YOUTH AND AGE, CREATIVITY AND MEMORIES

It is important that we come to know ourselves so that we are not so unconscious that we find ourselves reacting to what is in fear and confusion. When we do this we affect the well-being of others and also create an ongoing pattern of behavior within ourselves. But “knowing oneself” is a bit like trying to hit a moving target as you yourself are moving as well. I have been practicing zazen for forty-five years, with many breaks but a consistency and somewhat of a discipline at times. I don’t see that doing this has necessarily affected me, but it has. I see that “knowing yourself” is a bit like the carrot held in front of the donkey to keep it going. But I also see that there is no alternative: if one is alive, then one must live, and to live, one must be alive; one needs to be aware of oneself and just how one is if one is to properly be in the world.

          Living your life is difficult, for you must be willing to accept that which seems impossible to accept. If you don’t, you go into a reactive state of ignore-ance. You cannot ignore what is. Of course I mean “me” when I say “you.” I see the state of my wife’s medical condition and I would do anything to be able not to. But this does not help her; in fact, it makes her life more difficult and painful. And “she” is not just her but everyone who suffers. I want so much that she could be happy and energetic, in other words, not the way she is. Accepting what is is always heart-breaking, for it demands that one give up their false reality, their dream of how life must be or even should be. One must grasp the new reality, even as that reality itself changes as life changes.

          The years of sitting zazen have given me an experience of a greater context of being, of existence, of self, though, within this context there remains a degree of ignorance and fear, anger and sadness, all as a result of my on-going failure to see and then accept things as they are. But even that failure I am now able to see as within the greater context of being alive. Zazen is not meant to provide an escape from the intimacy and loss and pain of our lives; in fact, it puts us right into it. Very gradually our self-identification is subtly altered; we become more than we thought or think we are. We get beyond ourselves though our selves remain with us. It’s almost like having a demanding child always present and needing attention, or, for that matter, a most sorrowful, neglected child always present and needing attention. We all have our reasons why this may be so and they can be quite valid, though always simplistic. It’s the story we tell ourselves. Mine is quite convincing: I was born six weeks premature, was put in a little plastic incubator with a heat lamp (like they use for motherless chickens), was bottle-fed and kept away from my mother for a total of three months. This naturally developed into autism, of which I exhibited symptoms for years as I was trying to “grow up.” And since I was never satisfied with the level of attention paid to me by my father, I was never happy with him, (and was affected with autistic symptoms), and was defiant, as a result of which he grew angry and was physically abusive of me as early as age three. His father had abused him; he felt that this was what was necessary. So I ended up as growing up as a “misunderstood child” who felt quite alone and could trust no one which did not prepare me adequately for “being in the world.”

          So, without all the details, I ended up taking a rather reflective and educational life path, which eventually more or less seemed to “work out” in most ways to provide me with a “successive life in the world” with responsibilities of a wife and two children. There were many disconnections: I just didn’t know how to relate as a human being. This was problematic and had many repercussions. For I never really learned just how to be a “real human being.” Finally, after thirty years and two wives and financial success and a family, I arrive at my third marriage with eyes more open and must more understanding and acceptance available between us.

          For the last number of year I have been “naturally creative” and desirous of actually being able to help others, for I earned a Ph.D. in Jungian Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology, and wrote a good, long-winded book on depression which actually did have the affect of touching a few lives. All that I had learned and experienced over the years and the workshops I gave at schools and to the public was provided; people liked it. But I had to stop to be able to become caregiver to my wife, for she was my main concern.

          I could still write so I worked on a fairly frequent blog but I began to lose focus on the creative aspect as “stories arose from within me,” otherwise known as memories. I realized that it may just happen that as one ages, past memories of events in one’s life appear strongly in one’s mind. I attribute this to the need to both review our lives with our many “sins,” and find closure, forgiveness, self-understanding before our lives end. Old people tend to talk about their memories, their lives, and thus “get it off their chest,” which seems to be a reference to the demon succubus or incubus that sits upon one’s chest in the darkness of night. Together or alone, old people talk it out amongst themselves, amongst hearers and listeners who are all fellow sinners, that is, have all made serious mistakes in their lives. Youth itself is a series of such serious mistakes in which our own natural narcissism wreaks havoc in the lives of others and causes deep hurt. So we must outlive our youth and spend the rest of our lives making amends. Work and family may fit into this category of “becoming an upstanding member of society.” I did—to all appearances, while inside I saw “right through” conventional society as though it were a transparent veil, never able to accept the seething, writhing mass that lay beneath it and stood behind it. I always did believe in the “goodness in the hearts” of people but also saw that they were crushed under the wheels of the great locomotive of society, progress, and what passed for organized truth.  The young are thus forced to find their own truth within their own hearts and minds.       

