500 Miles in Someone Else's Shoes

I've been hesitating on what to write about the Camino. I'd thought the lessons would all become apparent to me along the Way, but to be honest, they're only just starting to peek out of the shadows. It is like the ease with which one can solve the problems of others but not one's own: the issue has to be seen from a different perspective. Now that it has been nearly a month since I finished walking, the experience is finally folding together to the point where I can start making sense of it.

That's not to say the Camino was completely free of life lessons learned. In fact, I ran into an Italian hippie in Galicia who pointed out that the roads were paved with cow shit (I'd noticed) and said he had the realization one day that the more time he spent watching the road to avoid the cow shit, the more beautiful scenery he was missing. I agreed and added that, even if one steps in the shit, it can still be washed away. However, it was the "missing" aspect that I've only recently begun to notice.

I've been working heavily on another blog, Bill Beaver's Best Laid Plans, a travel blog. As I've been writing and incorporating pictures, I noticed how few pictures I have of some areas and how few are actually of higher quality. This may be a standard ratio among photographers, but it has only highlighted what has been missing: time.

There are ten commandments of the Camino. I have been unable to locate a full list online, only references to the list I saw but did not fully process in Castrojeríz, but one stands out right now: You shall not change your pace to match another's.

I had mapped out my Camino to start on March 3rd and conclude on April 8th. A day behind in Pamplona, I figured I would sacrifice a day in Santiago to compensate. Instead, I met two other peregrinos with whom I decided to keep pace, not the least reason of which being that one was close in age to me and attractive. I kept pace with both of them for half the Camino, hurrying through some towns I'd originally planned to explore in more depth. I caught up to my missing day and surpassed it. True, we seldom walked together for long, and by the midpoint of the Camino, both went further than they'd said, and I was left behind.

Someone wiser could have seen these two as faces who had entered and left my life, as is the natural way of things, but instead, feeling hurt and abandoned, I continued at the pace they had set. I made photographic sacrifices: it was too much of a hassle to take out the camera, and I was losing time and distance behind them. What if I didn't see them again in Santiago before they left, four days before I arrived? It became this huge, important matter that I somehow catch up with them, so much so that, even on the days where I decided to go slower, I still put in the same distances and made the same photographic sacrifices. I stopped making friends in the same way as I walked. I became hurried and impatient with people who wanted to chat. I was pushing myself to catch up with someone else's Camino and had given no more than a fleeting glance at my own Camino and what it meant to me. That, at least, has affected my journal and work afterward, especially as I read more into these places and learn more of what I missed.

Now, that being said, 480 miles is a long walk with lots to see and limited memory card space. I was subject to the complaints of my body and the more pressing matters at hand than just snapping photos, like where to rest. However, the fact remained that the complaints of my body were directly proportional to the number of kilometers walked in a given day, as set by my desire to catch up to my past friends in the future. This is a very important parallel to daily life and one that demands awareness.

I'm a people pleaser. After a year in Codependents Anonymous, this still presents a problem, especially in the way I pace my life. Right now, I am unemployed, but my biggest concern right now is not that I'm running out of money (I'm okay for a while longer); my biggest concern is that I will have to justify myself to my mother. Each time I get a text message and see it is from her, even if it's a funny picture of the dog, I immediately get ready to explain my actions in a way that she will find acceptable and thus let me off the hook. It is a mentality that regularly takes me away from what I was originally doing. I'm trying to walk her Camino.

On a project level, for the last year, I have been floundering in a field of non-creativity, owing to one of my college lessons that said something to the effect of "You only have a few years to make it in the business." This thought led me to blaze through and submit my first screenplay to multiple companies, a screenplay with which I was not personally happy but which I thought the readers needed to see soon. I jumped to match their pace and sent them inferior work. I have tried to churn out short scripts for my director friends quickly, the idea being turnover, turnover, turnover. Thus far, I have not had anything produced because the work is hurried and inferior. I'm noticing the same in my photography, ignoring lighting and rushing framing to churn out content before I'm overlooked by someone who does not exist. I am walking the Camino of the professional world.

In romance, well, hell, what haven't I already said about romance? To the present, I've operated my relationships on the idea that my date needed constant entertainment, a complete sharing of interests, and anything else they may request, as soon as they request it. Otherwise, they would leave me behind. And this was important to me. I have put down my own work, beliefs, and interests because someone else, whom I happened to find attractive, found them subpar. I have been walking the Camino of everyone I ever dated and completely lost myself in them each time.

So what now? The physical Camino is over, and now I'm almost a month back in Los Angeles. The question now floating in and out of my head is "How do I get back on my Camino?"

