Chasing wire

The follow up on my rewiring effort, since I hadn't seen fit to place it on record here thus far.

Finally, I let her in.  She'd been knocking on the walls.  I'd let no one past them for as long as I could remember.  But she, like the finest of rock cutters, tapped with infinite patience.  The usual people tap 50 times, complain they can't do it, and go home.  A pro knows, however, that it may take 51 taps or 1,203.  But it will crack, eventually, with patience and fortitude.

I'll spend a lifetime thanking her for that patience.

The tedious meanderings of infinity

On occasion (or, to be more correct, "with startling consistency") I find myself strongly focused on the silliest of things.  Bills.  Traffic.  Western religion.  The noisy neighbors.  The carpet.  The past.  Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Then my consciousness does an incredible thing... it turns its attention to the universe - the one song - the infinite and unencompassible.  It does so through the sieve of society's mind-training, of course, so my concept of infinity is greatly tampered by the "you can nots" that one is raised to understand.  As people, jaded by their perception of experience, take on the task of raising younger beings into their own jaded pine-boxes, the you-can-nots become i-am-nots in the individual. "I am not lovable", "I am not attractive", "I am not equal to god", "I am not..." etc etc.  "I am", however, is an invocation of the universal source energy.  It is creation itself, which the book-thumpers and tedious thinkers tell you that you cannot do.  You must, according to them, wait for the big cosmic vending machine called god to dispense your rewards, provided you insert enough spiritual coins -- and you must trust the will of the machine whether or not it gives you the item you ask for. (a concept widely paraphrased from Wayne Dyer)

Unfortunately, the individual's notion of what-I-must-have is usually narrowed to a particular result, such as "I need a new Jaguar with leather seats and ..." blah blah blah details.  Broken down to a finer point, one wants some material symbol of elevated social status.  Neither of these points is compatible with a higher sense of contentment, though, so the resulting reward the universe bestows will fit the intention behind the desire, rather than the desire itself.  If one asks for reliable transportation, one is bound to end up with either a reliable automobile, a quality bicycle, or a strong set of legs.  Intention there was not to tie one's inherent worth to material possessions, but to find a reliable way to get from point A to point B.

Intention, in love for example, is demonstrated in how one loves another.  I believe love is simply service.  To express love, one must be willing to serve - and the intention behind it should be to do so for no other purpose than to serve.  There should be no "well, he only gave me 70% so I can only give 70% back".  In such a case, love means giving 100% regardless of what one receives, and with no intention of producing (external) reward.  (In cases where one is abused, they should give themselves 100% and find their way to safety however possible).  Intention, in one who gives 100%, will produce an equivalent reward from the universe.  In other words, "gimme gimme gimme" tells the universe to ask you for service.  However, "how may I serve?" will produce a similar response from the universe - "how may I serve you?"  Being in service, however, must be achieved with an intention of service alone, not service for a reward, or one generally tends to believe the damn cosmic machine is broken, and they should take it personally.  "The universe is picking on me."

I am constantly reminded of this lesson every time I start to feel as if life is cheating me somehow.  There's no good life or bad life.  There's just life, and it's all about interpretation, intention, and contribution.  Try to take material items and status with you to the grave.  Can't do it?  Then one must realize that all you can do with life is to give it away.  In serving for the sake of serving, you will find others will serve you.  But only if you really mean it, for the highest reasons, and in the greatest love.

Feeling dumb

It's distinctly embarrassing to express one's lowest emotional meanderings, only to discover as you're  doing so just how ridiculous you sound.  And, as well, to discover just how few people are there listening and how blatantly they express no interest whatsoever.  They're around when you have free gifts or convenient things for them to acknowledge, but when you really need them, I'm just hearing fucking crickets.

Luckily I have at least one person who's always there, although she's not the most gentle at times.  Maybe I'm just too weak-natured, but sometimes when I want to fall like a feather, she hands me an anvil.  I guess life hands us what we need, sometimes, rather than just what we think is best.  I don't know if it's as simple as 'move past it'... maybe it is.  Maybe I can just walk away from all of that, jump in to the ether, trust something higher than me.