CYCLES OF BEING HUMAN

I am “driven” not by epistemological concerns but by ontological ones. In other words, it matters not a whit to me whether I believe in God or not, for that is not the question. The question is: What is the nature of being? To be or not be, that is the question. But since I already am being here and now, in light of all the pain and drawbacks and physical deterioration, I am more concerned with being alive in this body, though I realize that our lives, which include our ability to reflect upon our “condition” and state, should be used to consider and prepare for the state that occurs when our lives are done.

          I so often speak of “the great river of sorrow” that flows beneath the surface of our being and our awareness, for some, including myself, all too often overflowing its subsurface containment and overwhelming us, even drowning us. But in my experience when younger as a “body surfer” in the waves of New Jersey and even California, I have been engulfed and swept under by many a giant wave that turned, twisted, and threw me into hard and rough surfaces beneath the surface, but always to find myself rolled and scraped up onto the beach, gasping for breath. In other words, I have not drowned, but have been ejected from the mouth of the whale, as it were (though that, admittedly, is a rather different story). Still, it feels as if you have been swallowed whole and tossed into watery darkness.

          At this point I am rather accustomed to the supreme sorrow that arises and rules for a time. I cry tears for the pain of the people in their hearts and their souls, for we all are rendered as one in our humanness. We have known wholeness and the brightest light as inherent to ourself and remember this in some way even as we seem to float endlessly upon a great dark sea perpetually waiting to swallow us and does swallow us, only to spit us back upon ourselves once more. In time we may become aware of this endless process or cycle of existence. The walls we have constructed around ourselves seem to protect us from a threatening, invasive world, but they also imprison us within ourselves and our world. The world is in us just as much as it is outside of us, even as self-understanding and divine love is within us. Our sorrow is real; we feel it to the bone, to the essence of our being. And, as painful as they may be, our own tears cleanse us; the sea that swallows us also purifies us, washing away the walls we have built around ourselves as if they were sand castles at high tide.

A FEW "EXPLANATORY" THOUGHTS AND "THE BEST POSSIBLE PREPARATION" FOR LIVING

I am quite aware that probably not quite everyone writes a blog. For some it may be much the same as “taking a selfie,” which is to say, “Here I am. Look at me. Pay attention. I exist. This is proof to all!” As narcissistic as I may be, I don’t think that’s quite my intention. Today, while waiting for a PT session for my wife, I handwrote the following in my journal:

So I say what I say in my blog—which is my attempt to make sense of life and convey that to myself, though also to others. I feel satisfied that I am doing this, though also rather exposed to judgment from others (and myself) and some embarrassment. But life is a search, a quest. Life is a search for meaning and I have searched just about my whole life. I don’t know if it is right or proper to share such a seemingly personal quest. Doing so makes me feel vulnerable and embarrassed, but it is not just my search, my quest; it is something I believe I have in common with just about everyone. Thus I do not see it as only my quest. If my own experience or what I have to convey can help anyone to attain any insight or understanding in their own search, it is worthwhile. I have to accept myself in this role—with all my flaws and self-criticism—and the more I do, the more “natural” such sharing becomes to me. It becomes not so much a sharing of my quest but a contribution to all our quests.

And later, as I waited outside in the car, while my wife, moving quite slowly, shopped for a few food items, I handwrote the following in the journal:

All these endless tasks to do—but such is life; such is my life. I count my blessings. I am most fortunate—even though my wife suffers. I am here to help her, to take care of her. I will see her through it, believing her healing or improving to be quite possible—only a matter of time in fact. (Such is my perpetual wishful thinking.)  And I worry, yes. And I am anxious, yes. And I even have my sometimes severe pain, yes. But such is life and I know this. In truth, what else is to be expected? When the worse happens, the worst happens. And sometimes the best too. Not to worry; it will happen as it does. That understanding is the best possible preparation. God did not do it to us; he’s been asleep on the couch for billions of years. I simply don’t have a “need to believe” in that. Better to be able and willing to see the goodness in the hearts of human beings, including my own.

ETERNAL RECURRENCE, FATE, AND ONESELF IN THE GREAT MIX

"Eternal return (also known as eternal recurrence) is a theory that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space."

          This notion, in its "recent" form, was put forth by Nietzsche, but has its primary roots, at least in my own readings, in ancient Hindu belief, and also seems to be quite present in Daoism and Zen Buddhist thought. It relates to Fate as well, but what I would call a “fated fate.” I’ve had a copy of Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return sitting in my library for many years; it has finally made its way to my desk to be read. Nietzsche ended up in a mental institution; I have to wonder if this notion of eternal recurrence with its absolute inevitability and no possible resolution (and all possible resolutions!) had anything to do with that.