It's not an easy process. I've built so much of my worldview on expectation and assumption that the idea of dropping them is confusing. I've lost so much of my ideation process in the grand hurry that I now have to dig deep in order to get it back. I have to find a job that, yes, will pay the bills, but at the same time, I may also need to be a little more picky with what I choose instead of just picking something to be employed again and not have to explain. Hovering over this is the concern that, if I couldn't figure this out with all my alone time on the Camino, how could I possibly figure it out back in the big city of LA?

The process is already starting. It takes a return to the old world to see what has been picked up from the new one (or is that reversed?). Writing Bill's adventures, above all things, is highlighting how much is lost in trying to walk someone else's Camino. The point is, people will wait if they know it's worth their while, and if not, it is no catastrophe. I have walked to the End of the World, and I remember enough to know that this is not it. So the plan, as of now, is to finish the blog, to focus on writing a good book instead of a quick book, and to find a job that lends itself to both of the previous. It may take until May to accomplish; it may take longer. I have time, and I have my lessons to back me. However, I have to stay on my Camino now. The plantar fasciitis reminds me of that.

Marriage Mirage

I try not to write about other people in this blog, because eventually it will come back to bite me in the ass. However, though isolated I may be in waking, the Dreamworld is full of people influencing me in ways they would never imagine while awake. For cases like these, I must maintain anonymity. I'll refer to the persons in question as X and Y. Like the chromosomes.
Rock on.

I understand that a long dream is normally around five minutes but feels like an age. The one that concluded last night's slumber was a doozy on the sense of wellness. In it, Person Y announced his plans to marry Person X. Their relationship was widely known and supported, they had stable jobs, and they were very much meant for each other from the start. The issue was that I never saw or spoke to Person Y throughout this entire dream. My job was to go pick up the bride-to-be at a party.

When I arrived, there were about five brides-to-be, all about the same age and description. Somehow, I knew which one was the right bride, but I couldn't bring myself to approach her. How would I introduce myself? What if she was truly charming? I wanted something to be wrong with her, and she morphed through all phases of crassness. I lingered on this for a long time.

I'm at a stalemate when it comes to romance. When I see a happy couple, I'm filled with two emotions: bitterness that they've found their other halves and hubris that I am still free to do what I like without accounting to another person. These are easily the two strongest emotions I've been feeling the last few months. I know I'm unsuitable for a relationship, because of my cynicism, paranoia and need for solitude, but the longing still presents itself at times. The happiness that surrounded the prospective union of Persons X and Y left me feeling empty on awakening, though it is important to me that I not find myself entangled in another naive, possessive, loveless mockery of a "relationship." Each additional day that I've been single feels like a landmark, and truly, when I am adventuring alone, I barely miss other people at all. But it's in the planning and the aftermath, when I ponder what it could have been like with someone else, that I feel very sad.

However, because of the steps I have taken in the last few months/years, I decided I was not going to let this resurgence of self-pitying emotions spoil my day. I combined a few techniques in the shower: the feeding of the demons and the cleansing radiance. I gave the loneliness demon a morsel of my angst, and it went away. I envisioned myself as a blazing light cracking through the gunk the demon left behind, and when I got out of the shower, I felt clean in more ways than one. Nonetheless, I still wish I could find a more lasting approach to this, preferably a social one that doesn't turn the social experience into an obligation but marries the need for companionship with the desire for freedom. Maybe it will be there when I wake up next.

A Thousand Feet in the Air

Whew! Okay, I'm back after quite the hiatus. Where have I been, you ask? I've been face-down in the pages of a script. I received a follow-up E-mail from one of the Script List folks, basically asking me, "Dude, where's your script?" I decided it was time to stop putzing around and get the thing done.

And now, it's done! I sent in all 120 pages, rewritten to death and resurrection, this morning, and now, there is so much potential ahead. With this weight taken from my shoulders, I have leaped a thousand feet into the air, but it is important, on my way down, to find a place to land.

Writing a really great script requires a firm grasp on human emotion, something I struggle to understand on a daily basis. The way to reach the intense anger, joy, and sadness depicted in movies is foreign to me, owing to spending so much time isolated in my head. I can handle complex systems; I can create cultures down to the assistant to the middle shaman in charge of sprinkling shaved rodent hair over the heads of ceremonial dancers, but for the life of me, I cannot be satisfied with my characters' reactions. I can write "She YELLS" or "He breaks down," but I can never tell if the situations surrounding those short statements would, in the real world, elicit such responses. I have no gauge, and it's made writing an incredibly frustrating process.

Emotional people fascinate me. When I see someone cry or laugh out loud or really lay into someone, I'm almost paralyzed with wonder and sometimes end up having to give account for my staring. When friends are emotional, I struggle to relate, but being unable to do so, I resort to intellectualism. "Interesting" is a favorite, non-committal word. The roots of this are many, but the fact of the matter is, while I can feel emotion inwardly, my inability to express it outwardly, like those fascinating people I observe, is inhibiting me from getting my work to reach beyond the system and touch the heart of the reader.

