The Silent World Symposium

    I seriously thought about taking down my last two posts s they were pretty much incoherent rambling. But, two thoughts prevented me from doing so. The first thought is that this blog isn't supposed to be an excercise in composition or logic, it's a place for me to document my evolving thoughts and experiences and a place for me to vent and unburden. I talk here so I can see what comes out as often I don't realise what I really think about something until I hammer it out in writing and read it back. It also gives me a chance to say to myself 'what the hell were you thinking?' Yesterday it was pretty clear what I was thinking. I was kinda pissed off and indignant.
    The second reason I won't take them down is sort of the two edged sword that, well, they were my thoughts, damnit. If I let them get edited because I am embarased of  them or because they might turn someone off on me then what is that saying on how I run the contents of my thoughts. As I've said I don't write this stuff to convince or educate anyone. I write this to share and submit to scrutiny. I can change my mind on what I think now, but when we let others shame us into hiding our thoughts or feelings, we're in serious trouble. So instead of deleting them to hide my emotional outburst, I'll instead post new ones so theyre less likely to be read.
    And while I am embarrassed that a combination of agitation and fatigue degraded my ability to express coherently, I am not at all ashemed of my thoughts or feelings. To those who have told me that alot of the actions of John McCain weren't really unusual political practices and not unheard of... well... I know. But I have a hard time choosing the leader of the greatest power on earth on a basis of him not being scummier than others have been. Especially when that scumminess involves trashing or opressing or scamming those who he'd ostensibly have as his flock. I maintain that I believe that Mitt Romney was a man of higher character and nobler convictions. I also believe these actions I cited designate a man unworthy of the role of leader of the free world. I believe that the people who condone that behavior diminish themselves and our nation. If that makes me naive I'll keep my naivatee, thank you very much. On the upside I now have a clear favorite in the elections and it may give some heart attacks. Yes, I am now wholeheartedly in favor of Barack Obama. I don't support him on much of his policy. I support him on the basis purely of character, spirit, and ideals.
    So, please, no more Barack the builder, "Can we build it?" "yes we can!" jokes. Going back to being a liberal is hard enough.

    I had tried to stay loosely to an orderly flow of thoughts and building an arguement for my beliefs in my last post, but I realised... screw it. I'll just be out with it. I'll save putting that kind of skull sweat into writing again when I'm payed by the word, am promised royalties, or damn well feel like it.
   
    Sometimes things have to be sacrificed for the greater good, and where we lack the perspacity to do so, that is where leadership comes in. That's where all of the great leaders of mankind have come in. It comes there is something that's not in our personal best interest but our collective self interest. It comes in when our own natures fail our needs. Every person who's talked a friend off the couch and into the gym, out of a destructive relationship or into a detox knows what leadership is, and most often managed to be leaders precisely because they were to humble and not self serving enough to consider themselves leaders. When there are threats, challenges, inspirations, or aspirations to be met, that is where leadership is called for.

    We don't need leadership to do what we were going to do anyway. And therin lies the challenge for the leaders. They always are called on to move our will towards their vision. And this isn't always an easy black and white thing. History is the friend of great leaders but popularity polls aren't. And that is the weakness of democracy. Our leaders have to appeal to our natures but not always our better natures just like we may not always understand what's best for us.

    And in fairness, it's complicated. Sometimes what's best is pretty subjective and the results are hard to foresee. Sometimes there are unforseen consequences and sometimes even when the consequences are foreseen there can be variables and repercussions that weren't. So being leader is a tough thankless job most often met with the skepticism or outright hostilty of those you try to serve.

    And therin lies the crux of the issue for me. I sitting right here right now consider myself pretty well informed as overall American citizens go. But I lack the prequisite knowledge to make any one of a multitude of decisions, to foresee and of an infinitude of potentialities. But everything that needs to be known, we have people to know, and everything that needs thinking of we have people to think of. Our job is to keep those knowers and thinkers honest with the well intentioned skepticism that we call open mindedness.

    The leader's job isn't to know everything. He doesn't have to be a general or an economist or a lawyer. He needs judgement. Judgement is based on rationality. And rationality is based on honesty. And as I said last time, honesty...judgement... these are based on virtues of insight and character. On Courage.

    I've sat and heard people snipe at the underdogs and say "Bah, they must be idiots... nobody is going to agree with them. They don't think like anyone else." Of course people will always narcissistically be drawn to those most like thmselves. The weak-willed, self-serving, spineless masses will always gravitate towards the populist. The people who will take responsibility for what they say will always only appeal to those few who take responsibility for what they think. Those who think of uneasy things will never be heard by people who can only think easy thoughts.

    I've heard people say that Romney has spent too much of his own money trying to win the election. I find it amusing. Are they angry that Romney was a successful man who made alot of money? But envy is a debate for another time. I think people who feel it's more honest to spend other people's money to win an election rather than their own view the matter much differently than I do. Do they not stop and pause to think that if greed was his motivator, is there nothing that would pay him greater dividends than the white house?

    I think all of the candidates have good natures. I believe for them to subject themselves for the things they do they must realise there are far more profitable avenues to invest their energy into.

    So if I say to myself that I have to trust someone to know best if I don't, and give them the benefit of the doubt on what they are saying being best for me and my country, then what criteria does that leave us with.

    For my own, I want someone who won't lie. Who won't distort. And my focus at this point is on the Republicans.

    I had wondered if I was being naive, because my views tend to be closer to Romney's than McCain's by nature, so I thought maybe when I tried to open my mind and look at character and actions that I may be being favorable in my judgement. I felt that true, Romney has shifted his stance on issues throughout his career, and so has McCain.

    But looking at myself, when I have been trying to be honest and show character, how do I go about it. I might say something like, "Well, I felt this then, and I feel this, now, so this is why I changed my mind." Thats how I try to show character. It's when I'm being weak that I try to cop out and say "Oh, no, I never did this" or "I may have said this but I ment that" or deny or equivocate or hedge. Honestly, I simply felt I saw more of the man I try to be in Romney and more of the man I've always tended to be in Huckabee and McCain.

    And I'm sad to say I feel after the last couple of weeks pretty vindicated in that early assumption no matter how many times I've tried to open my mind. McCain has not only told lies, but repeated them. Not abstract lies or misspeaking, but things he OBVIOUSLY knew was a documented untruth. No spin. Falsehood.

    Okay. Fair enough. Maybe being leader isn't easy and maybe he had to protray an issue in a different light. Except the issue in question was the character of his opponent, another American who is trying to serve his own country.

    Not only that, but he distorted the words of not only his opponent, but his own friends, intentionally, when Bob Dole sent a personal message to Rush Limbaugh.

