Breathe as Much as You Need To
Posted on 9/17/2009 04:39:00 PM, under Breathing, depression, Tenken
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I will continue my meditation series shortly. This concept is not meant as commentary as meditation, but rather, as a symbolic gesture about my life, and where it stands right now.
The Kanji above is for "breathe." (Grandpa, if you check this, can you confirm that?)
One of the things that I have realized with working out recently is that you have to breathe absolutely as much as you need to. Form is important, and breath regulation is too, but some people think that breathing heavy is a sign of weakness.
I recall an individual who was a sort of friend with growing up (Vladik Vladimir Timochuk) who made fun of me for breathing heavy when I ran. I think the result of this was quite simply that I hated running even more. I felt weak when I had to breathe heavy, and I was in pain when I didn't. Vlad had convinced me that you just breathed through your nose, and if you had to breathe through your mouth, that was bad.
Well, I was young, and you'd think I would have let go of things like that, but it's a lot of this same core concept that has followed me in the decade and more since.
I have two stories for why my moniker is Rob Tenken. One is the one that sounds arrogant, which is the one I like to tell people. It means "one of Godlike speed, strength, ability, or intelligence." I like pretending I'm arrogant. I am arrogant. But it's meant as a counterbalance to how I really feel.
The real story why I call myself Tenken is because I relate to Seta Soujiro, the Tenken, more than to almost any fictional character I've ever read about. A plastered on smile, a false laugh, a disguise from the world. Strong and sure of himself on the outside. He's what I try to be on the outside.
And on the inside, he's torn up. On the inside, he just wants to be allowed to be weak. "But... is being weak really that bad?" He's lived his life believing he can't show weakness, can't show emotion, or he will perish. "That's right, I was smiling in the rain, but in reality . . . I was really crying"I relate so much to this. Like, I look at that, and I say "That's me."
I've realized recently that I've been wearing a mask so long - a fake smile and a laugh -that I no longer know where the real me ends and the fake me begins. I've been realizing that more often than not, I'm not saying what I say because I mean it, but because it's what I think other people want to hear.
All this goes back a great number of years, to preschool at least. I was always picked on. I always felt repuslive and hated and like nobody could like me. I always assumed I was the embodiment of what everyone disliked. And I never got it, because I only ever wanted to be me, but the teasing didn't stop.
In 5th grade, I discovered theater, and I realized that people treated me different backstage. Maybe it was because I was good at acting. Maybe it was because they didn't feel the same social pressures to treat me how everyone else treated me. Maybe it was something else - just people wanting to be nice, give me a fresh start. I don't know for sure what it is, but I know from there on out, I figured if I could pretend to be what I thought everyone wanted me to be, that maybe I could get by.
That's exactly what I did. And I've been pretending, really, ever since. Very few people know the real me, and that's actually how I've preferred it. By the time I was a senior in highschool, I was popular. I currently command respect in my workplace. I suppose I've blamed the fake version of me for that. I suppose I've figured that's the right answer.
But a lot has been happening recently - mostly people who are influencing my life in very positive ways - that has made me feel that it may be time to start . . . well, being weak. Being vulnerable. Letting people see me.
And there's this Kurt Cobain quote, "I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." I guess the running assumption of my life, for so many reasons, has been that the real me is too risky. That people are basically repelled by the real me, and attracted to the illusion. But a lot recently has made me really question if that's the answer I want to go with.
I've realize more that if you're honest about who you are, the people who are drawn to you tend to be the people who are really good for you. If you lie about who you are, the people you draw in tend to be people who are really good for the fake you. It just makes the fake you stronger, and the real you weaker, when that happens. There's this scene I'm recalling from C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce," where this guy has a puppet on a chain, and the other person is this really attractive complete person, but the puppet is the real him. And the more the real one lets the puppet talk, the more the puppet devours him, until it's just the puppet.
So I'm thinking that I've learned something in my workout that's important here. When I started doing swimming and running, I tried to keep my breathing shallow or through my nose, and then I realized that was stupid. Pathetic, even. Maybe it makes you look weak, but what does that matter in comparison to being healthy? Breathe as heavily as you have to. It makes you a better athlete, and it makes your lungs stronger.
And that's what I'm trying to do right now with life. It's difficult, but I want to breathe however hard I need to. I want to gasp and struggle and be depressed and hopeless and anything else I really am, because no matter how silly or ridiculous it makes me look, you need to let out that bad air. You need to take in the good air. You need to look like a total idiot, or weak or stupid or human, if you want to be really happy. Truly happy. For you.
And there's this other Seta Soujiro quote (again, he's the guy they called the Tenken), that I think sums up what I'm feeling right now, and what I want to be doing. But it's tough. "It's a little unfair. . . . When you’re trying to repair a brick building that was made the wrong way the first time, you have to tear the whole thing down before you can begin; it can’t be done any other way because brick is just too strong."
Not perfection . . . progress.
