The Heart is the Final Frontier

Be Brave Timid Explorer

Space may seem like the final frontier but the truth is that this distinction lies a bit closer to home than we may want to admit.  However you choose to define frontier, I believe the word aptly characterizes the heart.

Frontier can be defined as:
1. the far-flung limits of knowledge
2. a region of sparse habitation, or
3. a border between countries

I assert, dear reader, that the heart is more mysterious to an individual than any number of complex mathematical equations and questions of science.  A person with a PhD in theoretical Physics will understand things that even the mention of would make my poor brain ache.  And yet, even such a lofty scientific mind could still be utterly baffled by the heart.  Their own heart could betray their rational mind and seem as foreign and bewilderingly complex as any intellectual discipline ever could.  I suggest to you, dear reader, that the heart is the final frontier.

1. the far-flung limits of knowledge
The heart is at the far-flung reaches of our understanding.  No matter how knowledgeable you or I happen to be in a particular field of study, we can still be caught unawares by our hearts.  I don't know about you, but I have often been confused and frustrated by my heart.  There have even been a rare few moments in my life where the realisation of what my heart wants has made my breath catch in my throat.  But the worst of all, are those days I feel lost and restless because I cannot even tell what it is my heart wants; knowing only that it desperately seeks something.  Something I can't quite grasp.

2. a region of sparse habitation
And it's not like there are any road maps in there because the second definition is also true.  The heart is sparsely populated.  It's just you and that crazy desire for whatever it is your heart has decided you need.  There are no friendly locals to point you in the right direction.  You and your heart just have to wander around in your solitary desert til you figure it out on your own.  And trust me, the longer you are lost, the more your heart thinks it's dying.  It certainly feels like an inhospitable desert place in a broken or lost heart.

3. a border between countries
Let's face it, the heart is the border between two completely separate countries.  It is the border between rational and irrational thought.  It is an individual's private frontier.  The battle between head and heart is not new to many people, and yet, it is still as violent and hotly contested as it ever was. Perhaps the real struggle of adulthood is deciding which battles to fight.  It is a lucky individual indeed that has a very quiet border at the edges of the heart's kingdom and the crossroads of reason.  Maybe it is only my experience in life, but it is very rarely that my heart desires things that my rational side can agree with.  More unfortunately, my heart very often wants what it absolutely cannot have.

And why is that?

Why does my heart seem to only want those things it cannot have?  No, want is the wrong word.  It is too tepid.  Yearn is more like it.  Why do I desperately yearn for opportunities and realities that cannot and never will be mine?  Why can the heart not accept it's own fate and calm down for just a few minutes in it's restless beating and longing for the things that cannot be?  My heart and head are almost always at war with each other.  Perhaps it is true of all of us.

Courage of the Heart?
In the end, you almost have to admire the heart.  I mean, it has a single mindedness to it's longing that is almost courageous.  Well, it could be called courageous in other people at least.  Maybe you could call it courageous in yourself if it wasn't making you so miserable.  A body could almost learn to resent their heart some days, what with all the sleepless nights spent tossing and turning, pondering the things that might have been, or could still be; the way that miracles could still bring about that one thing you long for so desperately.

Bleary-eyed, coffee-filled doses of morning reality could understandably reduce even the most rational person to hateful thoughts toward their softer side.  If only they were colder hearted, less of a dreamer, more rational, they silently chastise themselves over sips of piping wakefulness...  If only they were these things, they sigh with resignation, they might sleep better, feel less weary and less plagued by life.  If they weren't so irrational they might feel less at war with themselves on the border between desire and reality; less lost in the wilderness of emotional turmoil.  If only they could turn the heart off or around and care about something practical and achievable.

But Nooo!

The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants
The heart wants what the heart wants.  Everyone will tell you this.  They quote Emily Dickinson as if it explains everything away.  But they forget the rest of the line.  "The heart wants what the heart wants, or else it does not care."  The hearts wants, or else...  If the heart doesn't get what it wants it throws a perpetual tantrum to make you miserable because no matter how you wish it otherwise, you just can't care about things your heart doesn't want.  And, if you remember, the heart is at the far-flung limits of our knowledge and it's sparsely populated.  So, you're alone in there with your heart throwing a tantrum that you have absolutely no idea how to stop.  You just get to sit in your barren desert of a heart, all alone, until it finally loses the energy to throw such a monumental tantrum.  This, depending on the tragedy or misfortune, could take days, or even years.  Years of feeling more alone and isolated and desolate than you can even imagine. (That is, more desolate than your rational side would think possible, when it finally has control.)
 