I'll marry her, if she'll have me.  She says she will.  Will I remain qualified for the job?  I don't know, but frankly, it's the best thing I have to fight for... a united family once more.  Then I can find a new support circle to encompass that, one that is really there, not just in words (or lack thereof).

So what?

Even I am mystified by this notion of “rewiring.”  What exactly does it mean?  Is it enough that the notion stirs up energy within me toward change?  Of course that’s enough, yet here I am trying to define it for… who?  You?  Me?

There’s the conscious, immediate self that operates on tangible ideas, and requires definitions that are understandable in a layman’s fashion.  The higher self says “Be better” and that’s generally enough for it.  The immediate, lower self – the one trapped in this body, in this community, in this paradigm of compromise (the collective set of rules we call society) – needs a clearer pathway to follow than just simply “be better”.  And it’s the lower self typing this entry right now.

So here I am, still trying to really understand this idea of rewiring myself.  Operating from a new engine in the same old physical shell.  Understanding that the physical shell, over the course of time, manifests as one’s interior psychology wills it to, I know I can’t operate from a body-determines-fate aspect.  (Fate, itself, is a false idea)  I will manifest in the physical plane what I have sown in the internal plane.  Not to say I can’t take steps to improve the body’s functioning through very tangible, physical steps; but these actions aren’t going to occur without nudging the internal processor.  In a more “layman” definition, I have exercised my body but mainly in pursuit of some notion of physical beauty; health was hardly a consideration, regardless of what I expressed to anyone who would ask.  One wire that needs relocation will remove the vanity from exercise and replace it with self-love.

Self-love and vanity are NOT the same.  One is genuine care for the self; the other is overt concern for what others think of the self.

I am then reminded that, in the past few days, I am becoming more and more conscious of my vanity in other aspects as well.  My shuttering of Facebook, once more, is my direct response to this pitiful need for attention.  Look at my pics!   Like them!  Like my status!  See me, please!

I have been, for a long time, swimming through a sea of loneliness.  It is, ironically, my main companion.  Certainly, I have my children on weekends and, while I enjoy their company, I am cognizant that my job is to teach them to feel comfortable in their own shoes.  But this loneliness, this pervasive and vague sense of insignificance, has become all too plain to me in recent days.  Part of what I did to initiate this “rewiring” is to detach myself in a very large degree from any of the tenuous connections I had.  Not permanently, necessarily.  But I realize that many of the connections I had nurtured were designed to distract me from the issues I didn’t want to face.  And, bless all, it becomes clear over time that people want you to remain as you are for a couple reasons… one, they’d be less comfortable if you were less familiar to them (even if a change would save you); and two, they want to save you from the “inevitable” disappointment you’re “probably” going to experience when you endeavor to make changes.

So I posted on my FB one day that, aside from my children, I was pretty well disappointed in every aspect of my life.  I wasn’t interested in perpetuating that.  For good or bad, things needed to change because it simply was not a life I wanted as it was.  I expect most people missed the posting, and so nearly a month after I disappeared from the scene, there is little concern (or even notice!) that I’m incognito.  (My vanity, on occasion, huffs at this disconcern, but it’s a silly beast and should be ignored.)  A small number checked on me in the first few days, and I reassured them all was well, but that I simply had to disconnect from the flurry of platitudes, repetition, and nonsense that typifies response to one’s displeasure.  In other words, the mind that got you where you are is not the one that will get you where you want to be.  I was very much dismayed by the amount of repetition and the lack of tangible progress I was feeling in my life, and how I had repressed my higher voice to simply try to make friends (as insincere as they were) and to ignore the difficult problems I needed to tackle to move forward.  (‘Facing these problems’ held within it the distinct possibility of uncertain outcomes, and that fear of change is palpable.)

