Friday, November 14, 2008

Expectations...

Surrendering expectations is the key to psychological and spiritual salvation. This is the core of the Buddhist idea that desire is the root of all suffering. Expectations are a form of desire, perhaps the most insidious form, because an expectation is desire manifested with a skin of entitlement stretched over its illusory nature, so that it seems somehow solid. In reality, expectation is desire given imaginary solidity and validation, so that it becomes something accepted and anticipated in a way that generates a perception that the expected event is inevitable, or at the very least highly probable. Of course, there are other forms of expectation. As beings walking the Earth with minds clouded by expectation, expectation dictated by circumstances and perceptions, humans are intrinsically reliant upon anticipated outcomes informed by experience, which are effectively little more than faith.

Where the average American might expect to live life placed somewhere between relative comfort and absurd levels of excess, while the average Ethiopian might only expect to face another day of starvation and misery, struggling to survive. For the time being, discard the moral implications of these contradictory realities, because they are irrelevant, because there is no reason to believe that, were their roles reversed, either person would act any differently living in the other's circumstance.

These expected realities are irrelevant because the future is an unknown quantity. What happens next is entirely beyond any sort of absolute control. In reality, the future is just another expectation, an illusion we cling to, so the American could see his/her way of life collapse, and the Ethiopian might see the weather, and his/her fortunes turn, so that food is once again adequate, and the vestiges of civilization have the potential of being reestablished. Our expectations are transient and often times fickle, they rarely have to have anything to do with reality.

His mind pondered these things while answering emails, submitting tasks to Mother, and sipping coffee. Hey Jude by the Beatles buzzed in his headphones, an interesting counterpoint to his mental wandering. Self-awareness had exposed him to enough of his own illusory expectations, and the trivial nature of their substance, but he was not yet wise enough to fully grasp the broader picture being painted. Hopefully, that will come in time, or if time runs out, in death, or perhaps the after life, or the next life, whatever form it might take. That was the beauty of such thinking, as he conceived it. These types of thoughts were infinite and potentially endless in their scope. They would only end when his mind finally went completely quiet. He was absolutely aware that there may be no conjoining such ideas with reality as it is lived, but did not see this potential impossibility as a torment, but rather a lifelong source of intellectual exercise. Something to occupy his mind as human civilization goes through its endless contortions.

His own expectations, of himself, his mind, his body, his world, are all mistaken attempts to generate a predictable world fueled by his desire for some (any?) level of greater understanding, but in desiring this knowledge he only guarantees his persistent failure to achieve it. To move forward without expectations of any kind is to move forward with any hope of real insight. Expectation generates a bias, and that bias can easily hide truth.

In his ears, the Beatles sing...

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better
And anytime you feel the pain
Hey Jude refrain
Don't carry the world up on your shoulder
For well you know that it's a fool
Who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Hey Jude don't let me down
you have found her
now go and get her
remember to let her into your heart
then you can start to make it better
so let it out and let it in
hey Jude begin
you're waiting for someone to perform with
and don't you know that it's just you
hey Jude you do
the movement you need is on your shoulder
hey Jude don't make it bad
take a sad song and make it better
remember to let her under your skin
then you begin to make it better, better, better, better, better!

Laaaa La lalalalaaaa lalalaaaaa Hey Jude!

Saturday, November 08, 2008

People are strange, so it gets stranger

Alcoholics are said to experience a moment of clarity when they have finally reached the point when a life spent nuzzling up to liquid escapism is no longer tolerable. They lose their taste for the drink, or can no longer bear the consequences of their need for inebriation, and find a new way to cope with their internal struggles. In some way, maybe that is what our anti-hero is trying to do, find that new way. He does not imagine himself an alcoholic, in that his way has not been destructive, but it has been dysfunctional in a way that leaves him desiring the alcoholic's clarifying flash of personal insight.

For most of his life, certainly all of his adult life, he has depended on abstract ideals and high concepts of existentialism as sources of justification and validation for what can only be described as an odd nature. He held fast to these ideas when almost no one could see any sense in doing so. In many ways, he lost touch with reality and spun off into a world largely of his own making. On one level, this invisible exodus was a means of seeking out some coping mechanism. The world around him did not make sense, in that many of the people around him seemed mentally or morally deficient. He began to believe very strongly in his own mental superiority and used this as a means of pulling himself up and away from a mass of humanity that began to exist in his mind as the "unwashed masses". This is how he came to see the word "average" as an insult, or even an excuse for acquiescence to the tireless drive of social conformity.