          Eternal recurrence or Fated fate (as I see it) is the repetition of existence and all that it includes over epochs and epochs, ages and ages. It may begin at a “big bang” and end as it is reabsorbed into a black hole to nothingness. Hinduism presents it as a period of seemingly endless existence which begins and ends, and, after a period of absolute nothingness, begins again, repeating itself exactly the same over and over and over. From a view of reincarnation, one is born and dies myriad times in a cycle of existence, and then the whole show repeats itself like a TV re-run. In one cycle, one may perhaps evolve over millions or billions of years; Hinduism and Buddhism would say so. The “fated fatedness” presents the notion that whatever one “knows,” whatever one has learned makes no difference; it is one’s fate to know and perhaps to have fear or ignorance within the very fiber of one’s knowing. This is one of my doubts regarding the gnosis of Gnosticism or any approach to “spirituality,” for being “we as we are” is our own fate. As Krishnamurti said, somewhat paraphrased, “we are the path that unfolds with each step we take.” Such a “path,” or such “knowing,” is not “out there,” rather, it is “here.” We tend to see the universe as external but we are the universe; we are the very breath that breathes us. That sounds most strange, I know. Now I’m faced with having to tie that thought in with the notion of Eternal recurrence, and I could say something logical and clever, but I can only say what I have experienced (and then corrupted through some kind of interpretation) or what has “occurred” to me as insight or even a “cosmic logic.”

          “Fate” has interested me for most of my life. It is by no means a negative idea to me. Rather, it is what happens and it includes me as an agent in my happening, but not as an agent that changes anything because I am already included in the equation or logarithm, if you will, of what happens. What happens, happens, even if I know what it will be. Now that sounds very much like the concept of predestination, which is Gnostic (which is Hellenistic) and Calvinistic, but is preceded itself by Vedic thought and, so I’ve read, by Egyptian beliefs. This line of thought leads me into “magic,” or what I would call the manipulation of the natural energies of physical and perhaps emotional “substance.” This is the substance of most religious thought and teaching, especially Judaism, and including Christianity. Those Biblical “miracles” are magic, pure and simple. (Though, to be fair, Jesus does say something like "Blessed are those who--without all the miracles--have eyes to see and ears to hear".) But I don’t like magic or trust it, for it is of the “lower nature,” the dense, physical substance: it is devilish in other words. Thus, I prefer the “bare bones” of Zen and the acceptance of fate, of the “suchness of being,” as is said. I think that this is the only perspective that can be put in place and utilized for the best with the theory of Eternal recurrence. It can be seen as Existential but perhaps without the “shit sandwich” of Sartre. If everything is going to happen in the seemingly endless series of reincarnations, everything is going to happen exactly as it happens. This is not to imply a passivity or negativity or judgmentalness at all: one is as one is, be it positive or negative, accepting or nonaccepting, etc. It’s all going to happen at one time or another. What we think about it, or feel about it, or know about it, or don’t know about it makes no difference. I find it very strange to say that but it seems to be the closest to what is true that I can get to. It is not a choice; it is simply where I am, where I have gotten to at this point. I would simply love to be a “believer” but it’s not there for me; I don’t believe that way. But I’ve been thinking about this too. There is the notion of “God” as some kind of “supreme being” (probably from the Baltimore Catechism I had to memorize as a young child in Catholic school) but this same notion, to me, is seen as “the goodness of people.” That is not something I "believe,” but, rather, something that is just “true for me.” Eternal recurrence, then, is another ride on this very strange, profound and profane roller-coaster.

      Some people are quite articulate as well as intelligent. I am neither. However, I am also "compelled" (in too many respects) to convey my thoughts to the ethers as best I can. And so here it is... Perhaps these thoughts could even be etherial.