    Finally, now, he has intentionally directed his supporters into voting for Huckabee in one state. And you may say "So what? As long as he wins, right? He's good natured, whatever he has to do to serve the good?" As Huckabee says, "Stop whining"

    I'll tell you "So what". He conspired with another person to use the mathmatical conditions of the election process so that it was not the will of the American people but his deal with Huckabee that decided who got elected in that state. Do you not realise that he and Huckabee conspired to make the people's votes not count.

    He is also the person who tried to pass laws without any public knowledge on the emmigration reform bill because he knew the majority would not agree with him. He voted for laws that curtailed American's rights to free speech.

    And he is winning.

    So in short it's not really any point of what McCain, or Clinton for that matter, want to do that makes me feel that they and anyone who votes for them ought to be ashamed of themselves. I have no doubt of anyones good intent or what they want to do. I have doubt on a basis of what they are willing to do and accept.

    As an American, I don't see why Romney would want to put up with us. But as a man of service and character I think at the very least he deserves our respect for what he won't do to us.   

    "Anyone who does't take the truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones, either." -Albert Einstein


    I know my last blog was about being less emotionally involved where it wasn't healthy and it may at first seem that I'm mucking this up about being more emotionally involved, now. It could be I'm messing this up, but I think there's a distinction. Anyway, here it goes.

    I was watching the super turesday news. I know since I started this blog I haven't aired many political views. That's somewhat on purpose as I am trying to be more open minded and less judgemental. I feel identifying oneself with an ideology is by and large limiting of the person and often does injustice to the philosophy one espouses. So I have been trying... notice I said trying... to keep an open mind.

    By and large I am socially liberal, foreign policy conservative, and fiscally conservative, in that order. The last of which is the least hard line as while I've tried to be informed and educated on economics, I'm no expert, and my view tends to fall that way more by having a feeling for the constitutionalist view than any economic model. I'm in fact not anti-socialist, as one day I plan on emmigrating to a country that has many socialist tendencies. However, America as a nation is not founded on a geographical or ethnic interest but upon certain principles which by and large I do not feel is wholly compatable with socialism... thus, economic conservative, but flexible. 

    Being socially liberal, I believe is not only a constitutional matter, but an ethical one. I am a firm believer that freedom is the only empowering force to mankind, and while leadership and sacrifice are amoung the noblest of qualities, they have to be freely given and accepted or else opression is the result. As such I tend to be very pro-choice (but sympathetic towards pro-life), militantly for gay rights, freedom of speech and expression, pro gun-rights, and anti-creationist. I know, quite the delimma for the sexually dominant practicing mystic. But, I digress.

    Foreign policy is the area I tend to get in lots of arguements about and as such trying to soften my views and make myself more open minded on without abandoning my principles and beliefs. I have been on the same end of these arguments many times. Yes, I believe that the primary purpose of the US government is to secure the sovereignty and prosperity of the US people, and in a competitive world we have been alot nicer about it than we might have been and been given credit for. For that matter we've been alot more restrained in persuit of our self interest than alot of nations who's main restraint is lack of capacity for mischief but that judge us, anyway. Also, with respect to anyones views on communism, the cold war, Vietnam, the middle east, etc, I counter by pointing to the later revealed histories of the practices of the communist regimes that we opposed such as China and Russia, to much of the history of the middle east and the European wars... in short, right or wrong in motive or methodology, since it's inception the United States has sacrificed more blood and treasure for other countries' freedom and prosperity and for humanity as an ideal than most other countries have for their own freedom, prosperity or humanity. And despite arguements to the contrary which I concede may be honorable and noble in conception if naive and impractical in application (been to Tibet lately? Is the Dali Lama democrat or republican... and how are those barbary states shaping up? Oh, yes, we made them cruel and agressive after world war II... our bad) I am not likely to stop being proud of this fact any time in the near future or of having worn the uniform. 

    You see? I can't help it. I don't want to go off on more of a tangent, so I'll sum up by saying I will debate the role my native country has played in the modern world with anyone, but for my own I am proud to believe it a force for good, and we have shown much courage and much sacrifice to earn that claim, and those revisionist historians who'd dispute this had better do so with facts rather than rhetoric.

    Which brings me back to the political race. Rhetoric. I know rheoric. I know I know rhetoric because my brother happens to have a PhD in rhetoric and I got better grades in it from his professors. This blog is pretty stream of conciousness. But, I can fault a syllogism, surgically challenge a premise, and spin a context with the best of them if I do say so, myself. 

    And this brings me back to tie in with some of the things I've been writing about of late. Being an able rhetorician has been as much a detriment to me as it has been an asset, I think. In the end, as I have said, I can argue myself into the ground on any matter, and debate myself into justifying nearly any view or behavior. And to someone weak willed like me, this is a dangerous character trait. I have cost myself alot of damage and time with the sophisticated and experienced when I would have been far better served by the innocent and the simple.

    So, here I am trying to watch this political race and these debates with an open mind and a restrained judgement. "Maybe I don't know best" has become something of a mantra while I've been doing this. And what I've found is a funny thing. Because I found myself drawing back and offering up my beliefs and listening to what these people suggest and forward as their platforms, assume their good nature and that they may know something of what they're suggesting that I don't (God forbid) but without turning off the critical logic part of my brain and being a sheep... well... I found myself getting angry again, at the same people, but for entirely different reasons.

    Now let me get this out of the way. I know that rhetoric is all about perception. In fact you can call it a kind of leadership, as you are guiding a mind to a certain subjective perspective on an objective issue. So, do not think me a babe in the woods in looking at politics or marketing. I'm not naive. I'm just trying to put aside partizanship.

    So. putting forward a belief or a proposition and trying to get someone enthusiastic or sympathetic towards it is the same as any manipulation, isn't it? So, where's the cut off? Where truths are subjective and the contest is to make the perception of your ideals more attractive, is there any place for words like honesty or manipulation? It's an ends justifies the means world, right? What's my bitch?

    My cut off is simple and actually I didn't know I had it until now. It's not sophisticated or complex. It's simply this; I think you know when you've been dishonest. In fact I should say you do. The lie dtector is based on it. There are physiological changes in us when we are dishonest. Shame is a real thing, and it's there for a real reason.

    I'm treading on dangerous ground here. The state known as shame occurs to many people is situations they ought nought be ashamed of. But I am talking about something more fundamental. If youre in a burning house and I look into your eyes and tell you in complete conviction that there is nothing to be afraid of as I try to lead you out, then I will be able to look into your eye in the end when we're both safe. If I look you in the eye and tell you I didn't sleep with your sister to spare myself your reaction, then the feeling I'll have when you confront me will be much different.

