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.