Is it not enough to pursue the things which make you happy? Do I feel a true void in the absence of the sad, weighty things? Is it habit? Maybe it's a viewpoint which needs tweaking, maneuvering.

Maybe I know what makes me happy, but I haven't had much practice immersing myself in those things. If I only touch upon them occasionally and reluctantly, naturally I'll still yearn for the other stuff I have become old friends with. The somber, melancholic stuff.

Maybe my childhood observation about my multiple personalities should tell me something about the possible cause of my moodiness. I liked to talk about how frequently I felt like a different person. I'm sure each different person was in a different mood.

I have observed that focusing more on what makes me happy engenders a state of mind which hearkens back to childhood. More unfettered mentally.

All the paths I have taken, all the roads down which I have detoured, few having completed, and yet it seems I have a path which is mine and mine alone. These other detours and disciple-ages have permitted me to continue on what ends up being the only way I was ever meant to go. It would seem I have an internal, natural drive, somewhat akin to inertia, which leads me from point to point in the epic of my life. I believe I and others are in control, but what they seem to be doing really is helping me not to fall off the tracks. It kind of reminds me of being a character, a protagonist, in a novel, rather than a person in real life. I sometimes feel a kinship with book characters, but I always put the book down and end up feeling more indecisive and meandering than anyone fictional. I have always assumed that is the deal with real life. You don't get the luxury of a script. You have to make it up as you go along. But maybe we are actually characters, just by virtue of having character. It defines us and determines our fates. It gives us inertial tendencies, like a magnet.

I'm not sure how long I've been catastrophizing. I thought it was a more recent phenomenon, but perhaps not. I think I often let my friends and family do the brunt of the catastrophizing for me, so I figure I am free of it myself. There's also the opposing trait - idealizing. I seem to have dreams full of that. Not to mention the trips my mind goes on in my waking hours.

But why is it so different in my head, so one-sided, and then when I write or talk about it, everything changes? When I am thinking, it stems from some sort of raw emotion or physical sensation. When I am writing or speaking, it is once removed, at least, from the raw emotion. So you can reimagine the emotions, reconfigure them to help serve a greater, vaster truth than that stuck in your body and psyche. But what happens when I feel I have run out of material? Is there something else which is equally rewarding that I could do to reconfigure the wiring which causes the angst? Yes, I believe so. But there are a lot of deceptively pleasing or fruitful activities which don't provide the assistance or expressive qualities they have been deemed to. Or, if they do, I overuse and abuse them to the point that they cause more harm than good. It's that "ize"-ing thing that I am so drawn to. I exaggerate.

It's amazing the power those you love have over you. But it's a risky business as a result. You have to be judicious in choosing whom to get close to. Especially the more romantically inclined of us. But it's a wonderful way to enhance yourself and your life. When someone I love makes a suggestion to me, it seeps more deeply into me. I am able to naturally and easily morph, unlike all the usual prostrations I go through to make any progress.

Of course I don't understand why "love" has this power. Maybe it is exactly because of its depth that it makes such an impact. But it wipes me out when it rocks me too much. You enjoy the ride (if it's a joyful rocking) but it's still exhausting.

Tonight I had a chance to try out my left hand finagling. It did not work too well. But I think I had a breakthrough. Why do 99% of those happen as a result of a failure, and only the 1% within a success? Oh, well.

It's hard to go into too much detail about the cello in this blog, I find, so I didn't explain all of my dominoing ideas yesterday. One of the subsequent notions I had was that everything is derived from a sense of balance. I can think of my left fingers as balancing on the strings like a tightrope walker, although with much less risk of plummeting to their deaths. That springy, light-footed image helps re-envision what their actions entail. It almost gets you into the miniature perspective of them dancing and swimming along the strings. I was also playing with the manifestations of ballet throughout the cello-playing body - in the bow hand and arm, in the spine, through the legs, up into the head.

So tonight I focused too one-sidedly on the left hand, and I suspect that this has very limited usefulness in the long run (or even in a 10 minute performance). The left hand needs the right hand, which needs the torso, which needs the lungs, etc. It's a complex system which must function as such. And as I practiced later on, I realized how open I have to be to every little discovery I have ever broached. Everything is relevant. I think Casals spoke of the incredible amount of awareness and aliveness and concentration needed to even play something quite simple. I don't know why I like to think things cancel eachother out or override one another. Maybe I am afraid. Afraid of the grandness of what might happen if I don't dismiss or disregard. If I make room for many seemingly unrelated or contrary sides of an issue.

2 things: I listened to my mind, and I futzed with my left fingers' approach.

The left hand thing has been going on for about a week-and-a-half. I got some advice from a colleague about a different way of thinking about coming at the string. It started me compartmentalizing the stages of a note - from the first instant, through the body of it, at its concluding moments, and on into the next one. I hadn't ever really done that. It's not as though I hadn't heard it discussed. I just somehow couldn't focus on that sort of minutia until more recently.

So this was fun for awhile, playing with these stages. There are many ways of commencing a note - with a ping, with a plop, with a lean, with a tickle. And the choice you make here affects the continuation of it - the pingier the attack, the more likely there is you will have a lighter body, from a releasing action. But you can train yourself to start gently and continue gently. I'm more on that notion now. But the key thing which seems to be particularly relevant is that the character of the bow and the music can be reflected in these nuances of the left hand, if you are aware of them (finally).

So, thing #1, my mind. Last night I listened to it a bit more objectively than usual. If that is feasible. I didn't appreciate its tone. Really very judgmental. Why is that? No wonder it is such a relief to blog/journal. Getting my nasty brain onto paper instead of stuck in my suffering skull. But my second thought (not quite my first) gave me hope for my mental health: I bet a lot of people are dealing with these crappy thought tendencies. And some learn how to manage nonetheless. So, that means a couple of things: I am not a freak, and therefore not an impossible case study, and there must be some effective means of overcoming it. Hopelessness has never been particularly useful.