I used to write scenes that made me want to cry, but I believe they were in prose. When I can get inside the character's head (my realm), it works, but in the screenplay format, where all is visual and audible, without scent, touch, or thought (which must be depicted visually on film), I'm stuck. I cannot convey the emotion as I want, nor can I get my readers to understand the emotional depth that I had envisioned. So, sticking with New Year's Resolutions, I've got to figure out how to open the bottle of tears and let the words flow out. This next script had better make someone react, or so help me, I will figure out how to express my annoyance off the page.

Jesus and the Purple Dinosaur

It's nice having young cousins. They have an uncanny skill to help relive the rambunctious days of yore, whether they're hitting you in the face with a lightsaber, throwing screaming toy monkeys at you, or just clobbering each other. When the family came over for Christmas night dinner, these two reminded me of an old chant I hadn't heard since Kindergarten:

Joy to the world: Barney's dead.
We barbecued his head.
Don't worry 'bout the body;
We flushed it down the potty
And 'round and 'round it goes,
And 'round and 'round it goes,
And 'round and 'round and 'round it goes.

The actual parody has been updated for the times, but I can't, for the life of me, remember who is the modern equivalent of Barney the Dinosaur. Regardless, in my younger years, I and my fellow young men never questioned the content of this song. It was perfectly justifiable to deliver the fate of Benito Mussolini upon Barney the Dinosaur because of one song:


"Love? Eww... Who talks about love? Who gives hugs and kisses? That's disgusting. We may only be seven years old, but we are MEN, and MEN do not do these things! In fact, to show our disdain, we're going to concoct our own version. As MEN. That'll show 'em."

I hate you. You hate me.
Let's gang up and kill Barney.
With a gun to his head
And a knife to his neck,
Pull the trigger; now Barney's dead.

I bring this up because the memory of my young MANHOOD happened to get triggered on the traditional birthday of another conveyor of love, who said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind—this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40) This fellow, like the purple dinosaur, was murdered by MEN.

Is it natural to choose bread and circuses over the more complicated concept of Love? To this day, I still have a difficult time just saying the word "Love." it has been ingrained in my head that "Love" is the purple dinosaur, that Love is stupid, saccharine, and superfluous, not to mention unMANly. Not only is it difficult to say the word, but it's also impossible for me to demonstrate genuine, unmasked affection, especially through great big hugs and kisses. In order to make them more tolerable, they have to be accompanied by the lust factor. I wonder why this defense mechanism has persisted all this time.

It's not unusual for people to favor bread and circuses to the more complicated sensation of Love. It's the same reason I instantly get defensive when Christians say the name "Jesus." The ideas behind Jesus are simple, yet they feel complicated and intimidating. It is easier—and even more widely promoted among MEN—to embrace the brain-dulling ideas of anger and lust than the challenges of Love, and I have spent many years enamored of both. In the process of despising the dinosaur, I have denied myself the very thing that he preaches.

With the Year of the Rabbit starting soon, the challenge of letting go of my anger and learning to love remains at the top of my priorities. It is terribly difficult to let go of something that has been a part of one's personality since childhood. It will require new sources of support and a new degree of reward and punishment to accomplish in a new year. Once and if, however, it can be accomplished, the change will revolutionize the very foundations of my life. Super-de-duper amen!

Damnster: The Damned Hamster

Picture a hamster. Cute little devil, isn't he, albeit a little gluttonous? Well, to work off his gluttony, he decides to go for a jog on his wheel, but don't that beat all... some sadistic bastard has decided to hang a juicy strawberry just out of reach beyond the wheel. Oh God, that strawberry looks good!

So the hamster, glutton that he is, starts running. He runs and runs, or rather waddles at high velocity, over-sized testicles wobbling to and fro and catching on the bars of the wheel ever so often. In any case, this hamster is on a roll. He can see that strawberry. He can smell it. He can nearly taste it. It's a few friggin' centimeters in front of his face, and he's hustling as fast as he can to get it.

Of course, he's going nowhere. The strawberry stays suspended before the hamster's greedy, beady eyes and slowly dries up and withers. That verklempt hamster just keeps going, tears mixing with sweat as he watches his prize fade, not noticing that his own body is withering away from exertion. His own balls just aren't dragging anymore. With a groan, he seizes up and rolls out of the wheel into his wood shavings.

He stares up at his prize with his greedy, beady eyes and realizes that it's still hanging right in front of him, but now there are no bars between them. Yet, he's exerted himself so much that he just can't grab it. Damned be the hamster who cannot step off his wheel!