I am becoming more conscious lately that I am uncertain what will fill my time once the children grow up and move out on their own.  When they’re not here, I don’t seem to occupy my time in any meaningful fashion.  When they are here, I don’t do much more – but I don’t feel as alone.  I do my best to be an example of patience for them.  Logic.  Peaceful reaction.  But eventually they will go their way, which I am grateful for (as they can ask their own questions of the universe) and frightful of (both for their dangers and my own perceived purposelessness afterward.)  Realizing this, of course, my mind set about pondering the question of “what comes next?”  While a parent usually remains relevant long after the kids leave the nest, it would be of no service to the world (nor to them) for me to simply sit around, aging and waiting for them to need advice.  Especially someone with an Icarus spirit.

Realizing all of this… the only thing that could logically happen was that I needed to unplug from old ideas, from repetitive and well-intentioned advice, and to quit feeding my ego with the ultimately uninspired applause of others.  Nothing is gained from this false-idol-mindset other than to distract oneself.  And that had to stop.  I had to look at myself clearly.  I had to stop listening to the detached voices of others and take off my rose-tinted glasses for a good long look in the mirror. 

No judging the past self.  And especially, no writing the negative endings, since there is no certainty as to what lies ahead.  One can only control reaction and perception.  I am more consciously than ever removing “I can’t” from my vocabulary.  I am more easily adamant about allowing myself to make mistakes and not battle to cover them up (a flaw of ego).  I am tuning out of the negative media, repressing my old, habitual desire to show off my half-baked creative efforts.  I am trying to understand my overt sexualization of situations and people.  I am turning back to long-ignored ideas in the divinity of the individual, something heavily repressed by this material-focused society we’ve created, where money and ego supersede our sense of community.  I grow weary of average intellects (the ones that are content having the same dreary conversations about the weather every day) and I’m unimpressed by the anti-intellectual movement in this country.  I do not feel superior to others yet understand fully I have nurtured my intellect in a more active way than many.  The problem I have had – and one infinitely more valuable than intellect – is my emotional intelligence (or sore lack thereof).

What will fix this is to force myself to disconnect from the need for acceptance (in the form of ‘likes’ and ‘+1’ and whatever other commentary people offer on one’s expressions).  I also have to remove limiting vocabulary and cliches from my self-talk.  I have to disconnect meaning from the “approval of others” which I so cherish, regardless of what I’ve expressed out loud.  In other words, accept my divinity, remember it regardless of the opinions of others, and use it for better purposes than just to criticize.  While I have no desire to be a leader, there is truth in the idea that leaders don’t seek to create followers – they seek to create other leaders.

All of this typing, yet so little said.  For any who read this, to whom I have significance in your life, understand I detach not to push away but to teach myself how to let you in.  I hope you’re there when I have healed.  Whatever the case, I thank you.

Rewiring, huh?  Note to self: don’t hate the previous design, and don’t fear the new iteration.

Not a new pic, but recent.  A reminder that there's an infinitely gigantic world to a countless number of creatures, and they don't pay attention to Wall Street.

Rewire

Mosquitoes make it difficult to meditate near the lake.  Certainly I could sit in the car with windows up, but then there's hardly a reason to do this at the lake.  Might as well sit at home.  And that's what I need to avoid at present.

The reality is, the more I realize my discontent, the less home feels like home.  Inevitably this leads to the question (tired, but appropriate) "what is home?"  It's rhetorical at best, since the literal answer tells nothing.  It's the symbolic meaning we're after.  Sometimes it's the meadows of Nebraska, the arms of a lover, the coffee shop of Main Street.  There are no more mom & pop shops, so it can't be there.  Sometimes home is on the road, a contradiction I find all too true for myself.

Whatever the case, this town is not home for me.  It represents a poor decision - the result of a get-up - and - go idea that floundered very quickly.  A year spent planning a move that would improve my fortunes (and it was not money that drove me so much as the hope to create more opportunities for myself and the kids).  Yet I arrived and found myself in the same situations, only making less money, less free time, fewer friends.  All in all, a complete failure when based on intention.

