The unknowable reality

“Look at the tree in front of you. Are you actually looking at the tree or is thought looking at it? Hear the crow cawing. Are you listening to it, or are you identifying the sound with the bird? Can you look at somebody without the image that you have about that someone?”
~ J. Krishnamurti

Alan Watts and a subset of other philosophers, such as J. Krishnamurti, traded in the typical workings of the human brain for a reality without thoughts, mental images, symbols, and other brain sponsored filters and coloring. Their core ideal was to not confuse the map with the territory – a common slogan for this movement back in the not so distant past.

Being a Krishnamurti fan back in my college days, I would often sit cross-legged in front of a big old tree, attempting to perceive it without any previous mental or emotional associations with the word “tree” or its image. However, as Krishnamurti would have likely pointed out, my effort to perceive with an empty mind would be filled with expectations – thoughts and images – of what a tree without memories of trees would look and feel like, and so any effort was doomed to failure, and it was. My noble effort was just as ridiculous as trying to hear and know the sound of one hand clapping, another one of those koans or puzzles offered by the thoughtless thinkers of the past – the gifted or practiced ones who “supposedly” achieved empty mindedness.

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Unfinished

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~ Lao Tzu

Despite the inevitability of change, you pursue the finished in people, places, things, situations, and achievements. However, nothing is ever finished, despite your habit of seeking the finished within the unfinished, your desire to finally ARRIVE and say this is my place, my time, my lover, my body, my property, my talent, my success, my legacy, etc.

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Going in circles

“There are patterns which emerge in one’s life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme”
~ Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Chosen

Does this place look familiar? Wait, we’ve been traveling in circles the entire time! We’re back at the same place, again! It looks a little different, but the same. Have we gone nowhere, not even one mile!

Sound familiar?

Often in life, we go in circles, circumnavigating the same old places or issues, meeting the same kind of people and circumstances, before ending up where we first began our journey.

Nevertheless, things always change, even if we don’t change, sometimes appearing a bit more ragged and run-down than the last time, or maybe occupied by a few more strangers. Tired, flattened down paths arriving at the same old same old, but eyes becoming more nearsighted with each repeated arrival, leaving pieces of the familiar old and unfamiliar new in the shadows. And so things look somewhat different, but mostly the same within one’s evolving tunnel vision.

The alternative is to circle back with new eyes, being more aware and enlightened than before, having learned a lesson or two, and ready for the next revolution with an adjusted attitude – the precursor to change.

Pit of despair

You straddle the present, keeping one foot stuck in the unfinished past and the other stomping down the uncertain future, leaving an empty space between your wobbly legs. You fill this vacuum – the devil’s hungry crotch – with all manner of dramas, meltdowns, obsessions, addictions, self-delusions, and a lifetime of meaningless fucks. And this is how you pass the time, counting down the years of a life with no present tense; feeding the universal pit of despair with everything but the kitchen sink.

Your new normal

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
~ Albert Camus

You expend tremendous energy trying to survive this demanding, unforgiving, unbalanced world; hoping to find just a bit of happiness before the game is over.

The traditional, normal approach, is to make whatever efforts are deemed necessary to survive and possibly thrive in this world, usually following some previously prescribed set of rules for success, and this takes up the bulk of time during your early and middle years. “Keep up the effort, stay positive, and live to fight another day,” they say, “and your cherished dreams will come true!” This is the Traditional Normal.

The abnormal, as it is commonly referred to, is when you’ve finally given up or reached your symbolic dead end, but feel too overwhelmed with despondency to even realize this, thinking you are just too exhausted, getting old, or suffering a mental health issue. This becomes the New Normal for you and the burgeoning, disillusioned older generation; the prime fodder for today’s psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries.