The wilderness of her heart was beckoning once again...
She stood up suddenly from the little table, scattered pages rustling in her wake as she moved swiftly toward the door. Opening it, she looked outside and tasted the air. It was fresh with the smell of wet earth. A wind blew down from the mountains and caught the loose strands of hair that fell around her temples. A chill ran through her. She stuck out her arms as if to catch the invigorating rush of the wind in a delicate, hidden embrace.
Her eyes closed as her other senses were overwhelmed in a moment of sheer pleasure. Silent wishes escaped through the subtle rise and fall of her chest. She stood alone in the doorway. Alone but happy. Alone but fulfilled, if only for a few moments.
A clipped sound of metal. Scuffling feet across gravel alerted her to the encroaching procession of a stranger. Her breath stopped, and her face fell down as she backed away and pushed the door gently closed.
She stood alone, breathless, by the door for a few moments longer before slowly turning herself back to the table. A small glowing screen and her papers, still rustling, awaited her.
With a trembling sigh, she resigned herself to her fate.
So interesting how often we deny the drives that rule over everything we do. How often we look for ways to escape the ever-looming truths that frame every fantasy and every deed...
And how we then deny our denial by fabricating even more layers of fantasy and meaningless actions. A distraction from our distractions, so to say. But surely, there is some level of truth that we simply cannot know...?
And so perhaps the biggest mistake of all is to deny everything because we cannot know for sure.
Why must we know for sure what is true and what is not?
Moments so immersive it feels like ill lose it all in an endless sea of intellectualism and philosophical exploration....
The pounding sound of death leaves me feeling so short of breath, like I'm drifting away unwillingly across the dark puddle of my mortality as my mind enters realms I was never meant to find...
To feel so awake and raw, so alive and yet acknowledging the rotting meat and blood and sinew shrieking and squelching in between soul and world.
I am a fire at my core, burning brightly.
The sun heats me; and I soak it in like
A hearty flower
dipped in a river of diamonds
I take this fire and I share it in small ways
Flaming tendrils lapping against faces
Embracing mountains and infants
Snaking into the dark nooks and crannies
Far below the shaley topsoil of my consciousness.
Dearest Lord, Creator, Father. My beloved... Jesus, my Savior. It is Your Glory shining down upon me that allows even the very sensation of Goodness and Joy to be experienced. Without Your Infinite, beautiful design nothing would exist, not even the merest whim or speck of dust. No souls, no time, no earth, air; no galaxies or black holes, concepts or impulses, connections, or species.
Any perception given to me is only possible through You, for You are responsible for the existence of eery thought and feeling I have ever had.
Everything I have or think i have, and everything anyone else has or thinks they have, is really Yours. To deny this is to claim ownership of something that was never something that could ever be owned. How can a tiny glimmer of light crafted so meticulously by a force so beyond powerful ever hope to claim anything? How can it do anything but what it was designed to do?
Lord let me live as You have designed me to live, not as a deviant but so consumed with the fire of Your Perfection that I cannot do anything aside from that which aligns itself with Your Glory. It is not simply love, it is Your Perfect Love that renews and restores us, purifies us from the cancerous darkness that separates a sinful creature from the Light.
Is it possible to ever completely change your main mode of being? Of perceiving the world?
Am I just like a leaf floating in the air, pulled in every direction depending on the way the wind blows, the possible brushing up against the legs of someone else more present in the moment?
I wake up momentarily, when I'm alone, I make a decision, and then BAM the very INSTANT I encounter another person it is like my own conscious thoughts are obliterated and I'm tuned into their current state of being... like an inescapable, magnetic force has instantaneously redirected every cell in my body to the Other.
And I cease to exist.
And then they leave, and I feel myself steeped in the Other, their being slowly drawn down out of me, seeping away..... until I am once again able to think and feel freely for myself. That recovery time can last a loong time depending on the intensity of the Other, or the sheer quantity and diversity of the Other.
Very hard to focus on personal development and life goals with this issue....
Is it true that most comedians are secretly neurotic and depressed?
Amusement is like a hardness of heart beyond the norm.