While I keep playing this sad song, I haven't penned a better tune.  My idea that relocating to the Valley will open more opportunities is not much different than the ill-tides that brought me here.  A blender doesn't become a microwave by moving it to a different counter.   Only disassembly, melt-down, remolding, and reconstruction will do the job.

As a person, obviously, this is not possible.  So I've got to rewire the device as it stands.

Glorious disembodiment

I've taken on a very esoteric task -- rewiring the brain.  Not in some tiny fashion either.  Big swaths of wire snipped and rerouted.  Step one was to disconnect from virtually all my "social networks".  They're a distraction.  This blog is more meaningful to me, unclogged as it is by dumb memes, banal corn, uncreative intellects... not to call myself superior by any means... it is just nice to limit the content exposure.  Rewiring requires that I pay attention to myself a little closer... and a few select beings that aren't trapped in disempowering patterns.  I spend too much time playing a role for others, being distracted by vanity, rather than embracing my higher source. 

I don't know where the path leads... I just know it feels different.  And that I am excited by the prospect of embracing my particular nature rather than compromising to soothe the sensibilities of the uncreative.

Redefinition (a 'finite game' post)

Though I am forced by finances to up my lease for another 6 months, I am convinced at the end of this period that I'm going to have to relocate once more.  It is tempting to keep following the small town dream, though this has brought with it the difficulties of limited budget.  So far, whatever talents I have have not manifested in a heightened financial stability...yet.  For a while I feel I have to chase the money.  In a way it doing this will also shake up my life, which may be what I need to get out of emotional/spiritual complacency.   This is likely to mean a return to the big city.  Phoenix area, which I'm not fond of but it's still within reach of the children.  Doing this of course means that I have a better plan in mind, and that I'm not just recreating the same life I have here down there.  Moving over the hill from Cottonwood into Prescott Valley, I intended to improve all the aspects of my life. However it turned out everything just got a little bit more difficult.  Same job, less pay, more days per week... Worse apartments, fewer friends... Bigger place but fewer opportunities.  So picking up and going I have to be very serious that I don't again end up in the same life with worse opportunities.  Of course the whole thing is that you have to be different internally.  Environment means little if you're not willing to change.  I feel like I want to change but don't know how.  It's fear, pure and simple.  But I can't imagine what to be afraid of... Maybe that I'll have to take responsibility.  But if you always live in fear, never risking anything,  what's the point of life at all?  As the saying goes, a ship can be safe, left in the harbor ...but that's not what ships are built for.  One is not a captain of their soul just walking the dock in the marina.  The next big questions are what am I, and what can I do?  I don't think the answers are here, in my familiar routine, anymore.

Compromise or whatever

Me, at the moment, in the spirit.

...hiding in plain sight...

...drawing my pattern however the hell I want.

No competition.  No need to justify or even explain.  No apology.

Identity is what you do, not what you "are"

I am always disheartened when I hear people say things like "I am depressed" or "I am claustrophobic" or whatever.

"I am" is a deceptively powerful thing.  It's the name of the almighty in the Torah, if you want a religious foundation; psychologically, one creates identity with the words "I am".  So whether you believe that you are an extension/expression of Source (God, spirit, Yahweh, Allah, whatever) or simply a chemical stew held together by electrical impulses - pluses, minuses, etc. - whatever you focus on, you become.  Even quantum theory understands this - the act of observation changes the observed.

So someone who says "I am depressed" will never be anything else.  Someone who says "I feel depressed" has not identified themselves as walking depression, but rather someone currently experiencing depression.  Big difference.  (That same person could choose to keep themselves busy as well, since to be "depressed" is to lack motion.)  To someone who "is claustrophobic", they are, in fact, merely thinking claustrophobic thoughts - but they've created an identity around it.  Nobody *is* claustrophobic, really.  There are just some that process confined spaces as a problem.

While the commonplace mind may dismiss this as semantics, there is no question that mood affects chemistry, and identity (or perception of such) affects mood.  A stressful mindset creates acid in the system, which does not magically disappear when you suddenly feel better.  That chemical residue still resides in the system, still metabolizes into the body, still accumulates.  To detox, one must do so emotionally as well.  The process of fixing the body after a lifetime of toxic mindsets and misguided notions of "identity" can be a long one.  But it has to begin with "I am".

