Some of the most beautiful things in life are total illusions. TV. Junk food. Music. Porn. The feeling in a fancy car. Money. Wealth. Even God.
I guess it’s no accident that I have been drawn to some or all of these things. They are beautiful. They certainly rival real things. Like family. Like babies. Like togetherness. Communication. Like cooking healthy, real food. Like family meals. Like gardening. Like exercise and sports.
You can grade the risks and benefits of anything you do on a fairly detailed scale. Titling a blog in a less obscure, more specific way, probably doesn’t rank extremely low on a bad to good scale. It’s not particularly self destructive.
I should respond to my life choices in relation to that scale. I should attempt not to get upset about something that isn’t absolutely perfect (double negative) as long as it’s fairly high up on the list. In other words, I can remain peaceful if something is only a little bit out of my zone of perfection. Funny I use a word like that. I didn’t even realize I think in those terms. At Eastman we were taught to be very wary of words like perfection. Maybe it has its role in the lexicon. Maybe I do have to be wary of overusing it, even unconsciously.
What happens when writing? What happens when talking? It’s different than thinking, isn’t it. Thinking is an enclosed space, very enclosed. In your noggin. Then when you open your mouth, it escapes. The space it escapes to may have some bearing on the reach it has and the effect it has on your experience and ingestion of the information.
And writing is also that way, it seems. Writing to an audience of zero affects me differently than this blog, for instance. Or writing an email to one person. And the person also matters – imagining the way they read/listen.
I was kind of holding my feelings and ideas in for a while, like a few weeks. Then I attempted to let it out verbally, to explain it in a way that makes sense. It wasn’t easy. And by letting it escape from my head, it lost some of its intimacy. It dissipated. Dispersed. I had to kind of start over with it, reunderstand it. It’s logical but odd. Counterintuitive.
Perfect. What if I felt perfect? No trouble. What if I enjoyed each moment. Just for its perfection? What if I enjoyed my perfect Cody? My perfect Khwan? And what about my perfect orchestra? I feel something, listening to Genesis, perhaps, or being hungry. Or a nice combination.
Or maybe something else. That I can’t put my finger on. But it’s important. I don’t want to forget. That’s why I got out of bed to write this. It’s the Buddhist middle way, middle path. Seemingly. In my satiation, I can’t forget my hunger, and in my hunger I can’t forget my fullness. One cannot preclude the other. The middle way allows for both ends. It’s walking the line. Just like I was telling Cody about yesterday, on our walk. After he sang the Johnny Cash song at school. I would walk the line for him. That’s what I’m doing, with my diet. It’s a Cody diet. I want to be around for him as long as possible. So I’ve pledged to diet for him, which for me is walking the line. A thin line. Perfect love.
It occurs to me that everything can be explained if I determine that it’s been all wrong since the outset. Some combination of who I am, how I was raised, where I was raised and the potential pitfalls of my species have collided to make this leech. This hollow vessel. This moral nonentity. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George realizes that all he has to do is the exact opposite of what he believes is right, and that will be what works.
I kind of have to do that. I think I have to make an attempt at starting over again from scratch. Really from the beginning. Not in fits and starts like I usually try to make changes. But wholesale. I really am topsy turvy. It’s all a mistake. From some rotten start. Maybe it was the incident in 1776 that did it. Maybe it was more recent. It seems there are enough good examples around me to give me some sense of what is really right or wrong.
It is that moral/personal compass thing again. Mine is broken. I don’t know how to make the right decisions. I follow others along their path, hoping that it’s a good one. Trying to sense their capacity for wisdom and joy. That would also explain my failed attempts at theism. It was an effort to find a guide. Too bad that it doesn’t take much effort for me to think my way out of that box. Box of nails.
Not having any clue seems to have its advantages. If I had a clue I could explain them. Maybe there’s an innocence, and openness. Maybe this condition finally explains my musical ability. There is much to draw from if you’ve been confused and suffering spiritually since your very early existence.
This also explains why I put only random titles on my blogs. I don’t actually understand what I am writing. The ruminations just pour out. It is cathartic. I don’t really know where it stems from, and I don’t know when I’ve completed my idea. I have minimal wherewithal. But I am a vessel for wisdom. Just as I am a vessel for musicianship.
Finding the space between the thoughts. This blog is that, it seems. Writing at leisure. Expressing at leisure. Sometimes I wish I could play the cello more that way. Playing on a blank slate. Not so much re-interpreting.
If there is that space between the thoughts, imagine if that space is expanded. Wider and wider. Until there is primarily space, with the occasional thought peppered in. Not vice versa.
Do we waste our mental space with these dualities? Bickering. Back and forth, like a tennis ball. Up, down, in, out. Right, wrong. It’s a game of unending circles. Hamster wheel. Rat race. Nothing accomplished. Wasting 90 point something percent of our lives.
I get so tired of my dual-ness. Always one thing or the other. Always vacillating. Loud:Soft. Isn’t it one of those things we learn as toddlers? Opposites. We are trained in opposites. Ugh. Such conditioning.
We can’t have a clear path to growth. Always bumping up against the wall of duality. I am of course grateful to Krishnamurti for enlightening me.