    I think that's what my criteria on what's manipulation is and what isn't. And I am not trying to judge anyone, because I know how hard it can be to be honest. And honestly sometimes dishonesty is a sickness. Sometimes people who are dishonest more deserve sympathy than condemnation. Anyone who's been in a relationship with an addict can tell you that. But sympathy doesn't mean enabling. Sometimes we just lack the strength to stick to a conviction no matter how badly we want to. I've been there. So I am not trying to judge anyone.

    When I was the kind of person who felt the ends justifies the means I would have wanted the most ruthless cold blooded efficient person to be leader, because I believed that is who would get the most done for me. I believed myself good so my winning must be the highest ultimate good. Right? I'm not so certain of alot of things anymore but I know I'm angry.

    Heh. I've not only tired myself writing this, but confused myself a bit as well, so it'll have to be continued in a part II tomorrow.

    I thought about it when I was watching the superbowl. It was the first superbowl I'd watched in years and there were various reasons I found this one special. But most easy to explain the Patriots had kindled an interest in me that I had lost a little while after high school. That perfect season, the sense of striving and overcoming. I was rooting hard for the Patriots.
    I thought about it more watching the political race. I like this one but not that one, agree with this but not so much the other. I thought about it still more listening to my father talk to his friend at the kitchen table. Ramble this, foolish that...
    I thought about it, watching the patriots loose. I rooted for them so hard and was so angry at the other team for winning.
    I pouted.
    But I watched the 'human interest' stories they talked about after the game. By the way if those stories are 'human interest' are the other interests nonhuman? Or are other humans unineresting? And as I sat there, arms folded in a massive pout, grumping inwardly, I grudgingly might admit, "Okay, it's nice that this guy overcame that" or "Okay, maybe it's cool this person could do this."
    And then the sports guys came on and said the Patriots weren't perfect anymore.
    And I pondered that. Perfect. They were perfect and now they weren't? As though some internal quality for all these people had been altered by the results of a football game.
    And I realised I had been feeling that way. Like perfection was some sort of prize that could be won or taken or cajoled. Sometimes do we have to see others exemplify a perception before we can see it in ourselves?
    If perfection is a result then how do you describe those qualities that you persue the result with?
    And I reflected on it watching he political race. Aha, this guy is right, that guy is an idiot. Until I slowed myself down and listened and, well... maybe the idiot believes something? Maybe the idiot isn't wrong.
    Or the drunken goober at the kitchen table. Do I realise that I have spent all these years training so that I can defeat an athlete or a guy with a knife or out-debate a seasoned rehtorician but I let a drunk with an uninformed opinion and very little remaining grey matter kindle my brain and twist my guts? Why?
    And how? How is it so easy for him or so hard for me to stop them from creating these changes in my being. And of course the answer is they don't, I do. But stopping the process is alot trickier than allowing it.
    I'm not arguing against striving. And definately not arguing against critical thinking or discernment. But why would I grow so angry, so disdainful. As though I felt inside that some quality inside me can be changed by the result of a football game or not just by a debate but if others didn't agree on the results of a debate. I pin alot of me up on things without even thinking of it. Why does that anger bubble up like that about things that don't effect me? Is it worth it?
    How many of these unimportant situations do I invest so much of myself into moment to moment without understanding how or why? In fact am I doing anything but betting my emotional energy on hope of some sort of validification? That's one hefty Superbowl bet.
    Anger is a bar. A defense. A shield. How much day to day do I hold at arms length through this nonsensical anger. It made me think of a metaphor I heard once before. Life is like a chess game. A very small person can make me behave in certain ways and 'beat me' but only if I constrain myself to think and behave in the 'rules' of the game, by the criteria of this rigid zero sums contest. 
    And that's fine. Games can be fun. But I often don't realise I'm playing chess. I don't realise I'm constraining and playing to these rules. And often it's kinda hard to remember and put aside those rules. If I don't realise I'm following these rules of this game or understand why then I'm controlled. Opressed. Not even in act or in gunpoint but in the very thoughts in my head. And that is the very function of what I mean by ego and self.
    Why do I let these others steal my perfection? And these examples are big obvious ones that might give anyone to pause. What about all the subtle little examples moment to moment. How many little things beat me throughout the day without me even noticing?
    I suppose my point to the Patriots is like that corny old movie, 'Wargames'. The only way to win is not to play.

Ugh.

    It's been almost a year since I've been to the gym. But that's no excuse. I have all the equipment here at my house I really need, though some things are less than ideal, and that's besides the yoga and such I can use...

    I started getting back into it the last few days and unlike every other time I started working out I'm actually taking it slow and gentle. Just coaxing the body a bit, getting the creaks and pops out, some heat going and the breath deep. I'm being careful because I really don't want trying to get into physical shape to be a detriment to meditation. Ever tried meditating when you can't straighten out your arms? It's not pretty.

    I'm at the point, thought, of another one of those slapping myself in the head moments. I can make myself forget stuff like this so easily. How can you find peace in your mind if you cant be at peace with your body. For my own part I can't. I can hide in my mind from my body, but that's not being at peace.

    I've always had a weird love-hate relationship with my body. As alot of depressives and people with a nature of low self-esteem do, I guess. When I was younger I was very heavy and very self concious and it made me really awkward around the concept of sports and physicality.

    When I was about ten or eleven I started getting into fighting and martial arts. And I suppose about that time my physique started to change a bit.  I have a very broad strong sturdy frame and it started to be more of an asset than a hindrance as I found out how to maximize my strengths and minimize my weaknesses.

    But looking back I think alot of that self conciousness stuck with me, and even through the army as I built self confidence and all that I still had this all or nothing attitude where I'd either ignore my body or punish it. There was never really any acceptance.  I always had an ideal in my mind  and I was always trying to hammer and punish my body into being that ideal. If when at times looking back I was in pretty good shape I always carried that internal awkwardness with myself. And that's really not the way to learn to be comfortable in your skin.

    And as stupid as it sounds this time I'm going about it totally different. I'm starting out accepting, embracing and being comfortable with where I am at. I mean I can accept that its uncomfortable for me to button a few pairs of my jeans and I really dont like getting out of breath so easy... but that gives me something to work on. Something to want for myself.

    And it's actually kinda nice, now, just trying to slowly try to push myself and my boundaries. It feels nice to actually be in place but be going someplace too. To not be ashamed of where youre at but at the same time embrace your want to strive. To want to help myself and not punish myself. To be in place but not complacent. It's all in the process, as they say, not the purpose. The former lifts your limitations, and the latter enforces them.

    So, yeah, it feels good to be moving, again. I have to use that fire for something, or else it's going to burn me up.

