Nun with Red Lipstick

After I was exorcised from yet another episode of extreme neurosis, I sat back with a glass of wine and watched documentaries.

Neurosis, the state of heightened stress and irrational anxiety, is pretty common with most people that are creative. Save me your pity! I actually enjoy my insanity. Well mostly.

For those of us blessed with an active imagination, life does not happen on earth alone but often takes a detour into the hell realms that we have personally crafted for our own selves in our mind. 

In the hell realm everything feels real and vivid.

The school bus that is five minutes late has in fact skidded into a ditch, the family dog has choked and died on the piece of toy that I’ve forgotten to put away, a close friend’s minor ailment has turned fatal, I will soon be unable to paint as a result of paralysis and I am completely disliked because I have opened my mouth and spoken my mind freely.   

Anyhow, this detour is completely debilitating. At this point my brain is swimming in its own waste unlike my far more intelligent body. The shades have been drawn, the doors closed and the outer world simply does not exist, this projection made by this apparently sophisticated organ sitting over my shoulders is my complete and full reality.

Obviously it is painful, and I linger in it long enough before it decides to spit me out after having chewed me up completely.  Needless to say the suffering is intense.

Anyway, the glass of wine is helping, and I start recognizing for the first time how badly I have suffered and how much suffering I have caused those closest to me. Still recovering and a bit shaken I revert to the calming philosophy of Buddhist compassion. This time I’m almost inclined to give it all up and embrace the difficult path of complete renunciation, my ticket to freedom, so I decide to watch ‘The monk with the camera’- a documentary.

Clearly, the documentary is helping too, the good looking, calm and nurturing monk has me all interested – captivated in fact – as he talks about his playboy life of yester years, his love for taking pictures with his camera, his work at the monastery, the experience of lasting inner peace and so on.  Pretty soon just like that I have slipped away once again into a pretty delightful fantasy - one involving the monk with the camera and me as a nun with red lipstick.

The detour from reality has happened once again – I told you I enjoy my insanity - my only sadness is that this time I know its unreal and I’m being crazy!