"Take a minute right now to review the past 24 hours. During how many moments were you truly content, appreciating the moment-to-moment unfolding of your life? For most of us these moments are the exceptions -- they stand out in our memory. The rest of the time we're restlessly pursuing some goal or another, trying with limited success to maximize pleasure and minimize pain or discomfort. "
"As though this weren't enough...there is yet another mechanism that...adds to our troubles: our predisposition to love. These emotions bind us together in couples, families, tribes, and larger cultural groups. They enable us to nurture and protect one another...
But these emotions also set us up for a host of painful experiences. On top of thinking constantly about seeking pleasure and avoiding pain for ourselves, we have the opportunity to worry about the well-being of our loved ones.....In general, the more we're able to love, the more everyone's pleasure and pain become our own. While this capacity for attachment and empathy is a wonderful part of being human, it makes the project of trying to hold on to pleasure and avoid pain even more impossible. "
"Since we tend to remember painful experiences [better than pleasurable], we also tend to anticipate them [more] in the future. Each unpleasant memory, worried thought, and pessimistic conclusion is associated with a bit of emotional hurt -- even when nothing is actually going wrong. So as long as we're living in our heads, lost in narratives about the past and the future, we're going to experience a lot of pain."
"Ironically, many of us put icing on the cake of our suffering with a uniquely human addition -- concluding that our dissatsfaction is or own fault. Living in a more or less free-market economy exacerbates this. The way I can motivate you to buy my goods or services is by suggesting that they will bring you more pleasure and less pain. Enterepreneurs and marketers are smart == they know that this is what makes us tick. When we see the happy couple in their new convertible, or the sexy surger with his beautiful babe holding a beer, we draw the conclusion that we wold feel great if only we had that car or brew. Besides creating a remarkable amount of wasterful, environmentally destructivr consumer spending, such marketing contributes to our personal suffering. Grouing up with our minds marianted in these messages, most of us come to believe that if we're not happy, either we must have made bad decisions or there is something fundamentally wrong with us. 'If only i had chosen the right career, spiuse, diet, plastic surgery, shampoo, or jeans -- then I'd be happy. Why do I keep getting it wrong?'
"We're left blaming ourselves rather than noticing that most human suffering derives from our history, biological makeup, and existential predicament. By not noticing that suffering stems from universal habits of mind rather than our personal failings, we compound our difficulty. "
And there it is again, that old reliable surge of feeling spreading out from nowhere, from my chest, emanating like a true mystery from nothingness and everything.
It would be so lovely to know just for a moment that others have this presence too.
For crying out loud, how much do we all feel this and have no understanding that others feel it too? Please, someone tell me I'm not exaggerating when I imagine that we are all banging our heads up against the same dense, immovable surface attempting to see the things we cannot ever see, to know the things we can never know....
Is this just some useless quest? Is it meaningless?
Dangit.
So tired of these ruminations. Rumination is indeed perhaps the most fitting word to use. Every definition fits.
If people are like different cells in a body, why did I have to be this particular cell? To suffer so needlessly on these thoughts, these feelings, when other cells are content without them?
No judgement here meant, just observation, only tempered a bit with some fleeting, awkward pretense of jealousy and despair. Underneath these thoughts I do not have any true discourse.
Why can't I just sit and be, fully? I must examine all of these thoughts and feeling so tirelessly and without ceasing... to the point of total excess. Even now these words are becoming more and more of an exercise in futility that I am becoming exasperated and bored as I type them.
Why am I still typing?
This is my life when I lose focus? Focus? Huh? What is there that is worth focusing on? Someone remind me before I lose the plot completely here...
Now you see, what you thought was yours could never be had
Take a look around, try to understand that
It's a game that you'll never hold onto very long, long
Where we are isn't just a place where everything remains....
Silhouettes driving down against the sunset, wind ruffling through salted hair. Eyes clear and still as pools of water, trickling joyful tears, a faded memory of smiles pushing back our cheeks once more. The sense of some beautiful eternity sweeping us off our feet, bringing us to a place of absolute peace and intensity. The genuine aliveness of this moment can never be replaced, and, fortunately, never lost.
This is better than a dream. This is better than those things considered external and temporal. Moments of absolute inspiration and awe, not possible solely from what surrounds us but dependent on the things that travel through us and stir within us. This is joy, this is peace, this is beauty.
