Cowardice or Choice: From Vice to Voice

Two events led to this mixed-conceptual piece – part poem, part poetic questionnaire.  First, there was a powerful dream.  When away from my normal Greater Washington DC work world, snowed in east of Cleveland, my brain seems to dream more vividly.  I often awake to an integrated reverie-narrative.  Two mornings ago, I bolted upright aware that I’d been dreaming about recent conflict with a family member in light of a history being emotionally taunted and bullied through much of my childhood.  (The Catch-22 of being caught in the “Abusive Triangle” as a child:  there is usually a dysfunctional – overt or covert – family system lurking in the shadows.  Still the abused often attributes his behavior to personal failure, i.e., “being a coward” or "being defective"…an example of “attributional bias” or labeling error.  Unfortunately, over time, a youth’s passivity-anxiety-timidity-rigidity – at least in the interpersonal conflict realm – can become an adult personality, or even bio-chemistry, pattern requiring therapy or trial and error/sometimes terror relearning).  Anyway…while the transparency of the dream was unnerving, it also was confirming.  Akin to the current real world family drama, the dream reflected my refusing to be a passive victim.  I quickly realized the need to convert this psychic theatre into some form of literary oeuvre.

The second happenstance occurred when my girlfriend, trying to create more closet space, (is this a female fixation?), asked me to discard or refile some old articles and workshop handouts.  In the process, I discovered a favorite piece written in the ‘90s – “WHY’s UP:  20 QUESTIONS” – that never really found a niche in my speaking repertoire.  However, as I mulled potential poetic topics, I began to envision a complementary role for this existential survey.   Here is my hybrid offering:

 

Cowardice or Choice:  From Vice to Voice

 

A coward dies a thousand deaths; a hero dies but once **

No matter the total breaths; when it mattered…did you give your every ounce?

The saddest part of cowardice, the sacrifice of peaceful sleep

To cold night sweats of moral vice; a haunted voice that makes you weep.

Still…that twilight coliseum, a dreamscape of battling foes

A second chance for wresting demons; will you now go blow for blow?

 

You may not win each contest; there will be trails of blood

But you may slowly lay to rest that nightmare-stalking brood.

Each hour brings another choice – to take a stand or run

Even lacking true clear voice, in no way are you dumb.

Dig deep for that rich ore of shame; you are close with fear or rage

Let a guide reveal a novel game; get off the “b.s.” (be safe) stage.

 

Lurking in shadows psychic, bubbling lava primal pain

Sculpt and dance until there’s magic; Pygmalion’s art shall rise again.

No longer that once robot child, head twisting madly side-to-side

Yes, pursue the “Call of the Wild”; beware that, “Well, I tried.”

“Learn to Fail or Fail to Learn”; please forsake the craft of cool

Fiery spirit will once more burn when com/passion and purpose rule!

 

So WHY’s UP:  20 QUESTIONS

 

1.  Why dredge up rage and shame?

2.  Why feel and reveal, instead of conceal, psychic pain?

3.  Why mourn, let go, and work with the same?
 

4.  Why confront “The Intimate FOE:  Fear of Exposure”?

5.  Why become more risk-taking; why learn The Art of Designing Disorder?

6.  Why tolerate living with uncertainty and vulnerability?

7.  Why become less dependent on another’s approval or on respectability?

 

8.  Why learn to accept criticism without feeling so anxious, humiliated, or rejected?

9.  Why not just settle into the role or image that is typically expected?

10. Why strive high and embrace failure…being home on the range with text and context?

11. Why make the strange familiar, the familiar strange; the complex simple, the simple complex?

 

12. Why challenge superficial, narrow-minded, and self-righteous thinking or posturing?

13. Why waste time in irrational, silly, fanciful, or out-rage-ous imagining or playing?

14. Why evolve a capacity for tenderness and aggression, logic and intuition, meditation and dynamic expression…why embrace ambiguity and most contradiction?

15. Why practice and synthesize diverse knowledge and ideas, talent and skills experiences and an array of emotions?

 

16. Why bother exploring, shaping, pursuing, and fighting for precious dreams… even when they may not be what they seem?

 

17. Why raise these questions every day of your life?

18. Why share these questions every day of your life?

19. Why should life be absurd and you be outrageous?

20. Why…not?  Because…

 

            For the phoenix to rise from the ashes

            One must know the pain

            To transform the fire to burning desire!

 

Psychologist Salvatore Maddi’s Existential Position:  Life is a series of decisions, each of which can be made in a direction that propels the person into future-oriented growth through new experience or pulls him back into the stagnation of a familiar past.


[** Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar]

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Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a national keynote and webinar speaker and "Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his interactive, inspiring and FUN programs for both government agencies and major corporations.  A training and Critical Incident/Grief Intervention Consultant for the National EAP/Wellness Company, Business Health Services in Baltimore, MD, the Doc also leads “Stress, Team Building and Humor” programs for various branches of the Armed Services.  Mark, a former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, is the author of Resiliency Rap, Practice Safe Stress, and of The Four Faces of Anger.  See his award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.