Will the Raven make the plunge? Will the Phoenix rise?
I'm overly dramatic when I write. I'm beginning to think that I'll never really change.
My last entry was from two months ago I believe. In it I predicted changes that would occur. Nothing happens as planned.
A friend of mine recently wrote about what she feels has been happening to me:
"It's like watching my friends get addicted to coke. You acting like a drug addict and forgetting what's important to you."
What is important to me?
Another friend of mine, who better understands what I'm going through, sent me these words:
"In discursive meditations it is imperative that one's growing disenchantment with mundane existence is complemented with growing confidence in the real possibility of true freedom and lasting joy that transcends the vicissitudes of conditioned existence. Without this faith and the yearning for such liberation, the meditations may easily result in profound depression, in which everything seems hollow, unreal, and futile. Thus instead of polarizing one's desires towards the single-pointed pursuit of nirvana, one is reduced to a debilitating kind of spiritual sloth.
-- from Balancing the Mind: A Tibetan Buddhist Approach to Refining Attention by B. Alan Wallace, just published by Snow Lion Publications"
We must not be so vain as to believe that what we experience and feel has never been experienced by anyone else. In the above quote, I see so many words that touch deeply to what I have been feeling: "...everything seems hollow, unreal, and futile....one is reduced to a debilitating kind of spiritual sloth." We create every metaphysical thing in our reality. True, we don't wake up and say "today I'm going to be sad." True, I don't seem to be able to say, "screw it, I'm gonna be happy and devoted." But emotions aren't wholly metaphysical. Chemicals in our brain, hormones, etc. are closely related to our emotions and therefore they are not wholly self-created. But the things which we value, the things we strive for, the things we believe are "important" are created by us. So what is this nirvana I'm supposed to be yearning towards? Spiritual debauchary is not a primary goal in my life.
So what is? In the only livejournal I ever read, a friend of mine referred (more or less) to electing to live out a sort of prison sentence which could be escaped from at anytime. I often referred to my experience in high school as being a bird in a cage, with the door wide open, but remaining because that is where I was most wanted. I told myself that I would stick it out, and then, when that part of my life was over, I would fly away. And where am I now? Living in an apartment of my own, working two jobs to pay the bills, shopping for a car because I can't borrow Mom's forever. All the while becoming more and more upset with the society I am submitting myself to.
I have goals, I have dreams. Things that I do, actually, consider important. But as I map everything out, I am amazed at the short life span of a human being. And that's if I die of old age, or at least late onset lung cancer. I decided I would stay in Jacksonville because I like my life here. Now I wonder just what it is I like. Newness, I guess. There was a vast contrast between my high school friends and my five points friends. Finally, I had found a truly diverse group of people. Finally, I had found a group of people around whom I could totally be myself, and I would be accepted, because my ultimate wierdness was nothing compared to these people. But now, now, I see that most of these people don't really see me at all, and that's the reason I can be myself. The conversations, oh, the conversations are wonderful. Bizarre, and all over the place. Sex, politics, music. Superficial, impersonal. Oh, it's not all that bad - as I mentioned I get overdramatic when I write - but that is how I've been feeling.
My friends from high school are and are coming back into town. Hanging out with them reminds me of how much I care about them - and how much they care about me. I used to believe that for anyone to "see" me they would have to understand me. But these guys see me. Moreover, they're healthy for me. In so many ways. If I am really going to do the things I want to do, I can't take advice from those who I spend time with now. No, I'm not dismissing everything my friends say, but there's just something...hard to explain...
Long story short, I need to get a grip. I'm drifting...drifting...I don't need to get a hold of the ground, but I need to find it, find it so I can fly.
Am I going through rough times? I would say yes. Others would tell me stories of their hard times, or of people in Rwanda where they have REAL hard times. But just because someone else's life is "harder" doesn't make my life any easier. Everything I used to value and hold as important is becoming a blur...insignificant. False. An illusion. I'm pretending, pretending so often. People are so used to smiling Garrett, that people scold me when I don't smile. They try to make me laugh, to smile. I play along. It's not that I fake happiness - it is sincere, when I'm with friends and having a good time. But when it's over, I'm back where I was.
