Catching Up with Wolf Waldo

I’ve had Black Sabbath’s Going Through Changes in my head lately, and, besides being a beautiful song, it really encapsulates my feelings lately, having recently been through so many big changes myself. 

It was John Mayer who said something in a radio interview once about how, ‘a human being only goes through true quantum change, once, maybe twice, in a lifetime’. 

And I used to agree with that – particularly after I had undergone what was probably my second quantum change, at 29. 

I should note here that the interesting thing about the quantum changes I have undergone, is that they weren’t necessarily precipitated by major life-events so much as they were the major life-event – not the thing that changed me but the change itself. 

Of course, I had – many times – gone through what most would consider major life-changing events: a breakup after nearly five years, another breakup to the same girl three years later after nearly a year back together, the total loss of my business and financial security – multiple times – and, in love again, another excruciatingly tough breakup after 3 years. This is not to mention minor breakups (Two with whom I co-habituated with for more than a year each). Point being, I had been through my shit – some of it very tragic, and all of it quite disastrous; however, none of these things really brought about quantum change on my part. In those tragic instances when I had been the major tragic character, it’s not like I just suddenly became the hero in my story, rising from the ashes like a Phoenix. No, life takes time. 

The prima materia, the shit, this accrues in events, as described above, but the real transformation takes time – a lot of reflection, a lot of shadow work, and a lot of just doing the soul’s alchemy – the stuff that requires you to “Figure out what you have done and why you have done it, or else you’ll go on committing the same crimes forever” – to borrow the words of James Baldwin. 

But the quantum changes I am referring to, these have been the major liberating, transformational shifts in my life, and they have been almost sudden. Of course, as in the parable of the Chinese Bamboo Tree, the growth appears rapid at the surface, when, in fact, it has been germinating underground for years. 

Overnight success? Never. I’ve still got miles to go (I’ll probably have had this blog close to a decade when my first novel is published).

But in this recent winter’s solstice, I came much further and closer to the ultimate reality of my being than I could have ever imagined, and a lot of germenation came to fruition: there was the wake of my father’s death, there was the rediscovery of a box of childhood awards and notes from teachers, there was a heartwarming holiday with family and Kitty, there was a cactus-tea experience – replete with the arrival of what I am deeming “animal consciousness” or “wolf-consciousness” – and there was the discovery of quite possibly the most empowering and valuable paradigm I have encountered in my adult years: Sociomoter Theory. 

For a basic primer on the theory, Wikipedia and this video are great starters – enough for me in fact to have basically examined myself in light of the model, and to have really awakened to much about myself, mainly much about how my not caring what people thought of me was, in fact, a veil for low self-esteem – self-esteem that I would have much better nurtured had I given more consideration for others and taken a more inclusive view toward society as a whole. In short, I thought being a misanthrope (Not at all to be confused with introvert, which I still am) was cool, when, instead, it made me little more than a selfish, self-pitying asshole. Not to crucify myself too much, but I can be honest here. 

The truth is and will always be, that I look upon the past honestly: as having not known any better. This allows me a genuine compassion for myself, and this compassion enables me to grow, to evolve, and to admit when there is a better way. 

Without that compassionate, self-forgiving perspective  (Note: I define forgiveness as simply accepting the past could not have been any different) I could never have even the humility to become a better person. Because before I had acquired that [humility via genuine compassion], I spent a lot of time defending who I was and what I had done, even when they were clearly not right. 

I’m not meaning to preach, but, rather, simply to expound on something I am both very excited about and very grateful for. It’s fucking awesome. 

It’s also heartbreaking. But that’s life, and I’ve lived long enough to have broken my own heart a few times, and likely a few others too. 

Ultimately, I am just learning the things my father, my grandfathers, and all the men and women before me didn’t know. 

As I told Kitty recently, If you don’t give your kids a leg up in the world, they are born two generations behind. 

So here’s to taking quantum leaps, to trusting the Universe. 

Here’s to being a part of evolution, and here’s to my new alter-ago: Wolf Waldo Black.