    Y'know...  it's all well and good when approaching this from the armchair in a purely academic comparative religion way, when you can pick and choose which paragraphs and chapters you like.

    But then, my main point of all this is that I don't want the abstract and the theoretical. My suffering is real and so needs my solution to be real. And that means diving into this whole thing sometimes headlong. And it's sort of unpredictable.

    The case in point is the experience I just had. I went on a little trip guided by Bear. I don't want to go into the specifics of it because it's a bit too personal. But after days of working with hermetic and taoist techniques it was Bear who came along to show me really clearly what I was missing and what I needed to do..

    My first reaction was 'how weird is this'. Then after I had time to reflect not only on how real the experience was but on exactly what it ment and how it fit in perfectly with everything else I was doing in a way I was nowhere close to intellectually solving...

    I can't help but smile. I often have doubts about the path I'm on. I mean I have just enough of a background in psychology to realize the mental traits I'm cultivating pretty much fly in the clear total opposite direction of any form of accepted therapy. And when my methods even start getting more out there than any one selection of weirdo fringe spiritual beliefs, it has to give one to pause.

    And that's besides the fact that even besides the sheer daunting mass I have to contront, it's not always warm and fuzzy. I would say more than a half a dozen times, now, I've actually encountered things that over and above being scarey were actively hostile or potentially harmful. Everything from big floating worms and  giant hairy man eating catepillars to big heavy iron man-things...

    It's dangerous out here.

    I mean hell, some days I talk to angels in the morning, gnomes in the afternoon, and spirit animals over dinner... and it's not really anybody's picture of emotional well being.

    Except mine. And the angels. And the gnomes. And Bear. And I think they're kinda starting to look after me. It's kinda humbling, y'know? To trust the universe and listen to what it has to tell you, for a change. I'm actually finding peace and maybe even a little bit of understanding.

    So, to all of them, here, officially and in public...

    Thank you.

    Realizations come for me quickly these days apparently. Maybe the first step to finding your feet is finding the will to move forward. And I find that sophistication of thought is my greatest enemy. Simplicity seems the key to me.

    In ritual, many occultists use what's called a preliminary invocation before performing any ritual. There are many examples, such as the preliminary invocation from the goetia or the bornless ritual, or Israel Regardie's odd christian/egyptian hybrid. Mine is unorthadox. I use the prayer of St. Francis.

    Realising that this prayer in fact said the same thing as the bornless ritual or Regardie's variation was a huge revelation to me, and this made it extremely personal to me. But explaining how they are similiar is sort of a long blog in itself. But, today I used it and found my troubles ease and realised once again how profound the concepts therin are to me.

    But I did my work and... well... in the past finding my feet was often a long process of making a new pair of feet out of clay. I find now my process of finding my feet is simply asking them where they've gone to. How easily I can loose what is so simple. It's still solved by walking. And you can't move ahead by laying down.

    I think I can answer my question posed earlier, now. That is not to decide. Not to edit or define. I just have to follow my path. In spirituality there are two paths; that of the serpent and that of the arrow. Mine is not the way of the arrow. It's not in seeking knowledge of the world that leads us through the world but in seeking knowledge of ourselves, and this path winds hither and tither like... well... you know.

    It's tricky to be thankful for troubles that are passed. It's harder to be thankful for the troubles I am still recovering from. When I can be thankful for the troubles I am still dealing with, I know I have all four paws on my path. 

    I'm jumbled up, this morning.

    I've spent about two hours trying to meditate...with some degree of success... but very little unjumbling. And it's almost a reassurance now to see what the same old sort of jumble feels like at this point.

    It's not so bad. Not nearly crippling. Controllable enough to function. All systems nominal. So far so good.

    With the passage of time I even find myself dejumblifying. Enough, at least to recognize being jumbled is a choice. For me to get jumbled I have to be holding onto something. I have to let myself want. Expect. I have to set myself up for it.

    I'm not sure if I am grateful or dissapointed to find I am not immune to pain. It's not, then, a radical change to the machinery of my being. It's a change in how I'm learning to operate within it. Heh... so yeah, I guess I am not dissapointed to find I can still be dissapointed.

    And that leads to a question of which is healthier, really. I mean, unconditional love means not having conditions, right? Really, you have to let go. A choice. A decision. Accept. All that not so easy or fun but infinitely rewarding stuff I've been working on.

    But what am I letting go of? Am I letting go of the want or expectations? Letting go of the part of myself that fears or loves in that way? Letting go of attachment to that person or letting go of a person? And am I truly letting go or simply putting up fresh walls?


    It's an inherent vulnerability that you have to accept, I think. It's like we are bears. We live in our cave and hibernate safe and warm, and there's food that can keep us alive, but not quite the sort that can keep us healthy. So the choice before us is do we stay in our cave and accept that we are cutting our losses and making the concious choise of not having or experiencing or being what we might? Or do we venture out into the cold, into the wind and snow, also to an extent abandoning what we might be or have in the security of the cave?

    All paths lead to death. Weather we take the risk and suffer the wounds of the hunt or abandon it and renounce. It seems there's sometimes little space to walk between. Even if I venture down to the salmon stream, eventually the scars will accumulate, and the sensitivity that plagues me now will simply be worn away by roughness and abuse. Does it really all end in the same place? I thought once that the romance of tracking out on quest and embracing passion was courage. Or is it vanity and fear of accepting our role and place in the scheme of things?
  
     For now we walk our paths and take what comes with it. But some parts of the path are harder to see down than others. In the end it's that same answer. We'll see.

    I really want to write about this. Really.

    But there's just no freaking way. I look at everything I start to type and either it doesn't even begin to describe it or else it's just too far out there. In fact I was thinking last night that I was loosing perspective and I shouldn't get too carried away.

    Two days ago I thought I had it all figured out. And well, I was sort of right. I had everything I was working on figured out. So I wasn't wrong.

    It's just that there's more. In a good way. No, I didn't know what good ment, before. Alot of times in my life in the past I have wondered if others have felt things, percieved things the way I did. I wondered if I was cursed. Or just... weak. Somehow unfit or invalid. I would at times envy everyone who didn't feel what I did. And now the gears just threw into reverse and I hope it was only me who has been missing out on this. I Hope this is just me catching up on what I was missing and it's not only me who has found this.

    I need some time to play with this before I write more. But the other day someone expressed concern that some part of me was gone or going away. Please don't worry. I'm better than well. I'm resurrected. It's like bubbling up inside of me is the fountain of all passion, all force, all joy. It's like lightning inside of me. It's like touching my soul to one of those high voltage power lines. 

    See. I knew I'd sound nuts if I tried to explain. Anyway, I may be quiet for a bit. A day or two. Sort all this out. If anybody needs anything y'all know where to find me. I'll be here with the Gods.

