance lies. But I know that the many facets that comprise my spirit are all valid and good. I just wish I wasn't afraid of my own heart.
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