Early on, there is so much to discover. So much to learn. So much to achieve! And its all so fresh and exciting, of course.
Go to school. Get good grades so you can get a job.
Get a job. Work hard so you can save up money. Have children. Start them on the same path.
But for what purpose?
These are the questions I imagine many people ask themselves every day. And more and more people are starting to perk up and escape this senseless drudgery, seeking something better. And so now, I look and see that the escape itself is meaningless and dreary.
So now where? What comes next after that? Once you discover your "true passion" or "how to make money and still enjoy your life" or [insert other self help guide catchphrase here] ?
There can only be one answer...
God.
Oh, I fervently hope and pray that I do not fail in this last endeavor.
Why does it offend me so much when I imagine how there are those in the world who demonize me? Who see me as a cancer they spent years trying to kill? Who have experienced me and later decided that I am one particular person, with nothing within myself, no growth ever possible? Nothing more than a series of eternally tainted, two dimensional images trapped forever in the annals of their long term memory...
Why does it offend me even more to know that I myself fall prey to this very same form of thinking about others?
I think I know why, at least in part...
I truly, truly, truly am repulsed by pain and distortion, because these two things are the true opposites of love and truth. And these are the things I have always wanted to share with everyone. These are the things that I have always identified with the most, even before I had an identity. And to think that I myself have been corrupted by the things I am so repulsed by.... to think that others must be corrupted by them, possibly because of me.... I feel so utterly irresponsible and despondent; acknowledging my inability to resolve these situations that have been left in a dark, useless corner to decay.
Because when it comes down it, I aspire to be something I cannot ever fully be, and there are moments in my life where I can shine and be a little closer to that something, and there are moments that I fall incredibly short of it. And there always will be, because I am a human being just like everyone else. I have never felt like I was perfect, but I will say this: I have never ever intentionally wanted to hurt anyone. And sometimes I forget that my actions and my words actually can do that to others. I have always viewed myself as something of little consequence or effect towards others, unless it were to be like a soft, warm blanket wrapped around their shoulders; a lithe and ethereal fairy flying about their bodies as they go out into the world and serve their purpose. So what damage could I possibly do? Interesting how sometimes we lock ourselves away in the same 2D images we tend to do to others... fixing everything that we do so that it is perceived as fitting within that self-depiction...
But I have done damage, because I am not those things. I am a human being just as complicated and forever changing as every other human being. And I do so wish that being a human did not include the pain and distortion that precedes maturity.
And so growing up, with no real perception of ourselves or others, we are like bumper cars at a carnival, careening back and forth, ramming into one another, enjoying the sensation at the same time that it jolts us into a shocking state of mind over and over again until we grow weary of it and someone rams us again and suddenly its not so enjoyable anymore... its no longer a game and they should know this! Why do they insist on hurting you so? Such an interesting, fleeting and yet never ending sense of injustice...
We are blind to the effects of our behavior on those around us, even as we think we know what we are communicating. And we are likewise incapable of interpreting the actions of others towards us in a truly objective way. Obviously...
And thus so many hearts are broken and trampled, but by what? Was it by another, or merely our own perception of the other? Our immediate, impulsive reactions to events that occur because of another's own immediate, impulsive reactions to some other event? This endless chain of misinterpreted overreaction and a corresponding trauma, feeling powerless, angry, abused...just an innocent victim of some external evil, because we all have this idea that we are always good, everything we do is always justified, therefore if there is ever conflict, the blame must lie on someone else...
But really aren't we all just victims of ourselves? Yikes, how cliche. But its true in this particular context. Our own distorted depictions of reality, passed on to us from however many generations of people in a constant state of reacting to someone or something else reacting to someone and something else............
I just wish I could take it all and crumple it up like a piece of paper, crush it until it is nothing more than a splayed out cross section of exponentially expanding atomic dust...
Coalescence is the key... and it just takes time, perhaps.
Like the ridges formed around a river, you can let them happen naturally over many years, or you can focus on them yourself and help to shape them consciously.
But enough with the metaphors for a moment.
I feel like I am able to pull back and watch things unfold sometimes. What I mean is, when something in myself changes, I can step out of it for a minute, and see myself as not myself. What is that called when you do that? I step out of stepping out and see that I'm like a baby watching a movie of another baby. A baby watching a baby watch a movie about a baby.
