Balancing and Falling

Recently I read a book by Richard Rohr called "Falling Upward". It talked about moving to the second half of life. At this time in my life, I feel that I am moving into that second half as he describes it. This is becoming more and more apparent to me as I struggle with the feeling of unease I have in my job.

At this point, I am thankful for my job and I don't have the feeling I had years ago of needing to get out now. But I now realize that I am balancing myself between how I view life and how life needs to be viewed when working for a corporation.

Our whole first half of life is balance. Work/family/self all needs to be allocated a proper amount of time. We often hear of work/life balance in our jobs. We hear about the need to have "me" time, to exercise. spend time with kids etc. We balance between all these demands to create our life and raise our families.

But for me, the balance is very unstable. Like walking a tight rope outside in a strong wind. Back and forth, trying to stay on the rope. I think now I view the second half of life as falling off that rope, getting my feet on the ground, and not balancing life between the shoulds.

Maybe it's not even being on the ground. Maybe it is bouncing in the net, reveling in the freedom of not needing to balance. Maybe it is looking up at the sky and breathing freely, not worrying about falling off the tightrope because I am already off it.

It is my time now, to live and create life in the way I desire. No need to be awkward trying to balance but just enjoying the feeling of the fact that now that I am off the wire I can look at life without the worry of the fall.

Constructs as Cocoons

Had a brief thought today. People like using the caterpillar to butterfly analogy to describe a process of metamorphosis from one thing to another. I started to think about that some more and it seems to me the analogy goes much deeper.

I like to think that when we are born we are like the caterpillar. We come into the world hungry and exploring, exposed to dangers we don't really comprehend. We crawl and discover, eating and growing.

But from the moment we are born we begin to learn the ways of the world. Society teaches us what we can and can't do, what is acceptable and not. And as we feed on this we get full and build our cocoon.

I don't believe it is an inevitability that we will emerge from the cocoon as a butterfly. We may not emerge at all. The cocoon is built of all the constructs of how we were taught to view the world. We see the world through its walls. It is safe and comfortable. Why would we leave?

As we question things the walls of the cocoon may thin. This lets our view of the world change. But are we willing to break through this final construct and emerge? That is where it takes faith in yourself. Faith that what you are seeing is where you need to be.

Can we break through our constructs of this world and emerge as a butterfly? Do we even want to? These are questions that each person has to answer for themselves.

Technology - Is It a River or a Sinkhole

I was thinking today about the timeless and pretty much perfect analogy of life as a river, flowing sometimes slow, sometimes fast but always moving forward. And then of all things I started to think of technology.

On the surface technology has moved forward on a journey similar to that of the river, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always moving, always changing.

But underneath, is it really a river. I would contend that it is a double edged sword. The explosive nature of our current society's quest for a meaningful spirituality has been aided significantly by technology. But is it because of technology that such a need arose?

More and more the basis of all our machines is the computer. Unless you are buying basic garden equipment, a shovel for example, you can hardly get away from owning something without a chip. Even the shovel was probably designed for optimum digging. Computers are pretty basic at their core, 0/1 and any infinite possible combination thereof. In addition data is shared in packets, not in one coherent stream. The assumption is the 0/1 doesn't care about a single stream of thought, only getting it from one place to another.

It concerns me that we are trusting our selves more and more to a 0/1 mentality. Think of the analogies, black/white, on/off, and last but not least right/wrong. I believe that is contrary to our river of life. A river that is fluid and constant.

It feels to me that government, business, and even individual groups are becoming more and more a 0/1 collective. They don't see nor accept the gray.

But gray is what life is about isn't it? We are all questing, flowing with the river and discovering new currents that always teach us if we are willing to learn. So the 0/1 is contrary to what we as humans need. We need the gray.

So we search for a new spirituality that will let us keep our technology, but also allow us to be more than a 0/1 society.

But is is hard to swim against that current of technology.

Peace friends.

Muck Inspired Poetry

My recent visit with Muck inspired the following brief bit of poetry

But...

I complain, whine, philosophize.
But the sun is going to blow up.

Work seems unbearable.
But the sun is going to blow up.

Countries are at war. Crime is everywhere.
But the sun is going to blow up.

When can I retire?
But the sun is going to blow up.

What is my real purpose in life?
But the sun is going to blow up.

What is the meaning of life.
The sun is going to blow up.

Love

For many years I have pondered the possibility of two different aspects of love, love as a verb and love as a noun. I would define love as a verb as something more akin to an emotion. We use phrases like “I love him like a son” or “I love him like a brother” which seems to define love as an emotional state with distinct feelings and relationships associated with it.

I would also argue that there is a higher form of love, one that transcends the emotional and becomes more palpable and beyond emotions. This love unites us all so there is no more “loves like” but only love. In this love state it is no longer just an emotion but a description of a constant thing, thus becoming a noun.

But I was wrong in thinking that love as a noun transcends love as a verb. I realized this when I started to see the bigger picture in examining our relationships with life.

We are not our emotions. But we certainly have emotions, sometimes very strong ones. These often govern our reaction to a situation. We fall into love and out of love. We get angry, sad, and happy. All of these are reactions to specific situations or relationships – reactions that we can manage how we choose.

Many people like to remove love from the list of emotions. They like to think that love is not a mere emotion but comes from a more “holy” place. Love gets romanticized and made into what life is about. Certainly I did this when I split it into noun and verb. But I see now that love is just an emotion.

So if emotions, including love, reflect reactions, what are we reacting to? I believe now we that we react to something very primal in our nature. We react to a connection we feel but then internalize and attach emotions to. For instance, one may not like members of their family, but almost always would help them it they asked. This connection is something we can’t define but just is.