So it starts in childhood, this duality. But it doesn’t end. It goes on and on. It permeates everything. The trouble is, it’s not natural. Nature is not dual. Nature does not chop. Nature doesn’t need these words, for instance. These words are here to redefine the categories we impose on everything. I need these words to find my way through. What a bloody nightmare. It is a nightmare of our own making. Good and evil. Nature doesn’t need that.
When I watch At Close Range it gets me thinking about good and evil. I try to live my life with awareness of good and evil. I love both sides of myself. I hate having to pick sides. Pick a paint color for the bedroom wall. Pick a mattress type. Pick a school for Cody. Pick a religion to subscribe to.
The idea is that if I pick the wrong side, or attempt not to pick one at all, I am destined to bring evil into the world and into my life. If you’re not good, you’re evil. What other choice do you have? You have to pick a side, right? There have to be opposites, right? Republican and Democrat seems to be a common one these days.
One of the lovely outgrowths of duality is judgment. I can say that pretty much every single time I cast a judgment, great or small, I feel something dirty. I feel soiled inside. And the only way I can ever hope to relinquish that dirt is to cease seeing everything as chopped up into two parts. Judging is contagious, by the way. And attracting. You feel good if you see others doing it, since you’re doing it – it validates you. I can’t believe how deep it runs through our culture and our societal development.
Maybe the hardest thing is to stop judging yourself. From there you can release judgment of others.
Finding a reason to teach is a lot more straightforward that a reason to perform. Of course, what would you teach if you were an unskilled, uninspired performer? They go together. I seem to forget that. And things like that. I guess I get super focused on one thing at the expense of everything else. That is my gift, as well as my curse.
I am holding on the idea that if I understand my passion, everything will fall into place. I am not normally one to analyze my passions. Or am I. I may have two opposing tendencies. They hate each other. I hate myself. I am always dealing with contradictions within myself. Thomas Moore wrote that that is in our nature. The nature of our souls. Our minds are not in favor of this. But our souls demand it, require it. That was one of the things I loved so much about his books. I haven’t read them in many years. But they remain in my being.
I have contradictions in religion, self-care, discipline, self analysis, emotionality, embracing of naiveté, etc. You name it. T Moore is okay with that. I suspect so is J Foster. Okay to the extent that you learn what happens next. When your head and your heart are at odds.
Shouldn’t we be honing our human/animal based societal harmony? Shouldn’t we be working towards getting past our baser emotions and tendencies? Shouldn’t we be tweaking our philosophies? Maybe we are, but I’m just the last to know. Or maybe we’re limited. I have found reading and exploring the Bible to open up my mind, up to a point. But I attribute some of that to my gullibility. Not the wonderfulness of the Bible. For instance, I could pick up another religion’s book (just as people do all over the world) and most likely be equally convinced and moved by an account of its deities.
I’m glad I’ve done this “research,” though. You always wonder if the grass is greener on the other side. And I’ve kind of been bashed over the head with the higher power premise/promise by my involvement with 12 step programs. So this was my higher power of origin. My book charting out the parallels between religions kind of proves that you have to be careful about being gullible to the supernatural aspects of religions. One of the guarantees implicit in religions is that their deities and miracles are the only ones around. So they end up cancelling each other out. But worse, they cause strife, in the real world, outside their literary circle. People vehemently disagree on whose magical God is the real one. And then kill each other. And hate. It’s not a source of intelligent debate. But since it’s out there, it has to be dealt with. It has to be addressed. From what I understand, the USA is lagging behind in this whole debate. We seem to be working hard to be more scientifically illiterate and sociologically primitive than much of the world.
Maybe I am exploring my Jewish roots, and have always wondered – as an adult – what they’re all about, because I have needed to address this debate head on. It prevails around me, in society, among co-workers, within my family. I never really understood its roots. I was raised with a certain amount of exposure and training. Just enough to give me a taste. But I guess I never took a bite.
I am fairly gullible. I have been known for that. I think I’ve even been mocked, light-heartedly, for this trait. I have chameleon-like traits. When I used to attend movies often, I would get sucked in and overtaken by the characters. It eventually made me uneasy, because I knew I really needed to be working on developing my own sense of self in order to find happiness. Movie characters are fictional, or at least are only visual representations of reality. I don’t always do a good job of distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Maybe I’m a dreamer.
So if I’m looking for a philosophy that I can truly count on, I must be prepared to use my critical eye. To use my genetically-given gifts. Maybe they aren’t God-given, after all. As easy and comforting that idea would be. The evidence is piling up in the other direction. The evidence that religion inspires mayhem, and human ingenuity creates harmony. It’s like Trump. When is enough, enough? What straw will break the back of acceptability? When does it become an extremely pervasive cult instead of something rational and harmless? I think it finally clicked with me with that recent Facebook post of the highly regarded humanist. Religion is the problem, not just the crazy fanatical zealots. The vestigial necessity for a way to make sense of the world turns out to be just a bunch of nonsense. It wasn’t our ancestors’ fault. They didn’t know any better. They were more animalistic and ritualistic.