Type. Type.
Type.
Where
does it go?
Depends,
I suppose, on how many shots you’ve had.
Often I do this with none. Today,
nine…thus far. Switching between green
and clear, French and Greek, absinthe and ouzo.
Taking the brain out of its vanilla state into something more… flavorful. Probably the first time I have ever deigned
to that word in my writing, but it seems apropos.
I just
put Alan Watts on as I type. A curious
long-snuffed voice. I suspect I listen
closer because of his accent. Sounds smarter
than me. And, admittedly, that he has
read and pontificated far more than me.
But that’s as may be: I have time to catch up. Will I?
One can read and ponder to a phenomenal degree and manage to achieve
little (or even NO) spiritual growth.
I can’t
help but accept the cliché that, as one ages, the days seem to pass
quicker. As we know, the body refuses to
last forever (and that is a good thing), so as the end times – in our own case –
approach, there is a strange and ever-growing need to feel one’s product is
greater than one’s consumption. We can
take and take for the course of life and give little back, if in fact we have
no higher calling. Many people do. But I find myself growing more and more
compelled to DO something. And by “do
something” I mean leave a positive and measurable impact on the world before
this tragic body decomposes and reconfigures into flowers (a much more useful
form).
Another
shot? Yes. Hang on a moment.
Back
now.
One
could succumb to existential crisis if they fixate on the biological reality of
the human form… a strange community of trillions of organisms that, at some
point, is going to disband, disperse, and transform into other flora and fauna
that has no recollection of its previous collaborations. What Edgar Allan Poe was is now a bird in Japan,
a flower in Iowa, a mealworm in Sorrento, and a skin fleck leaping off the eye
of a Sherpa in Nepal. Among other
things, of course. Maybe even a part of
your eyelid, or your toenail. The same
dispersal of your body is coming up, no matter how much gold or prayers or
defiance you throw at it.
So,
then, the question of what one’s purpose in this form serves is a curious
one. Need we answer it? Since you know that this form disperses in
such a way, do you cease to exist? No,
by some curious plan of the infinite, you continue in this form. At least an aspect of you does.
“I’m
such an idiot,” we all have said at some point and in some way.
Who
said it?
Clearly,
someone capable of witnessing this figure and understanding their status of “idiot”
and commenting upon it.
Obviously,
it is not the idiot that recognizes the idiot, regardless of any clichés that
would say otherwise. The idiot, if it were
indeed the one talking, would just see its kin and considers it a genius.
No, there’s
a second consciousness there – a genius – who is capable of noticing the idiot
and commenting upon it as such. And yet,
giving the opportunity to work from the consciousness of genius, we continue to
take residence in the chair of the idiot, while being convinced we are captain.
What’s
the solution?
To whatever
degree possible, one must do what they call “cultivating the witness”. Find yourself observing your life from that
captain’s seat, rather than wearing the idiot hat. Witnessing yourself as a being experiencing
this thing called life. Judgment free.
For me,
perhaps, I would watch the fat person trying to disappear into the crowd. Being unseen.
Being a part of the world while drawing no attention. By writing this paragraph I have done so.
My
definition of ugly isn’t a spiritual one.
Body is a container. Put a
diamond in a plastic bag or a velvet box, it’s still a diamond. Same with a sandstone. The sandstone doesn’t have any dreams of
being a diamond, nor does a duck wish to be an eagle. Someone outside of each may desire to see the
one form transform into the other, but only if the diamond, the sandstone, the duck,
or the eagle believes there’s some more preferable existence does there exist
an idiot.
The
idiot may exist, in fact, as a catalyst for others, which makes the idiot divine
by its existence.
What
does this have to do with the body?
In my narrow-minded
approach to the question, I have marked myself as the idiot.
Whether
my consciousness arrives at the captain’s chair level or not, the body will
pass. The only question there is – how do
I extend its presence? Do I need it at
all, or does consciousness transcend the body – and if so, what exactly is the
purpose of this human experience? Do
slugs ask themselves this question? Does
a dog care? What is the purpose of a
psychopath? Do we propagate the species
as a way to continue the question?
For
some, religion is a blanket definition for these questions. For some, all that they’re given is the
capacity to question. For some, the
material is the highest aspiration. At
the end of the day, questions lead to questions because, to our great dismay,
one recognition leads to a billion more.
In an infinite
universe, there’s no reasonable point at which to rest. Depression is just being tired.
