STRANGERS AND CRITICS

I may have a number of heroes or people who perform on a stage to create something beautiful whom I admire very much. But they from time to time show me they are just like me really and I question my own ability to spot a better human than myself. But, in the end, go on. Probably picking up some other humans to admire and dropping a few. An image of a separate individual personality pities itself for being someone who falls short no matter how hard I strive.  Short of what? According to who? Some of the time I even think I am at my best when not trying at all. Are we all that way, even the celebrities? The kings? The masters? The geniuses? The beautiful people? Strange world full of strangers. 

Strangers and critics. Is it that the game being played in front of my eyes is a desperate attempt by those put on the spot with a pretense of having a symbolic badge of authority (a president or a sheriff or a critic or a philosopher e.g.) to perform, or try to, a duty to point out who are to be  blamed among those celebrities who are supposed to be able to make up for the obvious lack inside the rest? Does that make sense? In other words, do we, the images, live in a society which has determined for the most part that the world is to be properly run by a small number special geniuses capable of creating new ideas to be passed down to the great majority of ordinary people? What if all new ideas are actually generated by the mass of people and the few able to voice them first are given full credit for the greatness? In schools, children are required to memorize the names of these geniuses so it must be the plan.

Remember a time when you were happiest. Were you not involved with a community of enthusiastic human beings so passionate about life there was no time…and certainly no time for evaluating images? Maybe it was for an hour or so or maybe longer, a year maybe, two? 

I know this. Once I was convinced that I was a failure in all ways. Since I had feared such an outcome for so long and had kept it at bay in a thousand methods of escape, the moment it became my truth I had to be totally amazed, blown away, that I was calm and breathing, sitting upright with a beating heart as just an ordinary man with no future and no more secrets to conceal. My mind simply ended the idea of ever having a future again and I do not know how that happened so cannot teach anyone else how it is done. Many people thought me a fool to be happy with no future. I cared not. That just flowed off me like water from a duck’s back. I did notice there was no more concern for what anybody else thinks of me. A man with no future cannot struggle there is simply nothing to struggle for. I had all my attention in now. However badly I failed all those years before, I was concerned only about the moment I am in. That much I was competent to do. It meant, hey, I can live here too! I was free even of the idea of failure. Could see through that concept and know its nakedness. Failure and success have no place in the life of one without a plan. Lately I have the urge every day for about two months to go outside with a tennis ball and throw it at a target I drew on a wall of my dwelling. It has been about 15 years since I tossed a ball. However, all the time I was aware that throwing a ball is a very good practice since the human body is designed to throw an object accurately at a target. It separates us from other animals giving us an advantage for survival. The first day throwing again was really awkward and mostly I missed by a mile. Second day a little better. But was quite pleased I could throw at all. Each day so far I improve. The throwing calls for a coordinated effort of every part of the body from head to toe…and the toe really matters. It makes me grow fully aware that ever since I became a man with no future I enjoy a coordinated life among others. I own nothing. I am nobody’s boss. Nobody’s teacher. Nobody’s servant or helper. Just one of the guys on a journey to be taken, not won. It has kept me engrossed now for 38 years.

These years I speak about I have carried a little black book given me by a dear friend which contains ancient stories. In one story a wheelwright tells that he can make the perfect wheel but he cannot teach his own son how to do it and his son cannot learn it from him. Such is the nature of what it is to be a living human being who escapes the wheel of suffering. It cannot be taught by anyone to anybody else. Anyone who finds it will never tell “I am enlightened” or “I have it!” for the obvious reason that “I” (separate self along with its future ) is gone missing in action. The separate foolish image is all who suffers. Nobody is enlightened. An individual has rejoined the whole and cannot explain that. Just knows that any explanation strengthens the image and makes it harder even to spot. A smile will have to do.