Thread: 2009-07-31

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

Hah, sounds a lot like my current dilemma. Uncanny. Its amazing how narrow minded we tend to be, and how much of the world we block out at any given moment. I'm currently so bored of where I'm living, this town I grew up in, but I guess in actuality I've grown numb to its subtleties and nuances that make it what it is. I look intently forward to the future when I go back to school and label the present as a rut I'm stuck in, but I'm just ignoring the real problem.

Its difficult to change how you look at the world for the better. The mind is a tricky and elusive thing. We're all addicted to security, of which a large part is accepting the old and rejecting the unknown. Changing one's nature or the way one looks at the world requires a lot more than passing verbalization or willpower, it takes effort and ingenuity.

Letting go of judgments and stereotypes as you did is profoundly important. Throughout my life I've condemned people as shallow or ignorant, without really ever questioning why. Upon doing so I found its because differences make me lonely. As a result I condemn others to justify it, hiding from the real problem. Now I realize that no matter what a person's characteristics are, even if they're different from mine, are their own. It doesn't make anyone intrinsically better or more valuable than me, it just makes them different. Upon understanding this I've not only let go of that negative vanity, but I've learned to enjoy my own company far more.

I had a drug phase for a while for the mentioned reason. Being more aware of the world was great for me. But you're right, people don't need them. They distract people from the truth that they can achieve those highs on their own. Upon realizing that I've since not taken even a sip of alcohol. I suppose if it were offered to me I'd take it, but I don't rely on it for anything now.

Anyway I suggest you read some of Jiddu Krishnamurti's works if you haven't already. 'Freedom from the Known' or 'The First and Last Freedom' are definitely worth the time. He won't provide you with answers or a path to take, which is kind of the point of his teachings. His teachings are meant to let people know they're the only ones who can find 'the truth' or whatever you want to call that elusive state of mind, and provides you with a starting point.

Thank you, I will look into Jiddu Krishnamurti's work. Actually sounds very interesting.

Nice thoughts. Thanks for the reply.

When I was single, I lived with one room mate, who was gone most of the time. I worked only a few days a week and made enough money to just be alive. It was an interesting experience. Instead of letting boredom get to me, I learned how the quiet can draw you into a certain frame of mind. That is, simply appreciating the fact that you are alive.

It's kind of like, when stripped of almost everything but the necessities, I took more notice of nature, light, sounds, existence, perception. The feeling of a season in passing. I had the time to notice these things, rather than being consumed by some agenda for obtaining "more." We don't need so many endless material things to be happy. It was also very pleasant to be kind to strangers that I would normally shut out, as you mentioned, hiding. Hiding from differences that make us uncomfortable. I admit I may never approve of some of the things people do. But I don't focus on that. I look for the good in them.

I still struggle, that's why I write a lot. Going back to that frame of mind, even though I'm busier these days out of necessity, taking care of my family. I miss being single only because I could live this way, without a lot of distractions. But I love my family too much to ever want to leave them. So now I'm trying to figure out how to do both...

Live in a very still, perceptive way, appreciating the present moment, while still taking care of a wife and baby girl. The thing I need to do is shed unnecessary stress and anxiety.

I read a few Jiddu Krishnamurti book previews on Google. He keeps touching on something very familiar. His writing style is a little hard to follow sometimes, though. But out of the midst of that, something beautiful occasionally pops up:

If you listened to the sound of bells with complete silence you would be riding on it -- or, rather, the sound would carry you across the valley and over the hill. The beauty of it is felt only when you and the sound are not separate, when you are part of it... Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essense of life, the very essense of daily living. To listen to the bells, to hear the laughter of a peasant as he walks by with his wife, to listen to the sound of the bell on the bicycle of a little girl as she passes by: it is the whole of life, and not just a fragment of it, that meditation opens.

I get the idea that he's often talking about quietly watching, observing, rather than role-playing. If so, I've experienced what he calls meditation, and I like it.

I think the books are mainly transcriptions of the many talks he gave, which would account for the atypical style. Because of this they also tend to be very repetitious, constantly driving at the same rather basic theme. It can be tedious if you look at it that way, but I find the mind listens at a deeper level when something gets repeated rather than stated once. For that reason I enjoy it. Also throughout his spectrum of topics there are tidbits here and there that provide a new way of looking at something, and those are usually priceless.

Its amazing how this stuff can kind of take a back seat when things are busy. I currently have a mind-numbingly stressful job in customer service, and its really difficult to change my perspective when there's hardly any energy to keep it up. The real trick seems to be turning those situations into something positive. My co-worker who has the subsequent shift has a knack for that, and can turn every situation into something fun and/or novel. Even the more stressful ones.

Despite these busier times I think we're capable of more than we think. Maybe its just a matter of going about it differently. Anyways good luck with exploring this new territory.

Nice post. I feel I can relate sometimes, when I'm at school feeling locked in the system.