Follow Your Heart?
People will quote this line to you; "The heart wants what the heart wants" they say.  They will do so in a flippant matter like this single quote explains everything.  Well, of course you're miserable the heart wants what it wants.  It will pass.  Or they sometimes manage to imply that you should follow your heart.  But neither of these sentiments are of comfort.  Why does the heart want what it wants?  Why can't it want something that it already has, or something that it could have?  Why must it long for those things it cannot have?  You cannot simply follow your heart when the object of your heart's desire is, in actual fact, impossible.  You may want to sit on the edge of the moon and breathe freely, but it doesn't mean you can.  You may wish for one more hour with a loved one, but no one can turn back time.  You may wish for eight arms, or a new personality, but you cannot snap your fingers and be a different person.  And, no, your misery does not get better by simply acknowledging that the heart wants what it wants, or that it cannot have it.  You already know these things.  Misery doesn't come from your lack of knowledge.  Misery comes because your heart is simply incapable of caring about daily life or anything beyond the one impossible desire it is yearns for.  So, you sit and wallow in your state of uncaring for anything else, because the heart doesn't compromise.  It wants what it wants OR ELSE.

Emily Dickinson knew this.  But those people who quote the first part of her line nearly always forget the second and darker truth.  Emily, they frequently forget, was a woman much beset by grief.  She knew intimately the depths of a heart's pain.  She watched many loved ones and friends die in her lifetime and she struggled with deep depression.  Her line is not a flippant statement that sometimes your heart is unhappy but you'll get over it soon it enough.  There is no "soon enough" for some pain.

Your heart does not simply let the head win or stop wanting impossible thing in exactly two weeks time.  You cannot sit your heart down and lecture it saying "Enough is enough", or "Come, now let's be rational.  Things aren't going to change.  Let's make the best it".  No.  Your heart won't listen.  It doesn't care.  No amount of reasoning with yourself and your heart makes the pain go away.  No amount of reasoning helps your heart to care about anything else when it sees no hope and no future of happiness.  The heart cannot be appeased by mundane trivialities.  The pain settles in for a long and merciless winter hibernation; the sort of winter that perhaps there is no waking up from.

Heartbreak, heartsick, heavy heart, heartache.  Why do you think there are so many words that have to do with temper tantrums of the heart?  And this doesn't even include the wealth of words to describe the emotions including anguish, sorrow, and misery.  Everyone deals with grief and heartbreak at some point in their lives.  Sadly, as the heart is at the limits of our understanding, nobody has figured out a way of making these times any easier.  The heart has a great capacity for joy and love and caring, but if it doesn't get it's way you may have a long road of apathy and anguish ahead of you.

Don't Follow Your Heart
A lot of soul searching, or heart searching if you will, has led me to the conclusion that I do not even know my own heart.  It has layers of wishes and desires, some of them obvious and others latent, hidden even from my own awareness.  I think that the best way to be at peace in life is to somehow reach a balance whereby your heart concedes that current circumstances are not permanent and that hope for future happiness is always a possibility no matter how bleak the day may be.  Letting the heart live in the moment and focus only on despair is too dangerous.  Hope can be a tricky ally, but it is far better than the heartache of despair.  I am not an expert on these things and I still get caught unaware by the sudden tantrums of my heart's desires and apathy... but I am trying.  Trying to understand.  Trying to work towards hope.  Trying to lead my heart out of darkness, but never follow it there.

My advice?  Don't follow your heart.  It doesn't know what it's doing.  Prepare yourself for battle on the frontier between your heart and your head and remember that you will be going in alone, dropped behind enemy lines with no intelligence or maps.  All you will have is your wits and your desire to survive whatever storm your heart is experiencing at the moment by sheer determination and perseverance.  It won't be easy.  But don't give up.

The Heart is a mysterious creature and despite the fact that nobody has figured out how to neutralize it, you probably wouldn't want to live life without it anyway.  No matter how dark today may be.  Chin up, have courage.  If you cannot manage to care about anything in the world today just remember that you are not alone.  We have all been lost in the depths of our heart's despair at some point or another.  If you're lost there now, just allow yourself to be sorrowful.  Tomorrow you can work on finding just one thing in the world that is not bad.  Perhaps the sunlight through a flower, or a best friend's company.  Tomorrow you can slowly try to remind your heart that the world hasn't ended.  Today, you're allowed to just be sad as long as you don't give up altogether.

So, farewell, dear reader, and be brave in your explorations into the final frontier, the Heart.

Serves Four? Think again.

Food in the UK is different.  They use less preservatives which is probably better for you but also means the food spoils faster.  They also sell foods we would almost never see in the US.

Sometimes food here perplexes me.  What, for instance, is a chicken teddy?

After reading the label I was assured that they were actually made of chicken, and were presumably breaded chicken nuggets.

