Peering out the cracked bedroom door as Trey(Trevor)** Trey younger Trevor nickname) lay on the floor, he did not know the ramifications of obeying unconditionally. He had no sense of feeling unfairly being dominated by Spectre (Trey's Father), more of a desire at this age (13) of fitting in with his older brothers.
Flash forward-Trevor just left the podiatrist office with a confirmed diagnosis of plantar fasciitis (a stabbing heel pain)upon walking his usual walks in the neighborhood during COVID time. The doctor stated it might be resolved through the use of arch supports (stiff support arch put in the shoe). Trevor, being his usual chatty self, and craving the obsessive attention and approval of others ** (previously explained) , got feedback from the doctor that this condition is due to genetics. This explanation triggered Trevor to to have a lightbulb moment referring to two long term beliefs--(1) scaffolding and (2)the eternal debate between genetics and environment being the determiner of outcomes in life.
To Trevor, life always seems to be a dilemma of the Hume/Kant/Mill philosophers dilemma (presented in another section)--reasoning vs intuition vs. practicality-- as well as both scaffolding**(explained in separate section) and genetics and environmental influences which make it seem beyond our "choice" to do anything in life.
Trevor sighed reflecting on two critical questions, "What control or how can anyone hope that there can be a change or indeed to even have choice? and What's the point?".
Quite a dilemma on its own for someone whose relatives (specifically his Mother) had a genetic predisposition for depression and from another side of the family ( or skip generation effects on his Mother's side) of alcoholism.
Of course, not out of fear, Trevor thoughtfully concluded "there is more to consider than genetics (and any of the other aforementioned variables)" and then he went on to reflect "Let's just suppose the myriad of other variables including environmental, developmental and just plain damn luck cannot be easily untangled". But then again he despaired "What hope is there for desired change in thinking or behavior or feeling processes if they themselves cannot be discovered?"
Well, back to the story --The memory of lying on that floor cannot be erased for either Trey nor Trevor. "Well, maybe that can be a starting place.. the recognition of acceptance for the awareness of the event emerging from the memory rather than the unaware unconscious steering by the elephant** (concept explained and borrowed from Haidt)
After a trial period for Trey being on watch, Trey could not stay awake so Spectre provided him with a pill to stay awake. Oh yes, did I tell you about the Watch?
Spectre believed his wife was having affairs with men and snuck out at night to have sex with them. Spectre had commissioned his older two sons (S and J) to trade shifts in watching and spying on their Mother--hence The Watch. As Trey eventually discovered, this included "fake" excursions supposedly away from the home but really were spy missions. This involved getting a local motel room while the spying was done by the son(s) going with Spectre in a car to the neighborhood of the home in order to spy. The car was supposedly unknown to Mother but she apparently knew and dreaded that the car was in the neighbor hood.
Within a year or two, Trey was commissioned to spy on his Mother from a 1800's cabin adjacent to the farm property while his brothers were working on "the ranch" in the nearby vicinity.
Now, after some time of the home bedroom spying, Trey complained to Spectre
"Yikes, I can't sleep" . Again, Spectre reached into his own bedroom closet pharmacy to get the pills out of a 1/2 gallon full of pills, "Here, take these". Spectre handed his son some pills to sleep after the watch was complete. (note that "in the old days" Spectre had cozied up to a pharmacist by providing him successful stock advice and in return the pharmacist had been able to (again in old times) give him huge 1/2 to one gallon sized bottles of medications (apparently both stimulants and sedatives).
After a night of spying and while nodding drowsily in the junior high classroom, everyone seemed to giggle as the history teacher trailed off the classroom topic and ordered "tell your clock-watching friend to pay attention". WTF does that mean thought Trey. "What's the point--No one would understand what is going on at home". Those kind of voices bounce around in the committee mind-- which emerges as some kind of outcome, not necessarily planned.
Flash to the future- Almost too soon had people left Trevor's life before gainful reflections could be had. But Trevor was certain that many of these characters appearing in his life had become features of or reactions to one or more of the committee members** in his head.
Some scaffolding influences just never disappear!
