Feelings, truthiness, dharma, karma, eremitic solitude, spice,strange wine, cool water, Thermopylae
I seem to be one of the few people in this venue who recognize that the quality of our feelings is not necessarily the most important aspect of our lives. I would rather feel terrible about the wretchedness of human nature or resign myself to a life of habitual failure than sedate myself with a comfortable fiction. However, I consider this a false dichotomy; these are not our only options. I believe that the truth can set us free--that is, after we allow or force our fragile hearts to undergo the eviscerating pain of suffering. I know the truths about myself: that no matter how hard I try to reconcile myself to the mores of society, the vastly different perspective of a friend or lover, and the ways of this all-too-human world, I always will manage to be at odds with institutions, groupthink, and herd morality; that no matter how much time I take to frame my thoughts and ornament my utterances, no matter how many deep breaths I take to calm my nerves and establish a tone of equilibrium, that all but a very few will misunderstand my message; that I am a bundle of perverted perceptions, an awkward Aspergian autistic astronaught (decidedly not a yes man) who is asphyxiated by the thin air of ironic frivolity and suffocated by the heavy atmosphere of formality and conformity; that I ultimately will fail, as all we mortals do, and will give up the ghost back to the wardrobe shop from whence I borrowed it; that my own feelings are too much for others, that my joy and my rage alike terrify them, that my insecurity and resolve alike alienate them, and that I pose more of a threat to self-satisfaction than a promise of contentment; that, hard as the road I travel and treacherous the perils might be, I am nurtured by the earth beneath my feet and uplifted by the indefinite spaces that beckon to be explored; that I will fall down repeatedly, seemingly defeated by the powers and principalities of this world, only to rise the next day, hale and hearty, ready to assay another ride beside my lord and master Don Quixote. While I am riddled with flaws, betrayal, and sins of all kinds, I can hold my head high, proud to be the son of my mothers and fathers, still a member of the Free Companions, still a dreamer, an idealist, and a student of Tao. And the biggest of idiots and the most wayward of fools, I suppose...