    We as people like to fool ourselves. One of the ways I think that we like to do this is by this catch-all armor of our self esteem; reasonability.

    I am so much more guilty than most people. I've said before that part of the problem with having a background in logic and critical thinking and debate was that you can talk yourself into or justify just about anything. But to my mind reasonability is another head of the normalcy hydra. It is us saying to ourselves that what we do or think is somehow okay because the consensus of people, if they are being 'reasonable' should agree with it. We are after all social creatures, and the harshest weapon that I think we use on ourselves is the perception that we have of other's perception of ourselves.

    In this day and age we've replaced the concept of evil or with reasonability. Maybe it's a step in the right direction, as it suggests, I guess, some effort to understand the 'reasons' behind a viewpoint instead of condemning it on relatively arbitrary dogma. But being honest, even if reasonability is a matter of judgement, it's most often a show trial in a kangaroo court, and the condemnation, when it comes, is no less decisive.

    But, it's not arbitrary. At least it's not that. Is it? We are logical beings, aren't we?

    At the risk of sounding unresonable, no, I don't feel that we as human beings, are logical. Oh, we can be quite rational as we persue our goals and choose our means to our specific ends with varying degrees of well planned sanity. But as I have said before, those means are upon objective inspection based on criteria that on an individual level break down into prejudices and preconcieved notions which go largely unexamined as we employ them. And the ends and goals and drive them, often in the final tally, are not only selected by dimly recognized let alone understood layers of sublimation, but also lead to outright blatantly recognizeable situations of self defeat or even self destruction.

    When the word 'psychology' was first coined in academia, the study of the mind was pioneered by people who envisioned the end-goal of it to be something called 'self-actualization'. What that means is that the person who is ideally healthy by that model will conciously select their thoughts and actions free from anxiety or neurosis. When psychology was first formented by people like Jung, Freud, Reich, and Skinner, it's end goal was actually a kind of emancipation. It's end goal was freedom for the individual. And in that respect it wasn't so different from any other path of liberation, like Buddhism or Yoga.

    Today it's taken a much different turn and I'm hard pressed to tell if the views of society have followed it's lead or the other way around. We have this view that if a compulsion or a neurosis in a person makes them behave in a way that society agrees with or that we like, that we can call good, or 'reasonable', then that person is Healthy.This is especially true if we as an individual tend to match that behavior or comulsion. We think that they're 'okay'. But, if someone has a complusion that makes them do something different than everyone else, something that isn't welcomed by society, then that person is unhealthy, or unreasonable.

    A workaholic who fritters away his life compulsively spending every waking our not actively doing something at the office, is 'okay' because theyre leading a productive life, even though their productivity might make us feel guilty. They have as much of an unhealthy label as we need to give them to justify our own comparative laziness. The person who dresses oddly is a maladjust who lacks self esteem, just as the person who dresses up too much is self aggrandizing or pretentious. The man who walks in and murders a cheating spouse in a fit of jealous rage had temporary insanity but he's probably okay as he's fit in until then, but the person who robbed a bank is a dangerous sociopath who doesn't respect society.

    And of course, in true terms, we don't mean respect society. We mean fear it. All of these people are equally unhealthy or equally unhealthy because all of them are equally incapeable of conciously selecting their own behavior with one exception; the bank robber.

    And that tells us something. Freedom of thought in our society, weather by courage or by differing psychology is dangerous and bad. Our model of health has moved from being freem from neurosis to having the right neurosis in the right place.

    Even our terminology clearly reflects the shift. We no longer seek to make someone 'self actualized'. We seek to make them, 'well adjusted'. We now insist people be 'controlled' rather than excercising 'self-control'.

    I have to remember that. I have to remember what we really mean when we use words like 'sane' or 'reasonable' or 'safe' or 'respectable' .Freedom, true freedom, in our day and age, will always be regarded as a kind of dangerous social deviance. Remember this when you're trying to act 'normal' or 'fitting in'. If my self esteem has anything to do with my appearance or others perception of me, then I am lost.  

    Alright. I'm going to start over, again.
    
    Don't worry, I don't mean tossing all this. I mean I'm going to go in another direction.

    I am going to do this because I realise that writing this betrays to me how I've been thinking about it. And in reading what I've written I've been trying to keep things more or less objective. I've been drifting in the direction of keeping it abstract and impersonal. And that's not good, because the point of writing this is setting aside ego and revealing.

    And there is part of the reason it's difficult becuse this is where the paradoxes start. "So lemme get this straight. You're gonna to talk about commonality by talking about your intimate self, and talk about lack of ego letting go of self by being personal?"
   
    Well... yeah. I know it may not make sense. I'm hoping it will as I go though. But, no promises.

    To explain this new view, I had an interesting conversation this morning. Have you ever heard the saying, "The first step of getting better is admitting you have a problem." I opened up this journal with as much candor as possible because admitting things about myself, to myself or others, was up until recently something like a nightmare to me. And I was talking this morning wondering how parts have gotten so much easier.

    I think that for me the first step wasn't necessarily admitting I had a problem. I say that because I was the problem. My thoughts, my emotions, my personality, was the problem. So if I admit that as the source of my suffering, and not some external force I could lay blame on, what does that say about me. How can someone, like me, who spends all his waking time nursing and hiding a fragile self esteem get over himself enough to admit he needs the sort of change that will make him better.

    I suppose, to be fair, I knew acutely well, I did have a problem. There's been no missing that for a real long time. In fact that was part of the problem. Like I said, if you have 'a problem' it's another place to shrug off your responsibility and say, "See, it's not me, it's my problem doing it to me" I think that for me, admitting that I had a problem was almost to what extent I did, another place to hide.

    There are truths that I have always been able to understand on an intellectual level that I couldn't apply on a personal level. It wasn't that I didn't comprehend these things in applying them to others. About loving myself, for one. The case in point though is that responsibility isn't necessary for freedom. Responsibility creates freedom.

    So if I understood that why couldn't I apply it. I have asked questions about that many times, and I finally have my answer.

    I didn't want to. No matter how bad my life got, no matter how much I and others suffer, I had to reach a point where I feared fessing up and taking responsibility less than I feared carrying on as I was. Addicts call that moment 'bottoming out'.

    Honestly, I got lucky. I already explained before how I was blessed with inexcapeable consequences of my sickness, and friends and loved ones who loved and respected me enough not to grant me another hiding place. And I am not an easy person to not enable. They payed a price to help me. I will remain in their debt and be forever grateful.

    But honestly, for all that I think I got lucky because along with all these things I didn't have going for me, I had one thing that I think most people don't have.

    A glimpse.