If we could learn to not attach emotions to this connection, we could experience our reactions to people or situations for what they really are, not how they appear to us in our mind. This connection is truly beyond words. But I believe in order to understand it we need to “devolve” in our thinking. Our evolution with spoken language and philosophies have gotten in the way of many of our primal understandings.

If we could experience all things at a more base level before we put constructs around what we see, pull it up to our “advanced” mind and tie emotions to it we would discover an underlying “current of connectedness” that reflects how we are related to all things. This connectivity is not about emotions but about something much deeper, much more primal than even words can describe.

I believe by tying our constructs of words, thoughts, emotions etc. onto this connectedness so we can define it to our mind, we are prevented from experiencing life. So let go of emotions and reactions and try to see how the current flows. It isn’t an easy journey, but certainly one worth trying.

Connectedness to you all!!

Constucts and Tapping into our Inclination

Recently I listened to a utube video by Hanakia Zedek. In it he talked about listening to our inclination. I found this an interesting concept. He didn't use the word intuition which we are often told to listen too. I translate intuition into something that speaks to external events, whereas inclination is that which we are meant to do.

We don't really need to know what this is as Hanakia points out, but merely need to be able to listen so as to make the choice that rings true with us. As a flower's inclination is to so we too need to do that which is inherit in us.

Though in philosophical terms this is easy to say, in real terms it is hard to pull off. I believe this is because the constructs that are created by humanity are at their base designed to prevent this from happening. What we think is created by these constructs. They prevent us from seeing the truth, whatever you feel truth may be.

I came to start understanding the concept of constructs and how they influence us by reading Buber (see 6/25/09 post). All life is encounter. I require a you for me. The constructs is how we understand that interaction. But to take it further, if I meet you in the construct I don't see the real you. I see the you I have defined.

For example, look at a tree. For a brief instant when you see it you don't think of it as a sum of parts but as an entity that merges with your thought. But pretty much immediately we break the tree down to its parts, defining the leaves and branches, whether it is an oak or a maple.

This is the construct of the tree. Not the tree itself. Our life is lived in constructs.

So what does this have to do with inclination? I believe that many of our inclinations often run counter with the constructs we have created. Constructs of success or societal norms. Which is why when we listen to our inclination and try to follow it, we find ourselves being diverted to other things. Of course this causes conflict in ourselves.

I know now that I have been waging this battle for years. The way I inherently view life tends to differ from the construct of life I have been taught. I have worked at fitting in, doing things the way the constructs tell me. But I have been finding this increasingly difficult.

My challenge now is to learn to see beyond the constructs and trust my own insight. Guilt, anger, frustration need not exist for me if I can learn to follow my inclination.

And what do I know of my inclination? It certainly is more people focused. I know it has to do with teaching, healing, experiencing. I keep looking for a career, but know the careers are just another construct. Instead of looking for a career, I need to start doing those things that make me feel like I am cruising downhill, instead of running uphill.

Peace all.

Minor Illness

Have been battling for 3 weeks with a couple of different bugs that hit me at the same time. What amazes me is how an illness affects my life. I become More inward focused, less tolerant, and start questioning the quality of life.

Of course this illness lasted a long time and caused me to cut my trip to San Francisco short. Could hardly get out of bed for a week. But still, should one really resort to such a "poor me" attitude.

If makes me think about all those people who are really sick, the elderly who have no one to watch over them battling with aging, all those people who have to live with some disability every day.

How do they keep up hope? How do they look at life positively?

So of course thinking about this I again come back to my blessings. And a deep respect for people who can take a less than perfect health situation and give other people inspiration.

Individuals dealing with long term illness or disabilities have to have a viewpoint on life so much different than mine to cope. I run into a few discomforts for a week or two and complain. Why? Because I don't really see my life as good. There still is embedded in me that need for success. Somehow I am just not good enough.

But what garbage. My life is truly wonderful. Friends, family, health. Is there anything really more?

Yes there is. There is an internal peace that comes from knowing that no matter what goes on in our life, we are alive. That whatever the mystery of life, we are a part of it. We in ways unknown impact those around us every day. We in ways unknown impact ourselves.

I vow to not lose sight of life, its beauty and mystery. I will enjoy it as long as I am living.

Old Rambling Still Applicable

Simone Weil in the book Oppression and Liberty states “Groups manufacture moralities for their own use, so specific activity is placed outside reach of evil. There is thus the morality of the soldier, the business man and so on whose first article consists of denying it is possible to commit any evil while waging war, doing business, etc. One accepts as an absolute value the specific morality of the social group one is a member of. Ones’ mind is at rest, but morally speaking one is dead.”

Simone Weil’s words have been true since the beginning of civilization through to the current day. Be it a street gang, a political party, or a national government, each has its own moralities that give them the right to do things in the name of that morality. Our country is no exception. And as citizens, we have accepted what we have been, as members we have been “morally speaking" dead. But as we awaken from our own personal sleep, we realize that the groups we belong to have the same collective issues, morally dead because the members no longer question motives and actions, but act without thought according to that group’s morality.

Our challenge is how to awaken our nation, our collective ego, and to start influencing policies that reflect a more thoughtful approach. These new policies can’t be based in absolute moralities. They need to be balanced decisions, accounting for the differences of the groups they are dealing with, whether a city, state, or another nation.

Our goal should be to awaken each collective group, to help each become aware that they have been marching in a trancelike state to the beat of the collective ego. At the same time we must use caution not to do the same thing, to judge based on our own view of right or wrong. By awakening these groups each can then start challenging and influencing decisions made at many levels.

Challenge with thought and love, not with judgement.