Acting Without the Drama

Dry Socket

March 25, 2009. This is not about my wife’s condition, although she does have dry socket.

I realized that I have a pattern. It’s one that I’ve seen play out in other people’s lives as well. Basically, it’s this: I become more conscious, it’s awesome, I freak out, I go unconscious again. Another way of putting it: things change for the better, it’s awesome, I freak out, things start sucking again.

It may be overly simplistic, but it’s something that I’ve observed.

It is very much like dry socket. This does actually tie together. Hold for it…

When we get surgery on our wisdom teeth, we usually do it because there’s a problem. The tooth is impacted and causing us pain, or will soon cause us pain. We very consciously try to take care of things ahead of time. The surgery is not without discomfort (here comes the freak out part) and can send us to bed. If we’re not careful (i.e., we go unconscious again) we could lose the clot, which exposes the bone and the nerve. The result is more painful than the condition that we started off with.

Pretty discouraging, right?

Except for one small detail. We consciously decided to do the surgery in the first place. It was a good decision. Eventually, even with dry socket, the pain will get better. We will find ourselves in a better place than where we were at the beginning. It’s just the intervening time of uncomfortable (sometimes painful) growth that makes us think that the unconscious path is easier.

Let’s explore that thought a bit. What happens if we ignore the impacted tooth? Anyone? Pressure, pain, recurring infections. That’s just for starters, and that’s without me consulting a dentist or wikipedia.

The conscious path is always better.

Next blog, I’ll relate all this to the artistic process. See, I told you I was going somewhere with this.