    I had one little tiny look at my true nature. One little glimpse at what was below this layer of random psychelogical crap that I had been mistaking for myself all these years. And when I saw that different me, it made letting go of the hate, and the anger, and the fear all that much less frightening because it gave me something else to hold onto.

    Maybe someone out there can relate? That feeling that the anger and the fear, as much as it may hurt, is the only thing holding you togeather? That if you let go of these thoughts and these feelings you'll just drift apart, evaporate, cease to be...   

    Have you ever heard the song 'Amazing Grace"? In my mind that song was writen about a glimpse like that. It gave me something to hold onto, to lean on, to draw from. And I'm leaning on it right now. I have alot further to go. And I know I'll lean on it alot through the looooong way ahead of me. But the most important thing is that I don't loose it. That's how I found myself by letting go of myself, and how I'm like everyone else by being myself. Our troubles really aren't our true selves. What we lean on through them is. 

    The sense of commonality is at the core of alot of the thoughts I've tried to share so far. I've been trying to relate that I feel that alot of the matters that I feel are of importance to me are not any of the ways that I might be unique. That's my point in sharing this, in fact. I am trying to have a look at me, as openly and honestly as I can. I feel in the process of doing that, in the process of honesty and putting aside my ego and defenses,  what is left, honestly, is not at all special to me.
    So, if I can take these observations about myself, about my state, about my plight, about the solutions I am attempting, and hopefully find how that applies for another, I am learning to be encouraged by that. But, it brings up a thought that I feel is important for me to share at this point.
    I bring up alot of references to various teachings on spirituality. And I do because that's the tool I am using to explore myself. In the most honest way, then, I'm not writing about myself, as I'm not writing anything largely exclusive to me. But I'm also not writing about these teachings or doctrines. Theyre all around and often presented in ways that are alot more comprehensible than I could ever hope to phrase them. What I am writing about is what I find when I in my own capacity taking these teachings and these doctrines and use them on myself. What happens when I combine them with me, the thoughts and insights and experiences that come out for me along this path of mine. I wouldn't consider myself qualified to teach these things, but everyone has something to share that hopefully will be of value to others in some way.
    But that leaves this allusion of mine. What practices and what doctrines am I talking about? I have so far mentioned Buddhism alot. Am I a practicing Buddhist? Well, this brings me back to the view I started trying to relate in my last entry.
    I have for a very long time had an attitude that seems fairly common amoung practioners of alternative religion and alternate spirituality that I have come across. That is that I was often fine with a sense of ecclecticism. Taking a little bit from Buddhism, or Taoism, or Tantra, or Quabalah, using that system or this one. But I think that I inherited this contemporary American sense of 'style'.
    That is, I go to eat chinese food in resturaunt decorated in our gaudiest clische rendition of chinese decoration. Likewise I'll go to eat pizza under the sign of a leaning tower or have bavarian beer or braughtwurst in a resturaunt with fake half-timbering. When I go to study a martial art, we'll develop this interest in the styles or history or culture of the place that it came from.
    And that's fair enough, really. I think it's good that we learn about people and places and ways. I think trying to understand our brethren is always good, no matter what or how. But, speaking for myself, I think that I developed this attitude of stifling exclusivity. Instead of fostering a sense of iinclusiveness it fostered a sense of division, and I'll explain how.
    Instead of me taking this food, or that piece of art as something that people have done, my strong tendency was to define that thing according to my own perceptions, preconcieved notions, and prejudices of where it came to me from. Instead of being food, it's Chinese or Italian food, or maybe a Japanese martial art. And while I could always easily accept that people could mingle and enter into or out of these circles, taking one thing from them weather it was a style or a cultural art form sort of ment having to take all of that and trying to become a practioner of that culture. So instead of making things more accessable, it tended to make things more segregated and compartmentalized.
    And that's what brings me back to this concept of ecclectic spirituality. For me to do that, I feel I'd have to do this stuff one day and that stuff the next, for example. But like I was trying to say in the last entry, all these people must be refferring to similiar things, or else they wouldn't make sense when those people come togeather and study eachother's ways.
    So if I don't feel that we're all fundamentally different based on race or culture, and that all of these things are observations on primarily the same sort of phenomenon, then I am no longer being ecclectic in mindset, but inclusive in mindset. Yes, there are of course cultural differences, and of course lines of thought and study have taken different turns in different places. But, I feel that when we look at all those things togeather they tell us alot more about whetever you want to call whatever it is we're observing in the first place.
    But if being able to draw from apparently different religions seems difficult, how much more difficult and rewarding would it be to unite religion with psychology, and philosophy, and any other branch of art or science? Why should we continue to leave these things compartmentalised?
    Now some people will object that alot of these schools of thought are almost totally contradictory in dogma, practice, and most practical points of policy. But to use a common example, how much more do we learn about Christianity from studying what the different sects differ on and why? How much more do we have to gain by reconciling these apparent differences?     
    But that coin, I think, has a flip side. At least for me. If we accept this commonality, and that these are all observing something we share, that should empower and enable us. It should give us a tool or an insight we didn't have before. But those insights and those tools are for us and nobody else to use. As I say, I'm not writing about those teachings, I'm writing about only my own experiences with them. They all stand just fine on their own.
    But the point is our experience with them, what it gives to us as individuals. What that is is responsibility. Every bit of freedom always comes with it. I don't want to insult or diminish anyone's beliefs, but for me when obedience to any particular teacher or doctrine, living or dead, becomes more important than my own work with it, my own thoughts and my own experiences... well, let's remember that Holocausts and Witch trials weren't based on spiritualities or beliefs but against them.
   
