accepting less and calling it more

[devil_in_heaven]

so many people seem to just wander through life, grabbing at the crumbs that get them through the day.

as the architect says at the end of matrix: revolutions, "there are levels of survival we are prepared to accept" -- which leaves me wondering about people in general: is this all really as good as it gets?i doubt it. sitting around for the past

Comments

[devil_in_heaven]

yes i agree with what you say, it is a fine balance, rather like the mix of strength and dexterity required to play football.

the sad part is that for most of the people i know, including myself, in the past year or so, we dropped the ball while thinking we were still running for the goal. not satisfied with the truth, we invented new rules to mitigate the embarrassment we were feeling over losing sight of the goal.

going to NZ forced me into a state of symmetry between practicality and empathy, possibly one of the only times this has happened in my life so far: i was challenged to be as much of myself as i could be, using every available resource and strength that i possessed, and making it all work in equilibrium.

i recall how painful it was to return to sydney, and to the routines to which i'd been party to: endless nights of drug taking and celebration, much of which would extend into the next day, sometimes the day after. it was like a grid being re-imposed over a soul that had taken flight, and save for a few, nobody noticed the change in me. we were used to not looking too deeply into others, probably through the fear that the things we might find would reveal something unpleasant about ourselves. for some, the party would end and they would disappear from sight, not to be seen again; but we didn't care, there was an unending stream of new randoms to remind us that we were onto a good thing. what we didn't accept was that the further we pursued this apparition of living, the further divorced from our capabilities or potentialities we became. some, like myself, have paid an enormous price for that negligence, while others are even now slipping into the jaws of hell, and scrambling to deny even that. it makes me sad for them; not ready to live and not ready for the death that follows such folly.

teaching kids to surf was the most celebratory thing that i can recall ever doing. having to be responsible not only for their enjoyment and learning of what could be a difficult experience, i was also attuned to the fine line between joy and death: the waves are truly deadly, even when one knows how to handle themselves in such conditions. children of 8 to 14 years need constant guidance in those moments and look for the answers in those whom they trust to provide them.

i guess in a way it's a metaphor for the drug bingeing that was simultaneously taking place around me, teens looking for validation of their "decision" to expire the mystery of life from view and replace it with a world in which they can be whatever they want to be, with no judgement and no recrimination. early on, when we respected the ancient concept of ritual, it was good, even positive. later, when we confused that idea of ritual with the more contentious idea of ritual as repetition, in absence of a well-developed guidance system, everyone began sinking like stones, to the deepest levels of despair and, to spell out the truth, boringness. no longer could "random" events happen because people were either unattuned to themselves to the point that recognition of such events failed, or they were simply so messed up from the last binge that they lacked the strength to do anything other than cover it up with more bingeing.

i wanted to say more on this, to express how my approach to things have changed. LJ won't let me post the rest as a comment, so instead i've posted it as an entry (click to activate)...