I won't write an essay on the symbolism behind this anecdote about greedy little rodents, but let's just say the hamster and I have a lot in common. However, today I learned how to get off the wheel. Once I get my strength back, I just hope the Powers-That-Be will replace the stale strawberry with one that is fresher and more delicious.

Be Strong, My Heart

Be strong, my heart
In time of doubt,
And trust that you
Can do without.

The gold has cracked,
The lead revealed,
But have some faith
And so be healed.

Be strong my heart,
Through darkness, shine,
Though you're not his,
You're always mine.

See Saw

My cousin sent me a text message the other day, the first I'd really heard from her in nearly two years, and that includes the times we shared Christmas Eve dinner. Apparently, she just wanted to clarify that, no matter what our grandma may have told me, she wasn't really a bitch. Small talk progressed from there, though I was able to glean that the point of contention in the conversation was myself. My cousin had brought up her current problems, and our grandma had countered by saying that I had it worse.

I continue to be astounded by how opposite my life runs to the remainder of the world. When I'm at the bottom of the world and all is doom and melancholy, everyone is suddenly busy with their own affairs, yet when I'm on top of the world and all is sunshine and peaches, I become the talk of the pity papers. It makes no sense.

It may be dependent on who gets what side of me more. I noticed the other day, as my good friend asked me to write a letter of recommendation for his marriage visa, I realized that for the last four months, the only words I'd received about his fiancé were complaints, and consequently, I felt no inspiration to write such a letter, regardless of how much my friend proclaimed his love for this person. Having received only that side of his relationship, I could not see the positive in it. I think that may be the case with how my life comes across to others.

After many years of self-loathing and fishing for compliments in the pity pool, I've found that it is much easier to change one's own attitude toward oneself than others' attitudes toward oneself. One is with oneself for every mood swing and inflection, but it is not so with others. Thus, there is a delay, and all falls to confusion when, on a bright and cheery day, you are approached with condolences. Once things are sorted out, it's hard to be certain how you felt before the conversation took place, and by the time you've convinced the other person that you were in high spirits, their negativity may very well have reversed that, putting you in a foul mood while they saunter off under the impression that you're just dandy. It's a right mess, it is.

Introduction

I've found quite a few blogs written about Asperger's Syndrome, mostly by parents of children with the disorder, but surprisingly few actually written by those with the syndrome. While this may be great for parents, it sure doesn't help one's self esteem to be the subject of scientific scrutiny. Case in point: April is National Autism Awareness Month. Asperger's is an Autism Spectrum disorder. To me, that makes April "National Kyle Jarrett's Brain Is Royally Screwed Up" Month. Then again, that just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 2004, during a private meeting with a reputable psychiatrist. It may help to point out that I was not actually a part of this meeting, and that once my mom left the room and I had my own private meeting, the same reputable psychiatrist diagnosed me with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I knew there was something fishy right away: there should be a hyphen between "Obsessive" and "Compulsive," right? In any case, it wasn't until the winter of 2008 that I finally— Obsessive─Compulsive! Ahh... Now where was I?

Asperger's Syndrome is surprisingly easy to describe to the unfamiliar. Imagine yourself at a Christmas party, and clinking around the Christmas tree is a model train. While everyone else laughs, jokes, connects, and enjoys each other's company, your attention is on that train. Observe the awesome mechanisms that move it forward. Listen to the friendly sounds it makes: Whoo whoo! Notice how you never grow tired of watching it circle around and around, because it lets you turn off your brain and avoid the insufferable mundanity of conversing about jobs, weather, and alcohol.

The problem with this scenario is that humans are social animals, and Asperger's is a social disorder. National "Kyle Jarrett's Brain Is Royally Screwed Up" Month, Q.E.D. Apart from the feelings of alienation and despair, the disorder works in both directions and consequently, has pretty much made me into an ass. I get offended by light humor, condescending toward those who don't play by (or understand) my convoluted rules, and reclusive around those who try to disrupt my compulsive routines and regimens with a little social time. How my friends have stuck with me, I'll never know.

What I do know is that I'm tired of Asperger's. In fact, I quit. If Whoopi Goldberg can conquer dyslexia, then why can't I change April to National "Kyle's Brain Is All Right" Month? I've spent so much time putting the "ass" in "Asperger's" that the time has come to work on the other half: the "burger." To do so, I will need to focus on the following seven components: Bun (Spiritual), Meat (Physical), Cheese (Social), Lettuce (Personal), Tomatoes (Professional), Onions (Emotional), Ketchup (Romantical)

This shall be my accountability blog, on which I shall face my failures and mark my successes. I make no claim of professional expertise or any pretense of family-friendly content. My language will be expressive and sometimes crass, which, if you are from Utah, will offend. In that case, I say "grow some."

Now let's flip some burgers.