The Voices in My Head Are Full of $#@!

By Dave Wenger

Part memoir, part field guide, The Voices in My Head are Full of $#@! is about the journey of becoming one's True Self.

Dave Wenger writes candidly about his struggle to ignore voices from childhood, religion, and culture and tune into the authentic voice of his True Self. Along the way he encourages readers to capture the story and find a metaphor that will help them do the same.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483552538

Book preview

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PREFACE

Our view of the past is clouded by ignorance and emotion.

Greg Levoy, Callings

Between me and my childhood is a wall.

So begins Budd Schulberg’s remarkable autobiography, Moving Pictures. He goes on to describe the dilemma facing one who tries to tell a personal story that spans many decades. It’s like trying to punch holes through a wall so a man in his sixties can see and somehow understand the child he used to be on the other side.

The question the writer then faces is this: Do I tell the story of a child who grew up into a man or do I tell a story of a man coming to grips with his upbringing? Either way something’s bound to be left out or misremembered because it is only one man’s perspective being shared.

I value the insight of a seasoned guide, so I’ll follow Schulberg’s example and tell you straight out before we begin: What follows in these pages is not the whole story. It’s not even the authoritative story. No attempt has been made to fully document my life – and no assumption is made that anyone would want to read that.

I’ve gathered a bushel of stories here with little thought to chronology and only a little more thought to context. Some have been shared in men’s retreats over the years. Others are shared publicly for the first time. I’ve tried to honestly tell what I experienced and how I felt about it. People I know and some I love will not agree with everything written here. Nor will they corroborate some of my recollections or conclusions. Such is the nature of memory. And relationships.

Here’s the thing: even though the ink has dried, these words and their meaning may change over time. If I’d written a memoir twenty years ago it would be quite different from what you’re holding. So I have to allow for the probability that if a memoir were written twenty years from now it would also be quite different from this current volume. In other words, I stand by everything written here but I’m open to understanding it and expressing it differently in the future.

The very act of writing this book changed the way I think about some of the experiences recounted herein. My hope is that in reading this book you will begin to think in new and fresh ways about your story. This volume is offered to you as a field guide for finding and telling your story as much as it is a record of mine.

INTRODUCTION

There’s a crucial moment in a young man’s life. In our culture it’s generally in his mid-20s. Somewhere along there the curtain comes up on his Second Act. The stage is set for a forty year run in which he’s expected to make his mark.

He may be in top physical health. He’s at his sexual prime. He’s got his whole life ahead of him. Around this time he finishes college or decides college is not for him. That’s when some old guy in his life starts making it uncomfortable for him to stay in the nest.

He’s irrevocably leaving childhood and adolescence. No more hiding behind momma’s skirt; no more fooling around on the playground; no more preparation. It’s go time. So arrives the moment of truth – or untruth depending on how you look at it.

It’s as if he’s given the keys to a high performance speedboat. He’s told that a real man --- a take charge kind of guy – will run his boat as fast and hard as he can straight up the river.

Fight the current. Blow past all the losers that are floating downstream. You’ve got this great gift – use it! Be productive! Make. Something. Happen. What he’s not told is the dirty little secret that will spark his rude awakening: he only gets one tank of gas. That’s it. After he’s burned that tank, there’s a paddle.

The lucky ones are the guys that quickly run out of gas and figure out what they could have been doing in the first place. This book is not for them.

This book is for the rest of us. The ones who ran out of gas after they’d burned through a marriage or two. This book is for the guys whose empty tanks eerily coincide with a severe reversal in their careers. It’s for men who’ve just realized that the best you can hope for when paddling against the current is to hold your place. And it’s for everyone who’s finally dropped his paddle in fatigue and shame without realizing THIS is the moment of his true liberation.

For me it happened right on time. I was in my mid-40s with a wife and three kids holding down a respectable, even noble job as the pastor of a church in North Little Rock, Arkansas. I’d run out of gas in my late thirties and managed to paddle for another eight years or so. By the winter of my 45th year I couldn’t paddle any longer and I said those two words that comprise the most honest prayer a man can pray: Screw this. Those words were preceded by the unspoken realization: I’m screwed.

It took a while following my crisis to debug, retool and learn to be fruitful instead of productive. I came to realize that ego is the gas in our boats --- and at some point our egos give out or become so toxic they go nuclear on everyone around us. I learned --- and I’m still learning --- that peace and desperation go hand in hand. That mysterious combination of peace and desperation is key to producing sustainable levels of humility and courage in a man’s life.

I didn’t rush out to write a book once I started to understand this. Honestly, my only goal at first was not to kill myself. Then my focus moved to becoming a human again. Along the way I’ve met and talked with hundreds of men with unique stories but similar themes. I’ve spent countless hours with many of them in offices, on lakes, in cabins and over tables in restaurants.

I’m writing now because I have nearly twenty years of this journey under my belt. I’m no expert or guru but I’m a pretty good guide on these waters. I’ve learned a few things about navigating the stream and I’m willing to share with you if you’re willing to listen.

If you’ve still got gas in the tank or you’re still thinking you’re going to set some kind of distance record for paddling a boat up stream, you can get back to me. My number is in the directory and this book will still be around when you’re ready to talk.

If, on the other hand, anything in the previous paragraphs has resonated with you then let’s float together for a while and talk about it.

PART ONE: STORY

Life is lived descriptively not prescriptively.

THE VOICES IN MY HEAD

Stupid is a word that will get you in trouble.

Most parents don’t let their kids call each other stupid. At least the parents who are giving it the old college try.

Calling a grade school classmate stupid will trigger consequences ranging from writing I will not call people stupid one hundred times to a one way trip to the principal’s office.

Telling a potential employer your last boss was stupid makes it a lock you’re not getting the job. (It’s also an indicator you’re not so bright yourself.)

Stupid is not a nice word. So, I understand the full weight of what I’m about to say: For most of my life I’ve thought I was stupid.

Because I felt this way, I tried to hide – to stay in the corners and not be noticed. For a big chunk of my life I endeavored to be invisible whenever possible. I feared being found out. I dreaded the moment that people would confirm what I already knew: Dave Wenger is stupid.

I have a vivid memory from 3rd grade: I’m outside my body looking at myself standing at the blackboard with a piece of chalk in my hand. The only way I’ll be allowed to go back to my seat is to solve the math problem on the board. I’m the last man standing. More like dead man standing. A nine-year-old kid alone at the board and not going anywhere. In my memory everyone in the class knows the answer to the equation. They’re incredulous that I don’t. Some snicker. Others beg the teacher to let them solve this problem and put the class out of its collective misery.

This is a real event from my childhood that I remember clearly. Yet I have no memory of how I got back to my seat. It’s completely blocked. For all I know somewhere in the bowels of an abandoned elementary school building, there’s an unsolved long division problem scrawled in fading chalk on a blackboard. It haunts me to this day.

I’m not the only one haunted by these kinds of moments.