LIVING SYMBOLICALLY

My generation has been named and it means who I am. I will conform to it and our leader shall be named. I do not even blink or hiccup at that. I believe we got our own set o’ problems. We are gonna solve ‘em this time unlike the previous generation that fell down a well. It’s a great challenge to solve problems and we are well-equipped and aware but nobody has a clue the source of the problems, who they came from, or where. A poet said they came from solving previous problems, we laugh, agree and go on from there solving away. Mostly its about tightening your belt and directing your spending we are convinced. Cash. The banks can print more. We are going to have to buy clean water and air. Price is steep. 

My family has been named and it means who I am. I will conform to it and our leader shall be named. I do not even blink or hiccup at that. I believe! We got our own set o’ problems. We are gonna solve ‘em this time unlike the neighbors that fell down a well. It’s a great challenge to solve problems and we are well-equipped and aware but nobody has a clue the source of the  problems who they came from or where. An uncle said they came from solving previous problems, we laugh, agree or disagree, and go on from there solving away. Mostly its about tightening your belt and directing your spending. Cash. The government  can print more. We are going to have to buy clean water and air. Price is steep.

My job has a name and it means who I am. I will conform to it and obey our leader whose name will change. I do not even blink or hiccup at that . I believe! We got our own set o’ problems. We are gonna solve ‘em this time unlike the competitors that fell down a well. It’s a great challenge to solve problems and we are well-equipped and aware but nobody has a clue the source of the  problems who they came from or where. A comedian said they came from solving previous problems, we laugh, agree or disagree, and go on from there solving away. Mostly it’s about tightening your belt and directing your spending. Cash. We can print more. We are going to have to buy clean water and air. Price is steep. This is literally getting monotonous. I quit!

 

 

 BEAUTY WITH NO OPPOSITE

Here is my favorite song this morning-All Along the Watchtower by Dylan.

It is a short one that says volumes. Also, the beginning is placed at the end. A trick with power to sneak by the conditioned mind and the way words become our rulers before we notice. In fact, I'd say this morning all of formal education takes place in a jail built with words which form systems that are nonexistent in reality so that in Not Dark Yet the singer says he just sees no reason to go on since every beauty he has known has had an evil side. The question of the day is: 

is it possible to live a human life in a world, a parallel universe, in which beauty has no opposite? Not Two Riders but One. Neither the Joker nor the Thief. One Rider. 

I say there is. It remains a mystery why most who find that out only play with its amazing grace more or less in secret and stay stuck in the same ol' universe of duality where everybody suffers, suffers, suffers. Buy the record. Listen to the song. Feel its truth. Rejoin misery. It seems we want false security, in symbols, that much! How weird it is to want false security more than the real.

I watched some football. The slogan of all coaches in competitive sports is “Winning is all that matters”. What if there is a world here and now where winning has no opposite?  In his song “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” the singer says there’s no success like failure and failure is no success at all. It makes me feel, not think, there truly is no opposite for success. Secretly, every coach, when vulnerable, tells his players “if you do your best today you will be a success in my book regardless of what the score board says”.  What book is the coach aware of that his players also grasp immediately? 

In a Universe without an opposite for love when two lovers meet the whole thing is wrapped in “I love you”. Not in words. The fact! The fact is not followed by “or, I do not”. And the word is always followed by “or I do not”. Thesis-antithesis. All that follows ”I love you” in the suffering universe-that is, a ring, a promise, a license, a wedding then counting the days…that is entirely absent in the universe of love with no opposite. Does it exist? Do you know? This writer says it does.

Have one completely wholesome day. Hey, even an hour would amaze. Warning: people who analyze songs are bound to fall back into pairs of opposites when analyzing a poet’s effort at something new. There are poets and those who name them so who praise and analyze their work. They are coming from two separate worlds. A wild cat knows. The wind has the answer. They are the growl and howl of the poets.

 A Memory, Or

Once I was chasing a tiger in the forest 

When I was a Kid riding with pals in a Chevrolet convertible on the Drag seated on the back of the back seat my ass out on the trunk with my feet inside the car and a beer in my hand on a beautiful Spring day in Austin came on the radio blasting fully “Like A Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan and what I remember most of it was the line "You got nothing to conceal”. It followed the chorus line "How does it feel” and by then I was ready to allow the line to reach my deepest heart to show me for a moment there the feeling of being without a thing to hide from anyone…not even God Almighty. Like everybody who has heard it for the first time my response was “I never heard a song like that on the radio” and “they don’t play music like that from a commercial radio station” and what I really meant was “I never been affected thataway by a song before”. Thataway is when a song is so personal it is your song singing itself to free you up from an inescapable prison of bad ideas. When that happens one knows by actual experience, if only for a brief moment, what is meant by the term “paradise” and all its synonyms. And one will never be the same after that. And that is so even if it will take around two more decades for you to be ready to go for the feeling and find out for yourself whether it is real. 

