Staying Focused

I see the years ahead of me, the shadows, the pinhole of light at the end and I endeavor on almost a daily basis to discover what it means to understand, to grasp, and to observe what I need to do as the days, weeks and years puddle together — how does any one of us keep focused on what needs to be done with our existence? Is that not the essential task before us? (!) Everything else is persiflage.  I write, I think, and I consider and no answers are apparent except to pose another question; answers are eunuchs. I don’t believe we need to go around like crypto-Hamlets asking our to bes or not to bes. Cleary, I know that my peristent inner dialogue with my self comes up dry almost every time. I am not interested in living the good life. I am concerned with living life, moment to moment.  The bibles of the three major religions are fairy tales, often poetically expressed. I need no codified wisdom. Heaven and hell are human constructs to make other human beings obedient. The only readings that have guided me are the works of the Existentialists and the “teachings” of Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti is an eternal intellectual nag and I find him useful in my journey. I am not a disciple of his work, for that is slavery and conditioning. He keeps me awake and in that way I will not become the mental sludge of a Hannity, Rove, Coulter, Beck, O’Reilly and Cheney. All of whom are really dead human beings. I try to avoid the daily pollution of this culture — the media, the press of technology, religion, political parties, all are institutional cages.

This rattles me on a daily basis — what is my intent, my purpose as the globe spins. I don’t believe I am cursed or bedeviled; I believe I am asking the right questions perhaps incorrectly or not clearly. I seek not to transcend nor to be spiritual, forms of narcissism. As soon as one accepts the dogma and doctrine of church or of the culture, one is lost. To ask a serious question is to shake the world. I cannot explain why I do what I do except that it is one of the many built-ins of my character, to wit, my ethnicity encourages questioning. The other explanation is that I am a fluke — or a writer — or an intellectual.  I don’t need to know. I ask in order to embody my life in some fashion so that the time ahead is used creatively, structurally, not so much to attain an epiphany but to come to my end with satisfaction and sensibility. You all know how empowering it is to do something well and to continue to do that for some time on. I associate to my efforts trying to master the yo-yo, which I never did, but in that purposeful play, the frustration and the inability to attain some motions in space, in a way calmed the young self. To be on the way to master or to own a purpose is to feel congruent with the world. I think I want to do more than that but the words to describe that seem, tonight, beyond my grasp. I associate to Krishnamurt’s astute observation that the word is not the thing itself. So all writing, in this sense, is only an approximation of what is.

A fellow therapist might opine that it is all characterological on my part — so what else is new. It is part of my character and I own all of it and I feel fortunate to have this gnawing worm that seeks to penetrate the soil above to get to light. I am inarticulate here, and I have struggled and do struggle with this all the time — no, not the meaning of life, or truth, no, no. I seek, as analogy, to lift my Grecian spear and hurl it toward the target, whatever that may be; I aim not to arrive at the target; I aim so that the path of the missile I have cast is straight and true, and has directionality to it. Oh, don’t we all have that feeling that if we were truly unfied or “together” as individual human beings how different we would be and act in the world, engaging the world from a clearly defined self. That would be thrilling, but not all. I’d rather work from moment to moment, in choiceless awareness, as Krishnamurti, termed it, in observation of the world, listening with the third ear, to be within the ground of every and each moment — for me, that would be helpful as I make my way to my end. Give me one hour of that majestic self-understanding and I need not live the rest of my days as lint.