Thursday, March 08, 2007
The road to transcendence
Is paved in struggle, stumbles, falls, and scrapes. The journey is not ever an easy one and the way is not ever clear. In seeking, we are blind and clumsy from the very beginning. Even when we believe that our concept of the way forward is, at the very least, clearer than it once was, we still cannot be sure that our direction of travel is going to take us anywhere at all. Our only choice is to do our best and proceed on faith.
But what if faith falters? What do we do in those moments when our faith in the fates, the great spirit, or God begin to be battered by worries, questions, and time? Keeping the faith and not falling into despair can be a monumentally difficult task. We begin questioning ourselves, lamenting our circumstances, and faltering in our commitment to happiness. We lose sight of the possible and begin to focus on the failed, the regretted, and the missed opportunities. Our only choice under such pressures is to find a path back to ourselves, back to our vision and our aspirations.
I have lost some faith of late. The questions have begun to outnumber the assurances and the cold nature of reality has begun to send a chill down my spine. I've become acutely aware of my loneliness and in so doing have come to feel more alien than ever before. In this place, I cannot find someone who can truly relate to my situation, because people like me seem to be incredibly rare. I have tried to find people who think like I think, and behave as I behave, but I have not found one to date, and it worries me. It worries me because being out on a branch by yourself can be an incredibly lonely experience.
It's difficult to relate to others, because it is nearly impossible for me to make people understand how I see the world. I know that everyone has a 'unique' story, but mine seems to be on altogether different. To date, I have not ever met, or even heard of, anyone who has lived a similar experience. While I embrace that uniqueness and appreciate the perspective living this life has given me, I cannot always find comfort in it, so there are times when the price that has to be paid for being different becomes slightly more painful to pay.
If living life is the summation of a journey, rather than a predefined destination, how does one go about making the trek alone? In a place as sick as this one, where do we find the motivation to continue interacting at all? How do we overcome the paradox of hoping to find love in a world that has made such a mockery of the concept? No one seems to have any aspirations of redfining what it means to be alive, or in love. The world settles, takes what it can get, and looks at compromise as some sort of sacrificial rite. But compromise handicaps the vision and dilutes its purity. Compromise takes our ideals and stains them, to the point that they are tarnished beyond recognition. Where life, love, and transcendence are concerned, what good comes of compromise? What use is settling? While it is painful, it is better to go without and to be totally alien, than to compromise and lose any hope of finding what we hope for, or dream of.
Labels: life, spirituality
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"The Way is hidden deeply in all things.
It is the treasure of the good
And the refuge of the not-so-good.
With skillful words you can be successful.
With honorable actions you can be included.
People may not be so good, but how can you deny them?"
Translation: Tao Te Ching "Daode jing"
I love the Tao Te Ching, but there's a counter to that argument. The Gautama (the Buddha) is said to have believed that the final, and most difficult step on the path to Nirvana is completely letting go of all emotional connections to human beings. In this way, you free yourself of the entanglements and limitations brought about by our emotions.
Am I there yet? Unfortunately, no. Do I wish I were? You bet your ass! lol
the thing about being out there on a branch all by yourself is that it's so very easy to fall and get hurt... there's no one there to pull you up when you start to slip off. but that's the challenge, and personally i find the perk, of knowing i've got a branch that's alllll my own, to be worth every perilous second. i keep thinking of the "violent passion surrogate" from huxley's "brave new world." have you read it? i think he makes a point... it's good for us to live dangerously sometimes.
Wait until you've been out there for 10 more years. The thrill eventually fades. You become a master at pulling yourself up, but in so doing, become less compatible with most of the world around you. A majority of the world is codependent...relating to that will become increasingly more difficult for you. But there is most definitely an element of satisfaction in the evolution. While most of the people you will know will prove to be extremely dependent on other people for validation and reassurance, you will genuinely only need yourself and your own senses to set your path. That is a powerful thing, for sure.
It would appear that this mindset is something of a double-edged sword.