"These people have to be stupid. There is no other reasonable explanation. They are stupid, there is no point in fighting that. There is no point in being any part of that. There is no point in being a part of 'them'". That was the thought process that made alienation more attractive than normalization. By most accounts, this made him stronger psychologically, but left him with a glaring emotional deficiency. When one disconnects willingly, there is little to keep you tethered to the shore, so you begin drifting out to sea.

He began drawing conclusions based on intuition, rationalization, and in some cases, blatant supposition tinged with the pungent musk of prejudice, but almost nowhere was experience to be found in the foundations of his thinking. In practice, life became an exercise in seeking out comrades who would validate his thinking, while progressively closing his own eyes to alternative conceptualizations of what it means to be alive. He drifted, eventually finding himself very far from anything he recognized, and he set himself to pondering his situation.

What he realized encouraged and scared him. He had meandered so far into the distance, he had become something of a strange, distant animal. He was unwanted, and did not want anyone, so that his situation became both discouraging and empowering. In one hand the shame of not being desirable, in the other, the freedom of having no specific desire. The Buddha would say that he was probably in a transitional state, or taking his first step on a long journey that would lead him right back to where he started; nowhere and everywhere. Others would probably say he had moved a few inches closer to losing it. Can one suffer a slap to the ego and a spiritual affirmation in the same moment? The question lingered tantalizing and ominous, as he realized just how tired he had become...it is time for some rest.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Number 44

Barack Obama, a mixed race man, will be taking the oath of office in January of 2009. The year he was born, Southern blacks were still being attacked by dogs, fire-hosed off of streets, and hung from trees by men dressed up like children on Hallow's Eve, all because they had the nerve to demand equality. At the time, America's South took pride in defecating on the Constitution. The situation may have continued everlasting if not for the brave men and women who decided enough was enough and began what would become the American civil rights movement. Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and innumerable others died so that Americans of African decent, many of them the grandchildren of former slaves, could enjoy the most basic human rights. A little over 40 years ago, these men and women stood up for human dignity, and after years of death and degradation, they won what was essentially the final major battle in a prolonged war going back to the dawn of this nation. In many ways, Barack Obama embodies the culimation of their efforts.

At the time of Obama's birth, mixed race relationships and marriages were constibutionally prohibited by some Southern states, schools were still segregated, and blacks were still very much marginalized to roles of menial labor and servitude in the deep South. Whites Only restaurants, bathrooms, and stores were common throughout the Southeastern US. Black men were routinely attacked and killed for offenses as minor as talking to a white woman in public. All of this was happening well within my parents' lifetime. It wasn't only the South which embraced such ignorance. Even in exhalted places like the Kennedy White House, a place some referred to as Camelot, blacks were handled as if they were unpredictable animals, no matter the level of their education or status. For instance, a black staffer in Jack Kennedy's White House was prohibited from being left alone in a room with white women, because white staff members were afraid he might molest or coerce their white female coworkers. That was the America Barack Obama was born into and now he has been elected to lead it. That is a massive, paradigm shifting reality, regardless of where people fall on the political spectrum.

These thoughts meander through what is left of ta 30-something office drone's mind as he browses the homepages of FOX News, CNN, USA Today, and the endless expanse of online news outlets. A sip of coffee, a few minutes to skim through a transcript of Obama's victory address, then it's on to an article about McCain's concession speech and the unraveling of his campaign. The day after America's 44th President was selected, the reaction is very mixed. Some of his friends, people he considers extended family, were posting blurbs to their Facebook and MySpace accounts proclaiming Obama a racist and a Socialist. A couple declared Obama's supporters to be idiots, asking "what is wrong with people", a rhetorical question tinged with frustration at the fools who would dare vote for someone other than John McCain.