 Let’s Pretend 

So, let’s play pretend good society for people to live under. Want to?  Okay. So, let’s pretend the people will vote for candi-dates who want to pretend they are lawmakers for the rest of the people to be governed by. Okay? Well, these elected lawmakers are only going to be able to pretend to make good laws that will make an incorrupt society, that okay? So, we will pretend the laws the pretend lawmakers make are really good, fair, wise, and pretend such laws will serve an incorrupt society we all pretend we want. Any problem? See any? 

Okay. Now the pretend fair and good laws are going to disappoint us unless we pretend the laws are good ones all should obey willingly. Get it? Okay. But if we really wanted a good society we are gonna be disappointed when these pretend laws are enforced. Understand? Yeah. Okay. Unless we are willing to pretend the pretend laws ought to be enforced in spite of the evidence. Is that understood?  Some people may protest the unfairness so we need to be ready to be rough…violent. Get it? 

Whenever anyone, a parent, for example takes a position of

I know

You do not

I’ll help you

nobody will be helped. In fact, the very person addressed in this manner will be crippled. Don’t you see why? With good intentions we murder. We murder the minds of our children in their cribs. The only real help comes from: I do not know. Only then does the mind of the would-be helper empty. And only an empty mind is brilliant enough for the task. You try it. Find out. I dare you. A door will open for you that you knew not to be there. Your life will flower. Do you understand what that means? Come on. Find out. Do not go to the library or bookstore. Try it. It must be your understanding not a borrowed one. 

 "You two are going to have to work it out”

as a direction to take when a problem arises instead of immediately jumping to “control” feels to me like a way whereby a real, far-reaching solution is possible  where "control" brings the opposite-always more and more far reaching suffering. Systems are replete with this. Has anybody ever learned anything worthwhile from being controlled by an outside force? A criminal can be imprisoned and punished, even executed. But, the source of any good that will come to the prisoner or anyone else will have to be love and patience…and that has happened many times.

Patience and love. Many, if not all, aboriginal societies we know of had this approach as naturally as is drinking water when thirsty. People have not always tampered with what is not their business and is beyond their understanding. Order is never manufactured. It does not come from a mechanical process. Such processes lead to disorder. Matter disintegrates. Order is. It exists. The way to find it is to cease controlling. In that state one is so very, very wise. What will unfold for such people cannot be predicted from the dimension of controlling. Try it.

 HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR LIFE?

Let me tell you of a funny way of looking at your own life. A child is born. That child is ignorant and quite messed up. The child almost certainly will become more confused with time and become so much so that he or she will need help according to the thinking of the child as molded by its society. Recognizing the need, the child is teachable meat. Through a series of teachers the child will attempt to find what he has lacked all this time in order to be “normal”. Can you believe that any human being can see in that deranged way his own life? It is so. 

Another way to see one’s birth is as a wondrous event that brings forth a wholly unique being, never has there been nor will there ever again be such a being, who has the assignment from within itself to do something marvelous and has all that is necessary to do just that without ever asking anyone’s permission nor expecting any reward. Expectations are so limiting!

 What cripples the clarity of one’s own perception is a drug. Love is known only by people with clear eyes to see it. Love is not something that is possessed and then handed forth in pieces to someone’s special others like candy. It is not in any way connected to being a grandparent or a parent or a daughter or son or sibling or anyone interested in attaching to another for support and sustenance. That is all a game. Trickery. Addiction. Love is not ever going to be used for a selfish interest. Quite the contrary. Love has no motive. Like that wild nightingale it comes and goes of its own volition and sings purely when it wants to and not on command. Take it or leave it. Do not even attempt to meditate until you are first clear. Clear means no inner conflict whatsoever. 

What is being mentioned is that clarity of mind is the first priority in life. Make no mistake about it. Life is given to those who can appreciate it. When one looks closely one sees that people who are not so clear are insulting the very thing they most desire. With a crippled mind they seek to find happiness and wealth and purpose and even whether there is God, and, if so, what is God. With a crippled mind they intend to seek out the divine, if there is any, and to use it to become something great. Only those who end that will know they are great. 

Another way to say the same thing is that only free people can love. The freedom required is freedom from confusion and conflict of any kind. It is easy to listen to someone who claims to be a teacher tell you he knows and you do not. Only someone not ready to go the journey to its conclusion will follow another. This is your life. No one else can show you how to go. You want a formula, an explanation, a spelled-out doctrine, etc. All one who is not clear can do is to give a great deal of attention inwardly to that very situation. It will clear as you do. You are the watchman on the wall of existence. You are your teacher, guide, guru. So, to be a good one you need to be clear about it. It is up to each one of us. However, we can encourage and inspire each other by showing the way is within, but only by going. The word is not the thing.