Affective Filters On. Affective Filters Off. Loss and Grief

Have you had a conversation with someone and there is a random idea in the middle of the discussion and BANG a blinding cosmic insight? Me neither but, I am attuned to thoughts and ideas that offers perspective and insight on my grief. Those ideas become my directional road map. Much less cosmic but deeply telling and evocative. Filters off and finding ‘your better self being born from grief’.

I was having a chat with Nico a composer at Red vs. Blue, Composer at Rooster Teeth and Founder at Trocadero. I met him through my gaming Sherpa Mig while at PAX. I had written Nico about how I am discovering not just gaming but the rich vein of textured music within games, similar to movie sound tracks  where music accelerates the emotional content of film and dialogue. The same happens in gaming. Music drives tactile feedback, motor cortex, memory from previous gaming moments and more. In Destiny when the creepy shit is coming and I am going to be swarmed the Hive the music makes me shudder. A deep discussion about music is beyond my pay grade or IQ. It is enough to note, I discovered gaming music, it exists, and it can stand alone. Music in gaming does all that music is suppose to do to our brains. Case in point, Nico shared a YouTube Video Halo-Openng Suite. He said it sounded similar to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. I knew neither and listened. Barber’s Adagio is amazing. It was played at Albert Einstein’s funeral. And the Halo Opening Suite was perfect.

We were chatting back and forth. Me Mr. Tin Ear with a talented brilliant composer. My default with luminaries such as Nico, they are humoring me. I mentioned something I heard, music discovery occurs when we are young. For most of us once we hit 35 we are locked into what we know and don’t actively seek to discover new. We may find new music within what we know. Experiencing something truly new and outside our base of music is not in the mix. Discovery is lost as we age. If we consider the fact that adults will learn when they are seeking solutions to problems then we must accept that our music or our lives being problem free means we are not driven to discover (aka learn) when we are in a comfortable place. Barber’s Adagio Strings is playing now, totally new to me and just so powerful. New and outside what I would ever find. There was no problem to solve or was there?

Nico said this:

I think the reason why people do things like meditation / running / walking / adrenaline activities / drugs / booze is to erode the filters

Loss seems to melt them away as well, unfortunately

Because extreme joy doesn’t seem to do that, at least not for me.

Filters. Filters. FILTERS! Were my filters turned off when Donna died, when she was diagnosed, during my caregiving, and beyond. Is that why I can hear my avatar of grief speak to me when I read or hear a random idea from Nico and others? Was my loss, not a loss? Or am I looking for solutions to the emotional and psychic problems? 

If you’ve reading these posts and podcasts I have tested and examined the depth of my life before, during, and after Donna’s illness and death. Prior to her diagnosis my unexamined life was limited to the day to day. There was work, there was home, there were the dog(s), there was each day with the components of living. I accepted and surrendered to the day. It was what life was, daily chores. Not to be harsh on myself I did want to learn and understand but, it was about my work and how we (Donna and I) could find a balance when facing those daily ‘things’ life threw at you. My filters were in place to aid me in or living life as I/we knew it. Filters are what we have to view the world when all is good. It was good, not perfect there was no need to discover/learn. I surrendered to comfort and ease. No heavy lifting. 

When Donna was told in January of 2009 she had Stage IV cancer and only six months to live I threw myself into getting situated so I could be a caretaker. So I could do what I could. I never considered her death or life after her. But during that time till her death in August of 2011 my filters were there, to a point. Or better said they changed. They filtered the boring day to day into a textured street fight of survival and support. No longer was the day filled with the usual. The filters were in place, different but still there. I think this points to a change that was occurring, the erosion of my filters. And the journey to find understanding, meaning, purpose, and learning.

When Donna died the most important advice I received was not to deny my grief or my loss but dive into it in order to understand and embrace it. It was that exercise in loss and grief that eroded more of my filters. Or continued too. The day to day life prior to diagnosis and during caregiving was fading. Though I will add I was grieving from January 2009 because I knew this would not have a happy ending. After her death and the search for understanding I had to look at myself and my days. Looking back the filters were still in place. I did not actively remove them. They faded over time with what I wrote and considered about this life altering event. I could not find the understanding and insight through filters because I would be placing what I was learning behind a scrim. I would be repeating on a loop what we did while it was no longer we but me. The harder you examine and the more you hurt the less the filters interfere or obscure and keep you to the past. The past and what was becomes what is. Of course this may just be observers effect here. I think I am doing the hard work when in reality I am just glossing over my life. I guess that is part and parcel of no filters, a harsh self view.

Where am I today? The loss of these filters has driven me to a more textured and nuanced view of what was, what is, what I had, and didn’t have. I think that sans filters l’ve come to do, to realize, to discover new things. That did not happen over night. It has been a process of building a new understanding and reflecting on my life past. Part of learning and changing our consciousness is to discover something new and to decide if you want to add it to historical experiences and create new or improve current knowledge. I still struggle to find right side up each day and to get back to some place and space where I feel self-worth. Loss is loss. It is about what is gone and will never to return. My sadness has dissipated and the grief has animated my life through it’s wisdom. 

Would I want to go back? To have a life with my filters in place? Yes I’d go back in a heart beat. All that I have and am trying to do now is seems vapid in comparison, my life is only me and do I really deserve any of it? Seriously do I? There are no regrets in this post filter world of mine. Regrets are for chumps and regrets perpetuate the sadness. Would I want to change what happened? Yes. What would be amazing is to take this new knowledge and understanding and go back in time (sounds like a cheap ass movie) and apply it. The harder play is to build new. To find meaning and purpose and self-worth while the filters are gone and actively examining everything. Missing filters are an opportunity. Donna would say “There is a reason they call it history, it happen then.”

What I can say is that my sadness is lifting. The grief is continuing but my grief is opening the world. I am fighting to find a place. I am seeking to discover new. The visit to PAX and gaming, especially Destiny, has exposed me to new and in a way hides me from the work of finding meaning and purpose. These are small steps in rebuilding a life without Donna. Her death threw me into a world of hurt. Her death opened my eyes. Her death was tragic. Her death maintains me in life. Her death is my death. 

The future does not reside in the past. We carry the past to imbibe today.