Funny thing is, the drone doesn't feel like a fool, or an idiot, he feels like someone who voted his conscience. Obama is not a racist, so far as the drone could tell, and given Obama's mixed race heritage, it is hard to imagine a man raised by two white women known to have showered him with love and support being a hater of caucasian America. Of course, the drone and millions of other Americans could be wrong, but it is a time for new ideas and a new direction. After all, this is not the America the young drone grew up believing in. The country he sees is a place divided by ideology, governed by greed, and run into the ground by a white executive aristocracy. It is hard for the drone to accept that there is not inherent wisdom in putting a middle class, black man who knows what it feels like to be at the bottom of the economic barrel in charge of remolding the fragmented remains of a once mighty titan into something smarter, leaner, and more responsible. So much damage has been done in the pst 8 years, drastic change is necessary, and there is nothing more different than a mixed race, mixed faith man who once saw his food being bought with food stamps. A man intelligent enough to make millions of dollars practicing law, or authoring books, who chose public service as his calling. There is much to respect in this man.

Certainly there are questions. The drone sees every human being that walks as questionable, but with those questions comes a real sense of hope. At a time when the once mighty giant finds itself bloodied on its knees, Number 44 will be charged with coaxing the titan back to its feet. The task is a daunting one, given the damage done by the outgoing junta, but the country is out of choices and there is no time for slinking away from challenges. Meanwhile, the drone finishes his coffee and moves on to the sad and almost desperate task of keeping himself employed in a country balanced on the brink of Depression.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Comet Spirit

He likes to imagine the trajectory of his life as a wayward comet moving relentlessly toward its inevitable end in some unknown, unmapped corner of space. Distant, aloof, almost mystical in its alluring power and inaccessibility, the comet makes for a compelling metaphor, but the reality is that a life is more like a leaf tumbling to the ground. Where the comet is as old as Universe, the leaf is young, short-lived, and eventually destined to be disassembled and absorbed by the elements of Earth. There is no question that he would prefer to be the comet, with all its power and celestial majesty. In his mind, the physical aspect, the biochemical aspect of his reality, would work wonderfully as the comet's icy vapor trail. After all, the physical is temporary and in a perpetual state of decay. In his mind's eye, a vision of the ghostly cloud trailing off behind a brilliant, glowing comet as it rushes through space is the perfect metaphor for physical life. Tiny bits of its mass are shed through time and space, leaving behind fragments that become anonymous components of the infinite ether.

Yes, being a comet would be a fine thing. One could set one's self off in a direction without worry or anxiety about what lie ahead. The movement would be the thing. Progress, all of existence would be about progress. Not necessarily progress toward a goal, so much as a perpetual, forward progression. The concept makes such intuitive sense, he argues. This world, this life within this world, these things are three dimensional and irresistibly forward in their nature. Even the Buddhist who declares there is no when but here and now must recognize that the physical state of here and now is perpetually changing, so that there is no constant but change, with history being a snapshot of the self at that moment which is left behind and discarded, even as it is still developing. In this way we leap from moment to moment, depositing our own cosmic dust as the perpetual motion machine that is time, or physical decay, advances apace.

With every grain of icy dust, the ball of ice gives itself over to a finite contrail beginning at birth, and exhausting at death, with chronological life lived in between. Being a physical thing, the material self, like the comet, is subject to collisions, interference, and transformation. One day, the material self is healthy and powerful, then in the blink of an eye, or the passage of several decades, that same mass of molecules and energy dissipates and becomes a diminished artifact of some previous moment. In this way, the comet spirit sees its Earthly self as an eroding sandcastle in which it must attempt to grow comfortable.

The motorcycle's exhaust pounds its voice back into his consciousness. This must be what it sounds like to be an artillery shell flying aware from a battery at full song. Each explosion instigated by an eager spark plug agitating the indifferent air and gasoline occupying the machine's heart. Could this be the sound of a comet soul making its way through this multidimensional world. It certainly stirs his spirit in ways he does not always understand, but at the moment, it might simply be the last sound he ever hears, should he fail to get his mind back in the here and now.

"Goddamn I'm a mess", he muses to the inner lining and membranes of his skull. With bleary eyes he focuses on the road ahead with almost no hope of being able to be right now for a long time.

Perhaps we are not comets after all, but merely tree leaves flipping and flopping to our respective grand finales in the dirt. He would rather not find out today, so he points two wheels toward home and pushes the infinite nothingness that contains every thing from his active mind.