    I have one more thought for today, before I put my ramblings away until tomorrow. I was going to make these thoughts into another blog, as I'm trying to sound out my thoughts and views. But it's sort of fragmented and fits in better here. That is, I have used the word religion alot but I dislike applying it to describe what I practice because, for my own part, it's useless to me. For me, if a teaching is lofty, it's not down here where I am. I am down here suffering and crawling through shit and I have no use whatsoever for gods or for powers that I can't see or touch. So I want to rip out all these words like 'religion' or 'sacred' or 'holy' or 'spiritual' or 'mystical'. Those words instantly take take whatever it is theyre describing and make them inaccessable to us. They lock them behind the glass of some very pretty, well-lit reliquery so we can stand there and gaze inside at them and say 'ohhh-ahhhh-spoookyyy'.
    But I am not in this for ghost stories or entertainment and I'm not in this for self justification or to tell me what thing or person is better or more right than any other thing or person. I am here, at this particular threshold because I am suffering and I need to find something that will help. What doesn't help can screw off.
    So, I want to confront that and get past all this finger wriggling. If I was going to write a religion I wouldn't choose a cross or a pentagram for it's symbol. I'd choose a wrench. That way there would be no confusing that it was there to be useful and as a tool and when it's not useful, it gets placed, albeit with the care and respect I give something that I value, but with no more reverence than it earns. So, instead of looking at all this like some lofty pedistal that we have to discuss in hushed tones of reverence, lets instead look at the amassed collection of mankinds spiritual thought as a huge fuck-all tool-box, where with a little study we can find precisely the sort of tool we need at the time we need it for whatever purpose we're about at that time.
    And there are all sorts of tools. If you want to paint a picture an axe will do you as little good as trying to chop down a tree with a paintbrush. And in the toolbox of spirituality there is no less an array of options. There are tools to inspire, tools to protect, tools to heal, tools for knowledge... the spiritual teachings of mankind can equip us with everything from flamethrowers to binoculars to the internet and everything in between. There is nothing lacking but you can't pick up a new tool, if you can't put down the one you're holding.
    I have to get away from citing exclusively Buddhist teachings but they keep coming up. But this is the concept I first came across in the story of the buddhas raft. Basically, the buddha once said to a desciple that his teachings are like a raft. You find yourself at the bank of a river and need to cross it, but the current is too strong and water is too deep. So you collect branches and twine and you build a raft. Now once you're on the other side are you going to pick up that raft and carry it with you on your back for the rest of your life? Or will you burn it for fire wood? No. You might say "This raft has served me well, so I will leave it here safe and sound, in case I need to cross that river again."
    I don't mean to disparriage or offend anyone of faith or their beliefs, but I believe if we look around we can see as many people carrying rafts on their backs as we can see trying to cross rivers on bicycles. I know that religion can be beautiful, inspiring, enriching in many unforseen ways. But I need to be utterly unsentimental, cold blooded, and ruthless. I am engaging these things for a reason. I have a problem. A condition. It is causing me to suffer. And I need to fix it.
    I believe that for me as a human being isn't finding this commonality isn't the difficult part. It's acknowledging it. Setting aside our cultural egos as we must our individual ones, I believe that we stand to inherit one huge mass of profoundly beautiful, inspirational, harmonious, applicable, and practically useful spiritual knowledge. That's what I am trying to explore for my own self, and trying to share my thoughts experiences on as I go. 

    A stranger reading the last two entries might at this point be presented with a question. "Who is this asshole and what's he going on about?"
   
    Glad you asked, as that's the question I happen to be resolved to answer. But of course, I'm going to do it in my own roundabout way.
   
    Another of my favorite sayings that I acquired in my extreme youth also comes from Buddhism, and it pertains in particular to humor and laughter. I have often myself had the tendency to dismiss humor as taking things lightly, lacking seriousness. It suggests a sense of fun and games only to be partaken of when we are not engaged in more sober efforts. It suggests levity, which to my mind most often is the opposite of gravity.

    But the saying that I liked about humor, basically posited that laughter is itself a tiny satori. A moment of revelation, a tiny does of enlightenment. More precisely, when someone tells you a joke, in that moment when you 'get it', it's that instant of recognition, of your mind being in precisely the same place as the person who told it, that instant of sharing, and, in even a small way communion... that's what gives you the joy that causes you to laugh.
   
    In a pure way, humor is easy, efficient love.

    Hold that thought, please. Now, in one sect of Buddhism, called Zen, one of their neat little practices is called writing koans. A Koan is a kind of riddle, often very humorous, but not always. But, most importantly, it's one that cannot be solved through rational problem solving. One of the more famous ones is, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  The theory is that one meditates on this riddle which is written by some more enlightened person, and when you solve it the riddle, or 'get his joke' it brings with it that small bit of enlightenment. It unlocks something inside you.

    How can that work? In western literature riddles appear frequently, also often with an esoteric connotation. Perhaps a guardian poses a riddle as a test to let some hero pass a gateway or not get eaten. And it often seems to connotate some sort of test. More or less, "If you do this, I will give you that." So, when a zen master tells us a riddle, is he testing us?

    At first, that doesn't seem to make sense, if we look at the buddhist stories, simply because when you get it, you get it, so to speak. Solving the riddle itself seems to unlock the wisdom that this master put inside it, ostensibly like a treasure in a puzzle box. But, I think the answer is easy enough to find. And, I think that it's in the nature of language and communication, itself.

    Have you ever tried to muddle your way through any philosopher's book. From Homer, Herclitus and Plato through Kant (especially Kant) and Kierkagard, their words and syllogisms are often like mazes. They prezent their thoughts in the form of an arguement, most often. They start with a very simple starting point, their premise, and through comprehensible comparisons and relationships they bring our thoughts to the understanding they desire, like a map.

    So eastern philosophers make jokes and western ones argue? Not exactly my point. Have you ever maybe tried to explain a feeling or a concept to someone and the only way you could would be to say "It's like this, but like that in this other way on top of it." Language, when we use it often doesn't have the specific words or meanings that will say what we want, so we have to put togeather these things like lego blocks to make them look like what we're describing. It's not that we're trying to be complicated with language. But it is like poetry, in a way. If you arrange these words in a logic, you can give a meaning that more precise and with as few misconceptions as possible about a concept that is not at all commonplace.

    And that is the concept that is at the core of it. Commonality. I have an idea. You don't know what it is. So I have to find a way to make that knowledge common to both of us. Thus the humor that brings a burst of revelation is the same in purpose as the maplike arguements that navigates us through common concepts like a series of verbal landmarks to a thought that the other person hasn't had before. 

    But, I know, this isn't new and many have phrased this fairly simple concept alot better than I just did. But my point is different, so please stick with me, because, you'll see that this doesn't answer the question I posed, but makes it all the more confusing. When a person forms an arguement or debates a point, he describes a thought or a concept. That still doesn't tell us how a koan can possibly work, because it skips all of that. Remember, it can't be solved by rational thought. It's not a word problem about a train leaving chicago. We have no math to figure it out.

    Maybe, then, the answer is subjective? There is no precise answer and the meaning is dependent on the views of the person who solved it. But that's not the case or else simply asking what your favorite color is or what actor you like in a certain movie would convey enlightenment. Many academics study ancient greek to learn more precise original meanings of ancient philosphers, yet we're expected to get a precise meaning from a vague joke that presumably is the easiest way of expressing that meaning. This is especially baffling as the concept is supposed to cross religious and cultural lines. A Koan is supposed to reveal the same meaning to a christian english speaker as a japanese buddhist many centuries ago.

    I'll tell you, then, my answer to this particular Koan that I've formulated. That is simply that for a Koan to take the meaning from one person who lived long ago, and far away, it has to refer to precisely the same qualities in both him and the person who read it. If I am going to 'get' the joke of ancient master so-and-so, then that joke has to get me to look at something that is the same as it is for me or with me as it was for him.

