The sun is setting and the color is soft smears of purple-gray and bright orange-pink. But it's fading like a distant light. Black bats dark around above the tree tops.
I miss being lost. That place at the edge of existence. That place where you look out the window at darkness forever. You live like the deepest oceans in silence. Where no one stirs or bothers, or even puts light. Where the world may never know you exist.
That is a timeless place. You do not live for time.
I hate time. The only thing I want in life is inner peace. The only time I experienced it was when I looked out at the world from a secret place. Not isolation, though I do enjoy it. But from a deep inner place. It was synchronized with something emanating from nature. It was disconnected from pain, conflict. I came to love the present moment and every creature in that moment. I forgot all judgment and stereotypes. The man sweating in the afternoon sun, working on his car. He was a big black man and liked rap music, which I hate. I forgot any shyness or timidity. I simply went up to him, as though he was my brother, and asked if I could help. And he let me help him. And I felt at peace.
Being pushed by this world and its currents brings out the worst in me. But when left alone in a small, out-of-the-way place in the world, I begin to bloom. It is much like stepping out of a crowd and into solitude. Finally you have space to think, and gather yourself.
All I want is to wake in the morning light, and open my dresser drawer. To let the moths to lift out from my folded clothes. The old carpet under my feet. I want the right drawer nob to be missing. I want the windows to leak a little. Because the sun they still show, and whistle the wind on stormy nights.
Such a place is like being wrapped in your own inner conviction. That we should not look beyond today, this moment, to be happy. We must notice the fragments of ice building at the edge of the pond. The color reflected therein. The cold of our hands. The warmth of the sun. The fire in the ice. The light in the prism. We should live without burden, if at all possible. Because burden is unnecessary. Within all of us is the ability to live quietly at peace. Most do not want to do that. But if we do, we will be very happy.
Why? Because comparatively, it is many times more beneficial. Take care of your body, your few possessions, and appreciate the fact that you exist. Learn to be in awe that you have the freedom to walk beneath trees, and notice the texture of fungus with your naked eye. The dark wet odor of rot. The decay and life springing therefrom. The mushrooms lifting white heads in darkness. The rays of light crossing each other.
It doesn't have to be limited to the forest. Everywhere you go, notice the abstracts. Rather than seeing a building, a restaurant, where people eat. You can see the air, the space between you and the glass door. The light on the windows. The silver handle which one uses to open the door. The tile floors, the sounds. My goodness, the sounds. The scraping and frying and tapping and resonate echo in a chamber of brushed chrome and tile and steam. Life is a moving piece of art which we are privileged to walk through, right now.
People take drugs to see the world this way, but it's not necessary. I've never done drugs, and often deal with negative thoughts. It is when I convince myself to sit down, breathe, relax, and write the things that come to mind, that I realize how beautiful life is. My mood completely changes from oppressed to inspired within thirty minutes of writing or less.
Because, I reflect. On the things that are here, now. The things we are overlooking, for what? To maintain a belief that what is "good" and "happy" is far different than inner peace? To believe that entertainment and money are what is good? But I assure you, I have been to many beautiful places and felt nothing. And yet, in my boring hometown, I can wake up to the rain tingling nerve endings.
Our happiness is a state of being. It is an inward job. The whole world could melt down in nuclear fusion, and I, at the very least, could maintain an inward balance of security. I could still, in the present moment, be happy to be alive. What beats that? Constant worry ruins our lives, even before anything has happened. Unfortunately, we cannot remove all the endless things there are to worry about. They are HERE to STAY. So, relax. Be wise, don't do things that create suffering for you or others, and enjoy this beautiful present moment, within which you indeed are privileged to exist.
- journal entry 7/31/09