I am health.  I am love.  I am peace.

What you think I am is your business, not mine.

The me you don’t know and the me you don’t know that I don’t know and the knowing of me I didn’t tell you and the you that I told me about but you never revealed

My own thoughts on the overly simplified religious paradigm that most people follow is hardly of interest to them, or anyone.  Religious notions become identity, and once identity is established, people become very hostile to anything that may change/evolve it.
Nonetheless, if there is someone reading who holds on to this view that the universe is good vs. evil – God vs. Satan, for example – then here’s something to consider, which may untie you from the idea of a cosmic vending machine, operating on prayer coins, that may/may not dispense what you ask of it, depending on the will of the machine (to widely paraphrase something Wayne Dyer said).  I look at the whole thing as being within each “individual” (I put that in quotes as I know we’re all part of one reality) – that is, the higher self is God, the ego (lower self) is Satan.  The higher self is always operating on the notion of what is beneficial for all, whereas Ego is concerned with image/acquisitions/rewards.
As it stands for most, the idea of “Good” is not really what serves the whole, but what benefits the particular clique of the interpreter.  In our society, Ego is not seen as “Evil” so much as an expression of individual importance.  “I’ll be my real self and fuck the rest!” as the oft-repeated mantra goes.  (I have always found this to be foolish, as adding the “fuck the rest” part still leaves someone else’s opinion involved, but I digress.)
I put it to the few (or the none, most likely) that read this that God is the higher self and Satan is the Ego.  This is less simple than Good vs. Evil, but ultimately it makes more sense.  I have never bought into the idea that we, as humans, are disconnected from the divine.  We don’t come from divinity to be disconnected for a while to see if we can become divine again.  And I certainly don’t buy into the idea that if you’re deemed to have failed, that you will be tossed into fire and brimstone for eternity.  That’s not what a loving God (whatever that means) would do with the misguided.  Nonetheless, the fact that some people want to keep it that simplified is one of many reasons I leave the interpretation and understanding of the divine to the individual (again, the term ‘individual’ meaning the consciousness that still operates on Ego and considers itself separate from the whole.)   God is a oneness (all one) and Ego is a twoness (me vs you) so I'll never see me as separate from divinity (if I want to get anywhere, that is.)
Then again, this is probably wrong.  Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you read it, if you don’t tell anybody I used to believe something else.  Actually, tell them what you want.  I don't own anything except this moment.

Walking on non-potable water

Wary of strangers.  Walking the world in an aloof white noise.  Contemplating everything and nothing, which is what the Tao does.  It does nothing and leaves nothing undone.  I'm an extension of it as much as anyone and anything, just as much as I am not it and neither are you.

Self-invalidating validations are replete in eastern philosophy.  I am reminded also of the Native American proverb that no tree has branches so foolish as to fight amongst themselves.  So, while the purpose may be inexplicable or clear as day, it is all part of a perfect universe, no accidents.  Regardless of how our acquired biases interpret it for our brains.

I play the finite game, knowing it is designed to serve only this particular physical incarnation.  And yet, played well, it can inform the infinite.

No explanations are required, no justifications need be made, to anyone, ever.  If I do so it is because I feel as if it might serve the listener's higher awareness.  But there is no obligation for me to make sense or to follow society's expected or unwritten guidelines.

Ducking around

Another day, another walk around the lake.  Only birds out in the rain, save for a few dragonflies.  The day before, I'd also seen two javelina, discourteous enough to scurry away before I could ready the camera.  But I digress: here are some highlights of the day's SLR exercise.


This crow was the only one of the three that didn't bolt at my approach, leaving him confusedly squawking for his pals.

In the same vein, this duck approached while all others in the group left.  She followed me along for a while...

...and eventually settled at the shore to preen herself.

