Into the Wilderness Within: A Portrait of Self-Preservation
by Annie, sp/so 6w7 613
Prescript: I’m still not sure what makes something an instinctive drive, psychological fixation, or cognitive processes. Mostly, I view instincts as aspects which I am naturally inclined to attend to, vs. cognitive functions which determine what I do with that information and how much nuance it has.
Sp for the most part has been my destroyer. When I pay attention to nothing outside of my body, clear my mind—I’m laden with aches and pains. I notice each twinge in my neck, the bubbling chronic nausea just beneath my consciousness, the crunching tension of my jaw, the instability of my joints. Not all sp-leads have this experience, but I have several chronic sources of discomfort. Even when I’m at my healthiest, I notice every way in which I could be doing better. There’s a folk tale about hedgehogs which huddle with each other for warmth, pricking at each other, moving apart and back together again. They cannot stay apart nor can they hold together for long without greater pain than their eternally imperfect dependence on each other. I am in a continual affair with the world and its contents. I am made of the same substance with which it created itself, given awareness as a narrator of my experience, able to maintain some delusion that the forces I impart can stave off my dependence on what’s external. There’s a perverse absurdity to being doomed to clash forever with the materials that comprise you.
Sp has been my creator. People speak of sp walls as a visceral thing. The “intelligence” arising from sp has no concern for universality or in sticking my neck out to violently merge with something. It is selfish, the drives at the “bottom” of the mind, ancient as the first sea sponge to situate itself near nutrients venting from the earth. Humans aren’t sea sponges - there are many things which nourish me and none of them are primordial soup. (Well…) But sp helps me know what will sustain me, what will chip away at me, and how to differentiate between the two. The “barriers” of sp tell me what parts of my experience are “me,” how to keep myself at full strength with an illusion of eternality.
Sp has made me selfish. Frequently mid-conversation I can feel my energy running low and rapidly lose all interest in anything which won’t benefit me. I feel like a person who naturally starts most days with a battery half-full and barely finds the capacity to keep moving through life in spite of it. If the external world has nothing to “offer,” I rarely find the motivation to engage with it even when I have no other choice. I am prone to ignoring what’s outside of me, and often find it hard to exit the cavern of internal potential.
Sp has made me generous. My orientation toward myself has created an awareness of resources and drives which others are often less attentive to. I know when tea with a slice of lemon is going to cheer up a sad loved one, how to make a space warm and cozy, when an environment is invigorating or draining, when someone is on the verge of burning out and how to rapidly take over their responsibilities. Despite my experience of myself as low energy by default, there does seem to be a manic “reserve” which is rarely accessed, but is released as soon as there is a higher “need” than myself (helping someone, working on a passion project, any sort of crisis.) It feels like drawing from these stores often increases my long-term capacity, like micro-tears in a muscle which make it grow back stronger. I am genuinely the sort of person who tends to grow through challenging myself, rather than having that permanently destroy my ability to approach similar situations in the future.
Sp has made me in touch with loss. I know what it feels like to have my body or mind weakened, and to feel as if I will never be capable of the same experiences again. I know how to look into the future with an eye on absorbing what will replenish me. I feel like I am able to withstand any form of damage somewhat intact, like I’m composed of fragments of experiences from those damaged by loss before me. I understand what is precious to people. I know how to pick them back up again.
Sp has made me in touch with what’s there. I am not at home in all environments, but assuming I’m comfortable, can feel like I arose from the grass thousands of years ago. I can feel incoming seasons prickle against my eyelashes, affecting what I gravitate toward. There’s a picture of me around age three, living in Boston, small cuts on my cheeks from daily exposure to winter air. The interlocking branches above me are massive in comparison to the prints from child-sized boots. I have the same peace and wonder on my face I always have upon exposure to the first snow.
I experience pleasure itself as nearly erotic. Memories make electricity rush through my veins. I have thousands of stored somatic impressions which I use like a set of cards, squinting to make out what’s there and compare it with my deck. People are maps of differently sized colors and sensations—this person pillowy blue, that person holds a retractable spike in their chest, a person I treat delicately because I experience them like tissue paper, a person made of plate armor who I know could seriously ruin my life if I angered them.
I’m at home with the empathetic laziness of bumblebees weighted by the fragrance of lavender. I love to sit on stones while a waterfall shatters on my back. I acquire fresh berries and corn and cheeses and savor their newness. Relative to my spsx cousins, I do enjoy these experiences on my own, but they are most ecstatic when wordlessly synchronized with others. Softly glowing candles at a family gathering. Singing while marching down a mountain with friends. Driving through a city night with a lover in the passenger seat, windows down, completely inappropriate music for the situation making you laugh and touch each other as if to remind yourselves you exist.
Credits: There’s a Dylan Thomas reference in here.