Back to Trey on the bedroom floor-- Untangling the whys and wherefores of his Dad's obsessive desire to prove Trey's mom " a whore" will always remain a mystery (although Trevor had noticed over the span of several relationships he had an uncanny knack for being gullible or skeptical (untrusting) in all the wrong places and at wrong times. His Mom had reminded him of his propensity for gullibility within the last few months of her life and warned him against that "weakness". Oddly though, Mom had also said "don't change" (which to this day mystifies Trevor since how can you "not change" but also guard against frailties as well as defined boundaries (from rigid to flexible) with other people? MMmmmm? One remaining piece of advice dear Mom nurturingly wanted " Find a partner, you are too nice of a guy to not have one". Quite humorous in a way since to date Trevor's main partners are cats, nature, music and books (not necessarily in that order).
Trevor is sick and tired of anxiety. "Why do I have to over-think everything even now --the daily tedium of brushing my teeth and preparing my weekly batch of oatmeal?" Trevor begins the day as he repeats to himself "It's showtime" (coming from that movie about Las Vegas and a performer that was just as equally bored with the tedium of his act".
The way he remembers having to "hit the ground running" propelled by the momentum of energy of many cups of coffee or perhaps it was only the obsessive need to be valued and/or needed by anyone!
Sometimes he thought that it was the paycheck or the seemingly unlimited amount of time left in his life that he could try out his new schemes and possibilities that gave him steam.
At some point in time, perhaps in the last five years since COVID accelerated life decisions, he realized those two reasons were becoming severely limited.
"Where oh where has my patience gone?" he queried. Painting, glass-blowing, piano-playing tennis all by the wayside, unless he turns to them again all out of being on a "to-do" or chore list, which he finds quite boring under most conditions.
Even reading books, Trevor's only true friends, seem to be on the wane.
Nostalgia as a coping mechanism even seems ineffective now. He attributes this to the dying off or distancing of friends in his life by which connections to the past could be made. Younger males and females just don't connect the same way. "What's the point?!" Then...Trevor digresses to a nostalgic memory as follows.
The twirling disco ball and other gaudy displacements descending over Trevor thrills him, "This music and trappings are outrageous--I love being high on alcohol in New Orleans" Such is an example of the nostalgia that seemed to work so often for him when navigating through life's apparent tedium. This piece of memory sends him back to his very first disco in San Francisco where the blend of music, lights and bodies almost entwined in mutual orgiastic pleasure to these feelings all started. As someone has said, "Music is a close cousin to good sex".
Of course some of the memories , for example in New Orleans are faded by time and alcohol but the decadence of activity at Gay Mardi Gras is understated. Trevor had been pick-pocketed despite hiding his money in deep in his pocket (thank god he left his wallet in a safe back at the hotel). Also almost being run over by a trolley car while rambling along the streets near the French Quarter (thank god for a man who happened to grab Trevor out of the way was there. If Trevor had any trepidations about Black men, this rescuer totally vanquished any thoughts of malcontent.) And then... Trevor jerks his attention back to "reality"...
"Is life nothing more than essentially avoidance?" After all, Ernest Becker in 1973 reminded him "The awareness we will inevitably die is bothersome. Our inability to accept the reality of the human condition with the grace and courage underlies most of human activity." OR someone else said "We don't like to admit we are nothing more than eating, breathing defecating pieces of meat with no more significance or enduring importance than lizards or potatoes."
Perhaps one of the significant ways Trevor came to realize that there are several ongoing illusions in which humans engage in their avoidance schemes. One of those is "scaffolding" which as invented by Trevor himself (for which he is proud). Those are the forgotten helps and hindrances that humans forget put them where they are "in the current moment of living". It seems equivalent to the Ship of Theseus paradox, a thought experiment that asks if an object is the same after all of its original parts are replaced. "Ah, yes" Trevor murmured, perhaps I didn't invent scaffolding but was an emergent property of my brain reading so much LOL. But then he had a thought bridge to the everlasting question "when did Trey become Trevor, are they one and the same or.....?"
There is a somewhat parallel activity engaged upon in which denial is the key to "getting through life". A nasty example would be "why is the playground built next to the sewage system" that someone coined about the respective location of erogenous zones. LOL
Much denial exists in order to maintain "faith", if you will, in religious works, specifically the Bible as an example, despite the contradictions and outrageous moralities contained within and between its books/chapters.
It has been said that all humans lie even more so to themselves!
Trevor self-rationalizes his justifications and thinking and semi-conclusions (after all , things can change) by reminding himself of another human activity that "everything is made up anyway" and the observation that "everyone loves a story" (which doesn't have to match up with reality or Truth).