Sometimes it seems like I am looking for things to write about. But I've found more important than looking for them is the practice of just opening myself up to allow what needs to be written about, to flow out onto the page. And that is usually how it goes with these things. No agenda. No idea what will come. Just an open flow - a dialogue, like a conversation between you and I, sitting right here in the coffee shop that I like to write at.
Where do we go? What should we talk about? Well, what do YOU want to talk about? Tell me. Send me a message, a comment, SOMETHING just so I know that you are reading and engaged. (and I'll pretend like you are saying it right to me and we continue...)
It seems we are striving towards.... something. Like we are all after a bigger slice of pie from life. It seems like everything goes great for some time - we are engaged, inspired, and uplifted by our daily activities. We might even be trying new things and dropping old habits. We do this for some time. Life seems like it is actually an experience we can enjoy. Wow! How cool it is, to be alive and to actually appreciate BEING alive. It seems we so often miss this simple truth. That being alive is a gift to be cherished and appreciated. We miss it, and then what ends up happening?
We are back in the dumps. The dreaded down slope. Spiraling downward for an indeterminable amount of time, with no end in sight. You know what? It happens. We are supposed to go through these. Whether they be big or small - we have these circular yet ever-ascending ways of evolving ourselves. Don't worry - it does end. Sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better.
Why does this happen? It is to remind us - we are no greater than our weaknesses. Yet it is these weaknesses that gently nudge us towards the ever-greater reality that we are beyond the suffocating and defining labels we place upon ourselves. We are not the things we succeed at nor are we the demons we battle against. Yet when everything is going good in life, we get so attached to the ideas that we are the ones pulling the strings and making it all work.
Ha. Ha. Ha! Yeah, right. Did you make the light bulb that you turned in this morning to brush your teeth? Do you even know how to make a light bulb? I thought so. Just for the record, I don't either - and I don't even really know how they work. I just know that they are, and that is about as far as I want to go with that one. Because as soon as I start to buy into the whole defining thing, trying to understand electricity and blah blah.... I lose my ability to appreciate the magic of it all.
There are mysterious beyond our comprehension ALWAYS and in ALL WAYs governing our existence. Try not to forget this. Remain in this perpetual state of open curiosity towards the WHY and HOW, yet never reach a definite conclusion about whatever we are questioning. If we can remain in this space of openness and receptivity towards the world around us, we can focus on the thing we really want more than anything else. Which is... what?
We probably only care about one thing above all others. Certainly this is true, because when it is absent in our lives we wonder what is missing and try in a million different ways to fill the apparent void. We all know it to be true yet we are often deceiving ourselves to protect from the soul-crushing truth that the things we invest most of our time in are not the things we really want to begin with. What?! That is insane! Filling our day with things that don't matter?!
Don't get me wrong. I'm not here to make anyone feel bad. I'm often provoked by bigger causes to stir the pot. Because I need to hear it, too! The biggest cause I can possibly conceive of is the one where we are all moving together in the same direction. Of course, we might move towards that thing in different ways, yet the ultimate goal is the same.
I've spoken around it, I've avoided labeling it, I struggle defining it. Yet we all know what IT is. IT doesn't matter what you call it, nor does it care. Because IT just IS. No matter where you come from or what you believe, it is fundamentally part of our existence and it is the ultimate driving force behind why we do what we do. It really is what we are all after and the moment we admit that to ourselves and get on with it, we can move forward in a progressive manner.
I'll call it what I want to call it, you call it what you want to call it, and together we promise to let whomever else call it whatever they want to call it also. Yet can we agree on something? Can we agree to just give our best effort towards that thing? Can we agree that if we do this, and we don't try to impose it upon anyone else, the world might just be a little better place to live? Can we acknowledge how this sort of paradigm shift might allow us to actually experience life in a more upward spiraling manner, perhaps more often? Can we see that failing to do so will make it seem like life is against us, and not for us?
I am a fan of life, and I am a fan of all the expressions of it. They can be good or bad, yet the truth is that we are all alive and at the core of it all, that is about as good as its going to get.
What makes you feel more alive? Do more of that.