I'm losing dedication towards everything I used to be devoted to. I forget things not because I'm necessarily forgetful, but because I don't care about them anymore, so I just let them slip away.
I have no sense of time. Be it hour, day, week, month, year - I get confused. This isn't a new thing, but it's gotten worse.
I used to have a whole, mostly detailed plan to tell people when they asked me what I was planning to do - stay at my mom's house, work and save up money, go to Europe, come back and either go to college or ministerial school. Now I'm not so sure. I couldn't handle living at the house...or at least I thought it was the house I couldn't handle. I thought if I moved out, had my own place, I would wake from my sluggishness and do something...even if all that meant was reading more, I'd be doing something...but it doesn't seem to be happening. Now I fear traveling. One of the only things I disagreed with that Emerson has written about is the pointlessness of traveling. That when you arrive in your far off destination your demons will stay with you.
This is important:
Too often we attach pain with the places and situations we are in. We seek to escape it by going somewhere else, or doing something else. This is not the answer. Our demons stay with us. The only good thing about running away is the realization that our demons are not planted in one place or time, but that we, ourselves, are our demons.
To dream of being happy with a nine to five job, a middle class income and an average life. To dream of my goals being moving up the corporate ladder and having a corner office. That is not unique. It is not unique to recognize that one does not belong in the "average" world. In the "expected" world. But I look around me, at my friends aged 22-42, my friends who do not belong in the "expected" world and do not live "average" or "expected" lives, and I have a new fear. Not that I will submit, but that I will always resist, always try to escape, without actually working towards anything important.
I doubt the actuality of Nirvana. At the same time, I often doubt the actuality of Love, only to feel it - fully, completely - from certain friends that many don't even know exist and feel that it is the only important thing.
I feel that I have woken up to a world that is not a world, but a figment of a world. I want to find reality, I want to find the real world, I want to find anything that's real...but I am so surrounded by illusions that I can't escape. I look around me, see that everything is an illusion, and I am afraid to walk forward because I know the ground below is not real.
It hurts sometimes. Most of the time it doesn't feel like anything. So many people who see what is happening to me want me to change. To remember nirvana.
But you can't be a Phoenix unless you fly into the flames.
My last entry was from two months ago I believe. In it I predicted changes that would occur. Nothing happens as planned.
A friend of mine recently wrote about what she feels has been happening to me:
"It's like watching my friends get addicted to coke. You acting like a drug addict and forgetting what's important to you."
What is important to me?
Another friend of mine, who better understands what I'm going through, sent me these words:
"In discursive meditations it is imperative that one's growing disenchantment with mundane existence is complemented with growing confidence in the real possibility of true freedom and lasting joy that transcends the vicissitudes of conditioned existence. Without this faith and the yearning for such liberation, the meditations may easily result in profound depression, in which everything seems hollow, unreal, and futile. Thus instead of polarizing one's desires towards the single-pointed pursuit of nirvana, one is reduced to a debilitating kind of spiritual sloth.
-- from Balancing the Mind: A Tibetan Buddhist Approach to Refining Attention by B. Alan Wallace, just published by Snow Lion Publications"
We must not be so vain as to believe that what we experience and feel has never been experienced by anyone else. In the above quote, I see so many words that touch deeply to what I have been feeling: "...everything seems hollow, unreal, and futile....one is reduced to a debilitating kind of spiritual sloth." We create every metaphysical thing in our reality. True, we don't wake up and say "today I'm going to be sad." True, I don't seem to be able to say, "screw it, I'm gonna be happy and devoted." But emotions aren't wholly metaphysical. Chemicals in our brain, hormones, etc. are closely related to our emotions and therefore they are not wholly self-created. But the things which we value, the things we strive for, the things we believe are "important" are created by us. So what is this nirvana I'm supposed to be yearning towards? Spiritual debauchary is not a primary goal in my life.
So what is? In the only livejournal I ever read, a friend of mine referred (more or less) to electing to live out a sort of prison sentence which could be escaped from at anytime. I often referred to my experience in high school as being a bird in a cage, with the door wide open, but remaining because that is where I was most wanted. I told myself that I would stick it out, and then, when that part of my life was over, I would fly away. And where am I now? Living in an apartment of my own, working two jobs to pay the bills, shopping for a car because I can't borrow Mom's forever. All the while becoming more and more upset with the society I am submitting myself to.