They were just shaped like teddy bears.  Now, I understand the need to eat animal shaped foods.  Animal crackers, teddy grahams, and fish crackers are all staple snack foods from my childhood.  I've just never heard of teddy chickens.

Don't worry I ate them in the proper order.

Then there is dessert.  There is really nothing confusing about that, except, just maybe, how much of it you should eat.  A lot.  The answer is always a lot.

A glance at the packaging suggested the pie served four.  Huh.  Four.

I pre heated the oven carefully to gas mark 6.  Yes, I am so international, I can now pretend I understand British cooking measurements and appliances.  It's only taken me two years.

I put the pie in for the correct amount of time.  I used my phone as a timer.  Since I've discovered that my magic phone can do this less things have been burnt by my inattention.  I do love my phone.

The lovely golden delicious smelling pie came out of the oven on time and waited on the counter impatiently for me to eat it.

Serves four.  I cut the cinnamon apple pecan pie into six even slices, mostly because I like the way six slices looks better than four.

Then I unceremoniously put two in my bowl with a large portion of extra thick cream.  Mmm.  I'm not sharing.

Yep, more like serves one at a slightly slower rate than four. Only slightly mind.

I'm also pretty sure I know what I'm having for breakfast.

Rex sine Terra: King without a land

I am a king. Yes a king.  Rex sine terra, or a king without a land, in the way that Medieval Spain had men with the title dux sine terra.  The title came with certain status and authority.  It made you a duke, gave you certain prestige and acknowledged your standing in society.  But it did not come with land.  It wasn't a landed title based on the holding of certain castles or estates.  It was a title without land.  You were a duke without land.  And in this way I am a king without land.

A castle means safety; an arrow readiness for battle; a lion dauntless courage.  Red signifies military strength and magnanimity; blue truth and loyalty; purple royal majesty; silver peace and sincerity.

Now this doesn't mean that you cannot have land, authority and power.  It just means your title doesn't guarantee it.  If you were a duke without land in Medieval Spain, you only controlled your household and whatever estates you owned before the title.  Duke just came along as a bonus.  As for me, I am a king, but I did not inherit a kingdom with this title.  I have no land of my own complete with subjects.  But this does not mean I do not have power.

First and most importantly I rule myself.  I have adopted the motto "qui vicit, qui se vicit", or he conquers who conquers himself.  I believe this to be true.  A great many things can be done with self-control and determination.  The sixteenth century poet and satirist, Pietro Aretino, had this to say about the subject of self rule: "I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."  In my personal experience self rule is not only the most important thing for personal growth, it is also what paves the way to other successes. 

Does this mean that everyone is a king?  Certainly not.  One must have at least a modicum of self-control to vie for the title.  If you sit down and think about it you may be surprised at how few of the people you know actually exhibit self-control and the ability to rule themselves.  Think especially of those bad decisions you try to persuade your friends not to make.  Are they motivated by fleeting desires and lack of self-control?

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to actually look at the definition of rule now.  According to the dictionary, to rule is defined thusly: to control or direct; exercise dominating power, authority, or influence over; govern: to rule the empire with severity.

If rule can be defined as just having influence over, and let's face it some kings barely had that, then I rule all sorts of things.  I rule not only myself but also all of my possessions.  Due to the fact that I believe technological devices are magic I cannot claim to control them, but I certainly have a dominating influence over them.  (Ok, at least on most days.)  You may recall my mad ideas about the workings of flash drives.  Well, I own two of them with their attendant cities of miniature scribes and I rule their actions and inhabitants.  As far as influence goes I can reasonably say I have influence over my family and friends.  Who doesn't?  So in a small way I rule them too.

Actually my friends are the reason I'm a king in the first place.  My senior year of university my friends helped me build a cardboard castle in my dorm room.  That is really a story all of its own but that is the reason I am king.  Every castle must have a king, right?  Why didn't I just name myself queen of the castle, being that I am in fact a woman?  Well, I'll get to that in a second.  However, living in a castle demanded a power structure.  I knighted my friends, gave them titles and power.  Even before I became a self-proclaimed king I settled quarrels between them to the best of my ability.  After I became a king I naturally waged wars against enemies who threatened peace in our kingdom.  I made royal declarations and of course conducted battles with foam swords and cardboard shields.  

So, why not a queen?  Think about the history of women and power.  If you think of truly powerful rulers you tend to think of men.  Alexander the Great, Caesar, Henry VIII, Genghis Khan, Napoleon.  Do you think of Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great, or Cleopatra?  No, usually not.  Not to mention that many of history's powerful women only wielded power through men.  Often women came to power as regents for their young sons.  Catherine the Great only gained power by overthrowing her husband and having love affairs with powerful men in the kingdom.  Other women had to use their femininity as their strongest asset in politics.  Cleopatra kept power and influenced politics by making alliances, or romances, with powerful Roman rulers like Caesar and Marc Antony.  Elizabeth I was probably the first monarch to rule in her own right but she had to do so by constantly using her possible marriage as a bargaining chip.  She never married and one has to suspect that this was at least partly because her most powerful tool was dangling the hope of possible alliance with her into various political situations.