This lovely blue heron, all by its lonesome, would only allow me so close before taking flight to the opposite end of the lake.  As I made my way that direction, it then sauntered back (by foot) to this spot.  And as I returned again, it flew back.  Sort of a fun little chess game we played.  Until I can fly, it's a stalemate. 

Ducks and heron = harmony.  Ah, to be a duck.

Transitioning questions

It's dangerous to declare anything about the infinite to be definite, so whenever I proclaim any truth, I leave upon it an asterisk that says "this is subject to the fact that my thought process, at present, is a fixed point and therefore this idea, like all ideas in a quantum reality, is entirely a matter of current perspective".

With that in mind, the fixed idea in mind is that my typical thought processes, as Einstein pointed out, are not what will get me to the next level.  I have a tendency to think in unproductive ways.  Now, I am not suggesting every action must be productive - at least not in this western value-oriented sense.  I do believe the repetition of ideas in a veritable Catch-22 will not allow in the infinite.

How to balance this production-oriented thinking with a universe that is exactly as it is supposed to be?  There are no accidents here, no mistakes, only results and interpretations.  Would you take the amateur or the professional mindset?  A professional has narrowed down his/her method to a few options, whereas the amateur is open to all.  There is value in this perspective as well.  In many ways it is preferable to remain hungry, to maintain that desperate vitality.  But one must not make the mistake of imagining a duck with dreams of being an eagle; only humans presume/preach this sort of symbolic transformation.  A duck is just going to be the best duck it can, and that is its highest purpose.  An eagle is not a state of being a duck even imagines.  Humans think they're just not reaching high enough.

The lilies, as they say, toil not, nor do they spin.  Lilies lily, trees tree, and the earth peoples (among infinite other things).  Consciousness is a state of becoming conscious.  Typing these thoughts is superfluous; I have no followers to change, no attachment to what transforms, no reason to believe I'm right (and no need to be).  Going with the flow doesn't mean a loss of control, just a surrendering.  The system continues regardless of my ability to argue.  I can dream of being an eagle all day, and whether or not I become one is not of consequence.  The same life flows through duck and eagle, mongoose and stoat, blossom and snail, oxygen and Volkswagen, perceptions of gods and acceptance of self as god.  I don't live in fear of the universe that arranged my cells, that designed my consciousness, that breathed desire for burgeoning within me (and by me, I mean this extension of all - nothing is unrelated).  I know and accept islands don't exist, that ducks don't dream for themselves as I might, and that there is any sense in establishing oneself as independent when such a thing only exists in language, not the larger universe.

I accept, as well, that an infinite discourse on these ideas is limited by language.  It is a simplification of infinity and it cannot represent the larger truth in anything but a rudimentary way.  So, if indeed I hoped to say something here, I know I said little.  A fragment, the smallest of the small.  But what's behind it... 

Reconnecting

Nature has a remarkable way of reminding one that there is so much more than 

our dumb human problems.

This is one of those faux lakes, but the flora and fauna don't care.  Some of them even seemed to think I was in their way.  But I made no effort to frighten or dominate them.  I just opted to join in.

 

Some even said hello.

It's worth constant reminder - we're not here alone.

An Art Subjective

When in Paris - 2/7/13 - I was struck by this scene just outside the Louvre.  Here was this street artist, with barely any coins in his cup, while people shelled out large amounts of Euros to go in to the museum.  There's something to be said for having a well-traveled name and four centuries for people to bandy it about.

The outdoor scene in Europe is much more dynamic than anything here, at least in my experience.  I certainly miss it.

Verging virgin

I don't know if there's a meaning to the word "verging" or if it even exists outside of this post.  I am going to pirate and refashion it, if it does exist elsewhere, to mean that point at which one knows a monumental shift in either altitude or attitude is about to happen, and one is actively prepared for it.  I am on the verge, and ready for it - I am actively verging.

Of course, I am a virgin to verging, so I cannot say with anything more than an educated speculation as to what exactly transpires at that moment of alteration.  Anyone who considers the actual nature of "change" understands that change happens in instants.  One can neurotically push forward an inevitable transformation for years, calling it "preparation", but change happens immediately when one frame of thought gives way to another permanently.  That quantum shift is beyond the "verge", it's the breakthrough.