I have goals, I have dreams. Things that I do, actually, consider important. But as I map everything out, I am amazed at the short life span of a human being. And that's if I die of old age, or at least late onset lung cancer. I decided I would stay in Jacksonville because I like my life here. Now I wonder just what it is I like. Newness, I guess. There was a vast contrast between my high school friends and my five points friends. Finally, I had found a truly diverse group of people. Finally, I had found a group of people around whom I could totally be myself, and I would be accepted, because my ultimate wierdness was nothing compared to these people. But now, now, I see that most of these people don't really see me at all, and that's the reason I can be myself. The conversations, oh, the conversations are wonderful. Bizarre, and all over the place. Sex, politics, music. Superficial, impersonal. Oh, it's not all that bad - as I mentioned I get overdramatic when I write - but that is how I've been feeling.
My friends from high school are and are coming back into town. Hanging out with them reminds me of how much I care about them - and how much they care about me. I used to believe that for anyone to "see" me they would have to understand me. But these guys see me. Moreover, they're healthy for me. In so many ways. If I am really going to do the things I want to do, I can't take advice from those who I spend time with now. No, I'm not dismissing everything my friends say, but there's just something...hard to explain...
Long story short, I need to get a grip. I'm drifting...drifting...I don't need to get a hold of the ground, but I need to find it, find it so I can fly.
Am I going through rough times? I would say yes. Others would tell me stories of their hard times, or of people in Rwanda where they have REAL hard times. But just because someone else's life is "harder" doesn't make my life any easier. Everything I used to value and hold as important is becoming a blur...insignificant. False. An illusion. I'm pretending, pretending so often. People are so used to smiling Garrett, that people scold me when I don't smile. They try to make me laugh, to smile. I play along. It's not that I fake happiness - it is sincere, when I'm with friends and having a good time. But when it's over, I'm back where I was.
I'm losing dedication towards everything I used to be devoted to. I forget things not because I'm necessarily forgetful, but because I don't care about them anymore, so I just let them slip away.
I have no sense of time. Be it hour, day, week, month, year - I get confused. This isn't a new thing, but it's gotten worse.
I used to have a whole, mostly detailed plan to tell people when they asked me what I was planning to do - stay at my mom's house, work and save up money, go to Europe, come back and either go to college or ministerial school. Now I'm not so sure. I couldn't handle living at the house...or at least I thought it was the house I couldn't handle. I thought if I moved out, had my own place, I would wake from my sluggishness and do something...even if all that meant was reading more, I'd be doing something...but it doesn't seem to be happening. Now I fear traveling. One of the only things I disagreed with that Emerson has written about is the pointlessness of traveling. That when you arrive in your far off destination your demons will stay with you.
This is important:
Too often we attach pain with the places and situations we are in. We seek to escape it by going somewhere else, or doing something else. This is not the answer. Our demons stay with us. The only good thing about running away is the realization that our demons are not planted in one place or time, but that we, ourselves, are our demons.
To dream of being happy with a nine to five job, a middle class income and an average life. To dream of my goals being moving up the corporate ladder and having a corner office. That is not unique. It is not unique to recognize that one does not belong in the "average" world. In the "expected" world. But I look around me, at my friends aged 22-42, my friends who do not belong in the "expected" world and do not live "average" or "expected" lives, and I have a new fear. Not that I will submit, but that I will always resist, always try to escape, without actually working towards anything important.
I doubt the actuality of Nirvana. At the same time, I often doubt the actuality of Love, only to feel it - fully, completely - from certain friends that many don't even know exist and feel that it is the only important thing.
I feel that I have woken up to a world that is not a world, but a figment of a world. I want to find reality, I want to find the real world, I want to find anything that's real...but I am so surrounded by illusions that I can't escape. I look around me, see that everything is an illusion, and I am afraid to walk forward because I know the ground below is not real.
It hurts sometimes. Most of the time it doesn't feel like anything. So many people who see what is happening to me want me to change. To remember nirvana.
But you can't be a Phoenix unless you fly into the flames.