The lion in Leeds that greets me at my bus stop.  I like to think it is a royal lion.

So, the only real way to rule in your own right without having to use your marriage as a bargaining tool for power is to be a king.  If you are a queen your property goes to your husband when you are married and he controls it.  A king doesn't lose control by marrying.  A king doesn't rule only as long as his son is in his minority.  Historically, a king has more inherent power, authority and respect than a queen.  I didn't want my kingly status to depend on my personal choices of marriage and alliance.  I wanted to remain powerful and retain my freedom, and keep my cardboard castle to myself.  So I declared myself a king, claiming the position, the power, and the freedom that comes with such a title.  And I stubbornly defend this choice with anyone who argues.

Besides I wanted to be able to wear the color of royalty officially.  Purple was the colour of Roman emperors, kings and powerful men in ancient times.  The Roman Emperor Aurelian wouldn't let his wife buy a purple shawl because it cost its weight in gold.  It was expensive, it was a status symbol and it was highly regulated.  Sumptuary laws made it available only to certain classes of people even in the Tudor age of England.  So, I want to be ready just in case the old sumptuary laws keeping purple for the royalty come back in fashion.  Now that I've made myself a king I can wear what I like.  And more often than not I choose purple for my kingly raiment.

I am a scavenger.

At university, my friends and I used to joke that we had to go scavenge for food in the cafeteria.  Not everything they served was edible.  If you have eaten in school cafeterias you know what I'm talking about.  Sometimes the only things that looked edible were the desserts, other days it was cereal for dinner and some days you had to choke down something before you had time to wonder what it was actually made of.    I have to say, if you can keep an entire table full of intelligent people guessing at the contents of your dish you have skills.  Perhaps not the set of skills I would recommend as necessary for being a cook, but nonetheless an impressive set.  Although we did often amuse ourselves at guessing ingredients, it was not always a joking matter.  Scavenging was what we termed the desperate search for real food that often led to an assorted plate of things you found edible.  Usually it meant not eating the main dishes that were being served and instead returning with a collection of gummy bears, gold fish crackers or if you were lucky fruit that you found on the salad bar or hidden by the sandwich stuff. 

It wasn't all bad.  We had fun with even this sad lot in life.  We took the song savages from Pocahontas and gave it our own lyrics. "Scavengers, scavengers barely even eating.  Scavengers, scavengers through the caf we're creeping." The frequent presence of gummy bears at our table led to the creation of Gummy Bear Theatre.  We adapted Shakespearean plays and large historical events and had them performed by Gummy Bear Theatre.  It may have looked something like this.

The best one was probably our highly fictionalized retelling of Hannibal's crossing of the alps with elephants in tow.

Apparently I was destined to take scavenging to another level as a post grad.  I often found that I didn't have time to do proper shopping trips.  So I had to scavenge in my cupboards for things that could be eaten together.  It was not uncommon for me to have peanut butter and jelly but no bread, cereal but no milk, and pasta but no sauce.  I did try to get food but studying just ate up my life.  What kicked me out the door and into the grocery stores though was the lack of chocolate.  Realizing this about myself I had to limit the amount of chocolate I bought at one time.  This way I would have to go out to buy it more often and then be out to buy more real food too.

Now that I have graduated I seem to do better about buying food regularly.  Yet, last night I managed to take scavenging to a whole new level.  I have progressed further into my scavenger lifestyle by moving on from food.  I now collect things.  A few days ago I noticed a table out on the street with the trash bins.  I was too tired at the time to really think about it.  A few more days of passing by it had given me time to contemplate the table sitting on the sidewalk.  That poor three-legged table was going to be thrown away.  What a sad fate.  How could somebody waste such a perfectly good three-legged table?  Well, last night I was sitting in my room thinking that I could use a little table for craft projects.

So, I put on my coat and shoes and went out to the street just behind my house.  I rescued that three-legged table from it's sidewalk grave.  I was undeterred by the slugs that had already decided to make it their home.  I brought it home and cleaned it thoroughly.  I resurrected it from useless discarded furniture to craft table.  Where better to create things then on a three-legged table?  If it can be rescued, if it can still work then there is no limit to what can be repurposed.  And if I get a little paint or glue here or there, what matter?  That is what it is there for and it will only add to its character.

I had better go do crafty things before I decide to start scavenging for more things.