    In other words, a Koan must ask us to look at something for an answer that is common to both of us. It must ask me to look in my box of components for an answer, and what I find in that box has to be of roughly of the same qualities and quantities as the person who wrote it, or else the riddle would be meaningless.

    So in other words, the things that are most important for me to tell you about me are not the differences. The important things are what we have in common. In the most important ways, I am just like whoever is reading this.

    So there is your answer.

    I suppose it would be fitting to introduce myself at the outset. You see, I am a uniquely gifted man, and I am incredably thankful to the universe for my gifts. They have rendered me supremely well adapted to my present course of endeavor, so I wanted to take the liberty to brag for a moment.
    One might suppose that the natural telent that suited me to spirituality would be some psychic gift? Maybe a genius level IQ or some other talent or insight? No. My gift was better.
    Firstly, for these first thirty five years of my life I have been an emotional basket case. I've been emotionally insecure to such an extent that participating in normal everyday society was extremely difficult and unpleasant for me. I was naturally posessed of the virtue of extreme anxiety in most public situations. Of course that insecurity also inspired me to cultivate the skill of utter egocentricity. I developed the talent of interpreting very phenomonen in my environment according to how it suited my own fragile ego and adjusting my behavior to only that small minded criteria. Even things I would do ostensibly for others were most often engineered carefully with a mind towards making myself feel good or engendering a favourable reaction from others or some similiar benefit.
    Of course, being egocentric wouldn't be complete without a healthy vanity to match. And the best way I could forster that was via convincing others that I posessed exactly those traits it made me most comfortable to believe that I had. That ment learning to traverse between being engratiating and bullying at the drop of a hat, and learning to withdraw from society completely when others didn't respond properly to the image I was painting and thus would threaten my palid and anemic self esteem.
    I endulged these passions of mine to the point of their consuming the sum of my waking energy. Instantly, I could dismiss anyone or anything, or justify my discomfort with them, for any number of faults that I could assign them effortlessly. I could refocus my self-loathing on anything anyone, anytime, and be brutally vicious in sating my own vicious malice, especially against those who loved me enough for me to use their sympathies as a shield against the consequences of my actions.
    Of course my lack of security made any intimacy with others extremely daunting, both due to the insights it would give me into my own nature as well as the need to relieve myself of my responsibility for what I wanted by sabotaging it, dismissing it, or by attacking it until my partner's defending themself could be characterised as an attack and remove me from those sticky emotions. Of course this applied to careers just as much as it did relationships. That leads to the next blessing of mine.
    Poverty. If I had money I could easily have arranged to live normally with little need confront these aspects of myself. But as it was I was blessed to have not only my social life be something of a disaster, but my economic one as well and no way to hide from my consequences.
    In short, my blessing was to make myself the unhealthiest, unhappiest person I can imagine, so that I had no choice, no recourse, no hope, but to overcome my fears, my weakness, my flaws, and my fragility. Believe me, at any point, if I had left myself an escape route back into sloth and self endulgence, I would have. In fact, I did, for years and years. But I was smart enough to ruin all my other options and potentials as fast as I could find them.
    I am saying these things, admittedly with some attempt at humor to lighten it, not fascetiously, but because I want to remember why I am doing this. Thinking these thoughts. Doing these things. Not because I'm better than anyone or even to be better than anyone. Even when I talk about love and compassion and selflessness, I want to remember, and remain honest and clear, that this is for me. This is mine. This is to make me healthier and happier. The love and compassion I am trying to learn? For myself and others? I am doing it for nobody's sake but mine. This is to make my life better, and I have no choice, recourse, or hope, but to do it this way.
    So finally, after so much trial and so very much error, I can be thankful... for both the trial and for the error... because finally I know where all those other paths inexcapeably lead. So my blessing is that I have been such a supremely prolific fool.

  I don't like the phrase 'alternative religion'. In my mind, it seems to have this connotation of "Christianity is true religion, but if you don't like that one, we won't persecute you too much for doing these other things, over here." But having had a falling out with the organized Christianity I was born to at a remarkably early age, the first other religion I came to was Buddhism. I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but it was in studying Buddhism that I found my mind opened first at no more than maybe eleven years old to ways of regarding spirituality. And the very first thing I remember wrapping my little mind around was a lesson that would come in vital to me over and over in my life. And in the past year, I have had to practice it ad nauseum.
    That is that the state of enlightenment was a practice of constantly beginning. I think anyone who'd read this knows the feeling. You get thrown off the proverbial horse. Right then for an instant we're enlightened. For a moment we're released from our fears because our fears have been realised. We're released from anxiety or obligation because our course is taken out of our hands. We go from fearing pain, to feeling it and getting past it. We accept.
    And then we think of getting back on the horse. All of our fears and anxieties come back. And in that moment the state is gone if we fix our mind on riding the horse. If you look at objective, it's lost. But in that moment we pick up and accept, and not passively but actively begin... that is the moment that if we could bottle it, would be what we call enlightenment. Pure will. Pure resolve. Pure acceptance. Pure awareness in the moment. Pure life. All of these things are experienced without the taint of ego. That's why they call zen the beginners art or the beginners mind.
    Later in my life, someone who I learned a great deal from said to me. "You know that feeling you get when you're completely lost, you have no clue where you are or what you're doing, and you don't care because you have nowhere you have to be? That's the best feeling in the world."
    Do you ever wonder why almost all religions praise and hold the concept of suffering or sacrifice as holy, but by the same token negativity or negative emotions are warned against? I think it's because we go through our lives, driven, by these urges that we didn't choose. We inherited them like we did our number of fingers and toes. And these wants and needs and fears move us, they move our minds, our thoughts, our actions, often in ways we're only dimly aware of. And often struggling against them is just as painful as any loss. So without comprehension, how can anyone be blamed for following them?
    But in that moment when we loose, whatever it is we may loose, however we suffer, all of the fears and desires fall away, and we see that the true suffering was happening inside to that innocent part of ourselves that we couldn't see or feel or hear because of all those anxieties and their noise.
    In suffering we find that part of us that no longer fears to feel. That part of us can see in those around us that same part of them. We may have been angry. We may have hated or feared them. But when we see them through these new eyes that we have been afraid to look through, we can see that those parts of them that made us hate or fear are hurting them as our hate or fear hurt us. Little by little we can let our heart soften. We can learn forgiveness. We can learn love.  
    So, then, here I am. Starting over. I have nothing, and I have nowhere to be, and I most definitely do not know where I am going. But I have this moment that I have to follow. And I am writing this to share the thoughts I find as I follow it.