Ah, crud, back to metaphors. Oops.
Baby 1 reacts. Baby 2 explains the reaction. Baby 3 reflects on the explanation of the reaction.
Woah. Woah. Id. Ego. Superego. Haha!
Insane!
And of course, the Lord watches and knows all, within it all and without it all, unknowable to us...
I don't want to spend my whole life building up a legacy to leave behind.... I'm just happy with a simple life...
How does anyone know if anyone else is crazy? Where is the line drawn on that?
It feels like it relies heavily on cultural expectations.
But, trans-cultural expectations, thats a different story, of course. Dangit. Never did get back to that post... of most importance...
I build up these little walls of thought, of associations. Lots of soft, musty lining within them, all nice and noise dampening and potentially cancerous.
So fascinating to see it in someone else, but to know the connection is impossible...
A flash of consciousness conveyed via globules of meat and nerve endings.
Immediately bringing fear, revulsion, and distrust.
I felt anger the other day, for the first time in a very long time. It is easy to remember it because it was so unusual. Along with it came waves of guilt, shame, and self-disgust; emotions far more constant in my day to day operations. It was such a trivial thing to be angry about, and it didn't last long (not when it was punished so efficiently, of course). I am still weighing whether or not it is a good thing, or a bad thing, to feel that sort of anger. But at the very least, it is safe to say that some part (or parts) of me is (are) in major upheaval.
Me me me me me me me me me...............
Where else can I talk about myself so fully? Without worry of burdening others?
Maybe with a therapist. But even there, I can watch myself accommodate to their needs. It is almost as though I have no control over it. And the more I realize that, the more I try to control other aspects of my life in unhealthy ways. Oh, finally...perhaps... I have fully grasped the concept of projection. Ha.
To be so cognizant, yet so captured, all at once. It is perhaps my most despicable dilemma yet. Maddening, to be to the point.
It is no wonder so many people kill themselves, honestly (without God, of course). It gets old quickly. I cannot imagine being like this for 40 some odd more years. That sounds difficult.
How good is it to ALWAYS live in the present?
Does it ever reach a point where you are so conscious in the present moment that its actually more gut wrenching and maddening to NOT worry about the future?
There is a sudden, loud sound. A fair medium distance away from where I stand dithering in the kitchen. A clanging scrape; some loud object has fallen over against the wall... but what wall?
I wonder, was it coming from within or without?
I've paused, my dithering cut off with a sharp, pinching sensation in my chest, an awakening rush of adrenaline shoots up and around my skull, behind my eyes, into my guts.
And then I'm gone. A violent gurgling panic consumes my body as I feel my mental faculties fly away. Hold on, stay together. Don't panic. There's no real portention of danger...yet.
My terrified eyes flit to the mirror, catching a momentary glimpse, dark eyes and small, twisted face disappearing before they can be fully deciphered.
In this moment I can feel every shred of my existence. Every cell in me shrieking, dividing, dying and rejoining. Like fuzzy reception, I appear to flicker in and out, edges blurred into sharp lines, static.
My heart is the only thing I can feel, tightened and enlarged, beating frantically as it pushes itself upward towards my neck.
A thought, an image, pokes up from my subconscious. A dark brown shapeless mass, oozing and alive, creeping slowly around the corner...
Is this what it means to be truly conscious? Or is this what it is to lose reality? Whatever reality really is, of course.
I feel overwhelmed in this tense moment, all unfolding in a minute or less. The burden is too much, I want to let it go.
Don't go. DON'T GO.
Keep it together, keep it together. Get the pills. Don't look, don't focus on it, its not there, it's not there.
Keep going. Get your lunch. Sit down. Distract yourself and wait. It will pass.
It often appears that we are all far too eager to regain unconsciousness, perhaps because with consciousness comes realization of our deaths, our mortality, our future lack of existence as we know it. But at the same time, isn't unconsciousness the very thing we fear? How is it any different than death? We know nothing, we want for nothing. I suppose there is at least a dream going on while we blank out of our existence...
But still there remains the inescapable juxtaposition; death in life, or life in death. What a darling choice.
