So perhaps we reach a point in our lives, and many modern people do, where everything seems so very fucked up. We recognize that we could have made so many different choices and, perhaps, avoided this wasted, careless spending of precious time.
We may reach this point, but we only destroy our lives further--by lingering in a forest of already fallen leaves.
So, we may find ourselves stuck on the forest floor. Perhaps, all we can do is gather whatever good things are left and move forward. This includes whatever skills we have, whatever qualities we value in ourselves, whatever lessons we have learned... including this lesson of reflecting back... for the future us is also, presumably, looking back.
We can even imagine that we have traveled back in time, right to this particular spot, to transcend ourselves. If we stay awake (and are bold enough,) perhaps we can choose wisely, differently, moving forward.
Perhaps we can transcend our own rapidly beating hearts, even as they pulse through us. That said, even if we become aware, become the observer of ourselves, we may lack the foresight (of our future selves) or logically know where to go.
However, it our future selves are anywhere close to being on point, our future selves are likely in a state of being aware, which is something available to us right now. Granted awareness may be difficult, especially if our bodies are bent and our minds are distracted. We may find our impatience dominating the situation. Nonetheless, we still have the opportunity to be aware.
That said, even if we do what the best of ourselves asks, we still may fuck up. In that case, there is this protection: life has both meaningful and meaningless aspects. From this perspective, at least the fuck up can be taken with a grain of salt, because no one can truly fuck up... not really.
When we strike things in accord, we may rendezvous with meaning, but if a fuck up follows, the pointlessness may become suddenly apparent... the falling of leaves... the place where everything meets in decay... but also eternalness, as here everything is, perhaps, all the same.
That said, we seem to be more than the story, despite living as a character in it. Destruction is a part of life, at least right here, right now, in this context.
There are YouTube videos of Buddhist monks making very elaborate pieces of artwork. They carefully laying multi-colored grains of sand on a table to make a pixelated picture. One tiny grain at a time, they complete a beautiful sand mandala.
Upon completion, however, they blow the entire piece of art away... every piece of perfection... every imperfection. Still, they made it, they lived it.
What makes children make sandcastles, knowing they can not take them with them? Art can be play. It can also be work.
Dancing is art... and the fact that a person can not hold onto one particular dance move does not negate the power of it.
Still, one may be satisfied upon completion of a dance... it being, at a point, something akin to a rest in the grander musical piece. We are still phrases in the music, and the music keeps going. Perhaps, if it occurs to us that we are the music and that which plays it, we can expand our sense of self.
The ending scenes of the film Birdman are interesting, because without recapturing fame (or true accomplishment,) Michael Keaton's character was tormented. Yet, even when he finally found fame, he still seemed unstable.
Perhaps when we are boxed into only being the individual self, we suffocate either way. When the journey reaches an end, we lose our way (and lose purpose) because it was, in a sense, as they say, about the journey.
That said, if we are simply part of a dance, the serious becomes not very serious at all. This is not to say that we should live without purpose--or to say that we have to live on the air. We are here, after all, standing on the ground. Our forms are solid enough for us to dwell in them. This is all part of the meaning.
When we accept both meaning and meaninglessness, we can flow between worlds and continue to exist as the waves rise and fall.
When meaning leaves, we may expect it to return. When we find ourselves without purpose, we may experience the feeling of meaninglessness. However, we need not toss ourselves away.
If we do find ourselves on the forest floor, we may, in a sense, transcend ourselves. We get up, stand in the circling leaves (of meaninglessness,) gather up what we have. We move forward, perhaps to rendezvous with meaning, but also, perhaps, moving forward into forgiveness... and into the story of being more than human.
We recognize that life is more than flowers and decay, and the story does not presumably end with these things... but is, at the very least, some mysterious cycle, within, perhaps, something else still, that is intangible, ungraspable.
Who knows what we might wake up to next? And if we were not to awake, still we have nothing to lose. We can only embrace transience and the dance of life. Are we dancing through life or is life dancing through us?
Moving forward, the great challenge lies, perhaps, in the shadow the past leaves over us... the body one is left with, the programming, the life we are still within and reinforced by.
Here, the framework of the past is still alive. If we should awake, maybe we can fall from it--by being present and simply breathing. We interrupt our own limited perceptions, untangle & give the fires of anger, bitterness, and resentment (from essentially past lives) a chance to burn down to embers.
There is the matter of practicality, once we step out of the easy fairytale of words--and into, what might be, a very uncomfortable body and a very uncomfortable life. We may then seek out modalities (out in the world) to help us unwind and restructure.
Perhaps if the body is tight, we seek out bodywork--such as myofascial massage, rolfing, "Anatomy Trains," chiropractic alignments, muscular skeletal alignment practices--such as those found in yoga or in the exercises in books by Pete Egoscue.
Perhaps, if we are experiencing mental imbalance, we seek out an optimal mood-balancing diet, with supportive herbs (recommended by a qualified herbalist or a naturopathic physician) to help with that. The naturopathic doctor can even bridge the worlds, so to speak, by complimenting conventional medicine.
Perhaps, when all else fails, we harness the placebo effect, and the apparent mind-matter inseparability to our advantage. Perhaps we leave a destructive relationship. What if we feel unable to leave a relationship?
I don't think the point here is to pretend that there is an easy answer to everything... only to point out this dual existence of both meaningful and meaningless.
At the very least, we may approach ourselves with less judgment and lighten the load. We stop carrying an 80 pound pack down the trail, enabling a better negotiation of what is before us, rather than behind us. We know where we are headed, in a sense... and it is somewhere out of this framework, with all it's loaded accomplishments and lack thereof.
We encourage awareness within ourselves. Perhaps we wake up and ask 'what is one thing I can put in place to make things easier for my future self? We also learn to accept (what we perceive as) failings.
Still, it is easy for those who are in state of complete ease (and this is, by no means, myself that I am referring to) to deliver quotes to those who are in a painful states.
It is no secret that discomforts of the body can distract, make it difficult to ease into the meditative state (that a fluid individual has access to.) In fact, that was the whole original point of yoga... to prepare the body to sit/be in meditation. So, perhaps, in all practicality, the body must be treated first, in a physical manner, to integrate these possibilities.
Nonetheless, in the end, it perhaps comes down to awareness--and being able to make choices outside of the past (and outside of the pain,) so that we can treat ourselves well moving forward.
For the perfectionist, who is in danger of mental paralysis, treating one's self well may be, simply, to move in any direction... to transcend a decision that has become so stuffed with meaning that it has to be moved past to save one's own life.
At certain points in life, we may find ourselves in a position where a risk must be taken. We can get stuck in the uncertain future, as well as the past.
We may cry over dead leaves, and perhaps we should cry over them, but not for too long... as the forest floor is alive--and new things may grow. Flowers growing out of compost.
No comments:
Post a Comment