FROM ROSE-COLORED LENSES TO SOMETHING ELSE

In my life I have had many beliefs and have seen existence through the lenses of such beliefs. One can believe so strongly and intensely that one’s own experiences are used as proofs of such beliefs. My systems of belief have been quite varied and often on different levels, as it were, simultaneously. I have believed in “God” from Christian, Hindu, Theosophical, Gnostic and other frameworks, as well as Buddhist, “natural” and American Indian perspectives. I have “followed” Jung, Trungpa, Blavatksy, Steiner, Bailey, Gurjieff, Krishnamurti, and others, and once interpreted life from an astrological perspective. At this point I don’t have belief in such “systems,” though some of them remain of interest. My view now is more “zen” in its focus on “emptiness of self” and what might be called the “falseness of thought, self-concept (or all concept), and so-called knowledge.” I now tend to observe everything, including what I call myself, more than to decide on the “truth” of anything, though I still do seek to “understand what life is,” what I am. To understand is to have greater control of life itself, which is to say to survive, the prime instinctual directive of existence. There is no getting around this, but rather getting right into it. To live our lives, we must live them, which is to say, we have to “get down and dirty” (a paradoxical Gnostic concept). We must know “impurity” to thus attain “purity,” or be able to actually experience and see our ego selves if we are to be able to get beyond it. And, to be quite honest, I wonder if it is simply foolishness to think or believe there is any “getting beyond it” at all. I don’t think it’s about “transcending ourselves” at all but rather just going through the stages or process of our existence(s) very much like a flower growing to maturity; Hinduism in particular sees the lotus is  as an apt metaphor: born in and of the earth, rising up through the waters of feeling and emotion, breaking the surface into the light, then opening, blossoming. Much more to this, obviously, but my point is that it’s all about being.

THE VIRTUE OF HOPING AGAINST HOPE

We expect much of life and of ourselves. Too much. Thus, life disappoints us and we disappoint ourselves. Life does not measure up to our expectations and we especially don’t measure up to our expectations, or perhaps, more importantly, our hopes. And so we find ourselves ultimately hoping against hope, which is to say that we still hope for an outcome in awareness that such an outcome is almost impossible, though still possible. It is the carrot that we hold before our eyes so that we asses may be on moving rather than stopping forever. We thus put a positive spin on the most dire of circumstances. I do, and I think almost all of us do since there is no choice but to keep on keeping on in light of our many responsibilities and choices and in light of our own responsibility to ourselves. We don’t have the option of walking away from, of abandoning, ourselves.

FINDING AND LOSING AND FINDING AND LOSING CONTEXT

That which has been most important to me in the living of my life is that I am “focused upon and engaged in that which is true, that which is real.” In so many words, that I do not waste my life. How does one measure the “value” of one’s self? I seem to think that a life spent in seclusion, “without distraction,” as a “focused spiritual being,” is best. I did spend time in a Buddhist monastery as a Zen Buddhist monk and also spent much time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur once upon a time. I was not impressed with either. And I was especially not impressed with myself, for after a few days, I was not “peaceful and focused” at all but absolutely distracted. I had to face the fact that life itself, that living in itself, is distraction; that being in a physical body that is meant to survive and having to survive in it is a distraction; that thinking and thoughts and emotions are a distraction: a distraction from the “higher being,” the “spiritual being” which is the essence of life. I have often questioned my attitude towards existence in this body here and now; it would seem that I think I’m “above it all” in some way. I do somehow think this, however, I have also “made it in the world” by being successful in business once and making plenty of money, taking care of my familial and social responsibilities, and so on. While it may be true that I was a bit of a sanyassin in my 20s, I did find success by my 30’s and retired by 40 to take care of my children, one who was disabled and required active caregiving. Now, in my 70s, I am again an active caregiver (to my wife) but also see myself, appropriately, as a sanyassin, more or less, though I have to wonder rather than wander. I am glad I have responsibilities that are other than myself, for, to be honest, I am utterly boring and just about that bored with myself.

          I see my role as one of not only “finding context” for myself, but also being able to convey such context to those in need of it. “Knowing oneself” consists in knowing who you are, what you are, where you are, and perhaps even why you are. Of course, such knowing is probably impossible; we are as moving targets even as we ourselves move—there is no nailing anything down at all. I think the most we can do is take all these fragments and make some kind of interesting mosaic with them. We are an undulating jigsaw puzzle with unlimited pieces of no particular shapes that do not fit into each other. So we make these fragments into a fragmentary story of ourselves as best we can—which seems fine and good in itself but is actually detrimental to us because “our story” really isn’t like how we have put it together. We have created something that has taken on its own life and is now “me” as I see myself and believe myself to be. Upon death, all the pixels of seeming solidity and reality, dissolve into something else. But, even while alive, we do not quite live because we are only our (and our culture’s and our society’s) version of ourselves and not really who we are. We just don’t know who we are and, for the most part, would rather not know, instead using our opposable thumbs to send tweets about what we had for lunch, and taking selfies to prove to ourselves and others that we actually do exist and are not just figments of our own imaginations (which are actually no longer our own since we see only what we want to see and what is trending in the moment). Descartes proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am.” But once we are no longer able to think as ourselves, we no longer exist as ourselves but as units in the matrix, as it were. People now prefer to be cyborgs. Living is much more convenient and without real choices, much less consciousness.