The verge, in many ways, is that neurotic push-forward of the moment of change.  When one says "I am on the verge of a change," what they're essentially saying is "I know the right choice, I'm just psyching myself up for it."

They have the two-ness happening within - those odd times when they say things like "I am such an idiot."  First off, if in fact you were an idiot, chances are you don't know it.  So, if that is true, then there are two of you - the one who recognizes the idiot, and the idiot.  Now, most people will operate from idiot level, all the while conceding to the non-idiot's periodic observations of how it "can't believe [you] did that" or "[you] know better than that!" and so on.

The real question then - if we're composed of two - a higher self and an idiot - why do so many choose to remain at this idiot level?  Why not be the higher self?  The practice of doing so is referred elsewhere as "cultivating the witness" - essentially, standing 10 feet behind yourself and just witnessing, non-judgmentally, who you are and how you react to the conditions around you.  The higher self does not mock or punish its idiot counterpart, it merely observes and takes notes.  And as it does, over time, the idiot starts to transform into something else.

The idiot, therefore, is the essence of someone who is "verging".  The higher self watching the idiot without judgment is not verging; it is a higher self because it already knows better, and is readily able to recognize the idiot's poor choices.  The idiot strives for the moment of change, then pushes it further ahead to linger in a kind of purgatory a while longer.  The higher self watches and waits for the idiot to realize forward is inward.

So, it turns out I'm not a verging virgin, but am in fact well-versed in it.  That quantum moment of change is very clear, and it is not outside of me at all.  The door to enlightenment opens inward, and it leads to everything outside.

Of course, there are limits

I grow weary sometimes of being an island.

Not that I really am one, mind you.  But if I were (and I am) I would feel the need to do more than meditate here, alone, idle as the flow of life around shapes and erodes my form.

I have in many ways designed a life of aloneness.  Coupled with the "empty nest" that is inevitable, as I watch my kids do exactly what I have raised them to do - learn to be (more sensible) islands of their own, I am left to wonder where my place will be when they are completely up and out of the home.  One can be an island so long they forget how to be part of the continent.

Then again, a duck doesn't dream of being an eagle, no matter how much our egalitarian mindset may imagine it would.  A duck is content as a duck.  The French don't have the American Dream, but the French Dream.  Why do I even contemplate status at all?  Isn't there more to do than find new ways to be unsatisfied?

Of course.  One of the greatest "do-ings" is "be-ing" and unapologetically appreciating the sense of this very moment.  That's all there ever is.  Nothing manifests from discontent aside from more discontent.  I find myself living many recent moments in the past (it was Verona yesterday) and must not forget to be grateful for this moment as well.  Alan Watts said the past is a direct result of what you do today.  Best make it worth spending present moments on.  Looking back on negatives, rehashing them, remembering them - that is what made me an island.  And while I do not wish to remove my sanctuary entirely, I certainly see little advantage to nesting here as frequently as I do.

Dance like everyone’s looking

While in Verona, Italy last year, we stumbled upon (if such a thing is possible) a very good older band playing all kinds of Sinatra, Martin, and others.  Everyone was having a good time, and even a curmudgeon such as myself was smiling and tapping along.

These three girls were dancing along to the delight of all adults there.  It started with the girl in pink, whose energy was infectious enough to inspire the other two – and then several adults – to dance whether or not anyone was looking. 

I got lost in a romantic notion of a place where people really enjoy themselves without their vanity suppressing them.  I knew I could love living in a place like this.

Earlier we had seen a peaceful comingling of bird and human (prompted by bread crumbs, natch) and the lovelocks at the little courtyard which brings in the wall-to-wall crowds for the fictional Juliet’s balcony.

 

On the way in, a wall has been set aside for the pens of hopeless/hopeful romantics.

But it was watching those carefree kids that became one of those quantum moments, where you know you’re never quite the same person from there on.

Thoughts or something similar

If I were a writer, oh what would I write?  I suspect it would be epic when it formed in my soul, truncated considerably as it resolved to words, and utterly pedestrian when it made it to the screen.  But let’s see if I could give it a try.

I start with a cow.  A purple cow, not unlike that old song, save that this cow has both eyes, both horns, and does not fly.  Does it eat people?  Not so far.  Can’t promise that won’t happen.  If it happens to you, then you will die with the satisfying knowledge that you are the first known human consumed by a cow.  A purple one.  Purple, like the robes of a Disney movie monarch.  This cow is no king, however.  She hasn’t the requisite body extensions to fall into that sex classification, though she could certainly be “genderfied” in any direction her patrons/matrons choose to direct her.

Does she have free will?  Is a cow intellectual enough to care?  And who first presumed that intellectualism was somehow a prerequisite for free will?  Plenty of the intellectually challenged have free will, they just don’t know how to utilize it.  Or if they do, they don’t know when to do so.

The animals of the world, minus us humans, don’t intellectualize death.  They aren’t sitting on the plains or the meadows or up in the trees feeling sorry for themselves because they’re aging.  A zebra with hindquarters half-ripped from hip bone still feeds with the others of the herd.  It doesn’t require ten years of therapy to understand why the lion attempted to eat it, or to come to terms with the fact that its mother didn’t explicitly explain that this could happen, or prozac to deal with the reality that its leg will never look/work the same.  The zebra doesn’t reach middle age and suddenly realize it had an awful cubhood. 

We, the intellectuals, are the ones that do that.  And usually not in the interest of getting better – but simply to have someone to blame for the fact we just don’t take the reins of our own lives.  So why am I contemplating the purple cow?  Because I’m attempting to untangle the neurons in this soupy gray mass that operates my fingers, beats my heart, forms specious arguments that come back to haunt me when I’m feeling smug.  I use the cow to grab at all the threads, pull them to center, introduce them to one another, then cold-cock the sonofabitch that let them get so messy to begin with.  The cow is an anomaly, and therefore so off-putting that I stand back and let it go crazy, feng shuing my cobwebs, replacing the insufferably loud voice of late that tells me I am going ever so mad.  But hey, at least I recognize a purple cow is not at all a normal cow.

And now it’s tap-dancing in my mind.  Tap dancing purple cow, which may or may not eat a human in the future (and lucky you if it picks your tender flesh – you’ll be in the news!) and swings on my gray matter neurons like a trapeze artist in a vintage photograph.  Now the cow has a handlebar mustache, which should certainly surprise the next bull that sees her from the front.

Is this how it looks when the mind untangles?  Somebody take a selfie in front of me.

Psychosomatic psychosis

There’s something to be said for neurosis.  Well, there probably is.  I think I’ve discovered the way to get the most tedious of tasks done here at home: make time to do some writing.  Once I have the time and opportunity to sit and write… I find that energy to do the dishes, clean the tub, arrange the boxes in the closet… etc.  If none of these things need doing, then my body simply becomes so fatigued I have to lay down. 

How does someone get a fear of the keyboard?  Where does it come from?  Perhaps I’ve associated writing with “The Noise,” a project from my past that I associate with negative feelings now.  All of my writing endeavors, for years, were devoted to this publication.

So am I so simplistic a creature that I would disassociate myself from writing for such a silly reason?  Does writing only emerge from me in return for a financial reward?

I feel, even now as I type this, that my author voice is stunted and I dislike the prose I’m laying down here.

But with it all laid bare above, it’s very silly to continue being inhibited for these reasons.  I read them and know they’re silly.  Expression is essential, dishonest if prompted by the potential of money alone.  The cacophony of voices on the internet might not be begging for another contribution… but if I were meant to be silent, my fingers would be up my nose and not tapping at the keyboard.

Drove a bit

Circled through Sedona, Flagstaff, Route 66 to Williams and Ash Fork, then back to Prescott.  Aside from fuel, total cost $11.  With the saved cash, I could get a better cell phone cam.