Letter to a Friend

…

I have been meaning to write you and say you’re not crazy. I am really sorry for how I must have treated you last summer. I just re-read the email you sent me last fall and a lot of the things you said rang true. Even my response to that was cold and unfeeling. Since we parted, I met someone last September who basically reaffirmed all of your complaints. He’s used the phrase “hot and cold” to describe how I behave towards him. The hard thing is, I don’t do it on purpose and I’m not even aware when and how I’m doing it. I have begun to conclude that I must be an incredibly selfish person. Essentially, I am incredibly attached to an idea of independence and freedom, and the moment I sense any infringement on that I go haywire. I tend to demonize the thing or person that seems to be impinging and this results in me treating them like an enemy and/or making them feel like they are an inconvenience to me. Making them feel like their needs are wrong or unimportant if they conflict with mine. In sum, my attitudes and false attachments to some arbitrary and probably unattainable notion of independence results in me making people who are close to me feel like shit if their own defenses aren’t strong enough. Even worse, my nature disarms people from their senses first, because I am open and nurturing with the effect that people trust me in response to my seemingly loving, blatant honesty.

It’s a huge contradiction. On the one hand, I crave real human connection, honesty, openness, support, and love. On the other hand, I shut down when people take me up on the offer. I run away. I close off. I make them insecure. Even Shannon has told me the reason she remains my friend is because she “admires my independence” and had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to pick up when she called and I’d get in touch with her when I wanted to.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t want to be a person of empty promises. I have an inkling that my notion of independence is entirely false and I need to eradicate my destructive relationship with that notion. None of us are independent, after all. We are all products of the universe, inherently brothers and sisters with everything from the grass on the ground to the hair on our neighbor’s toes. I must realize that gaining the responsibility of establishing truly loving relationships is not a limitation in any sense. Quite the contrary, it should work to set everyone involved free.

I’m just having trouble with this, though. I feel like I can begin to conceptualize it, but that isn’t enough. How to internalize it. How to live it.

What I’m saying is this: I realize that I hurt you. In doing so, I also imprisoned myself. That explains why I began to feel that I didn’t like who I was around you. I haven’t fully analyzed any of the particularities so unfortunately I can’t articulate them for you. But you are right; I’m liable to end up very lonely if I don’t solve the barriers I face internally which prevent me from letting people love me and vice-versa. Hopefully my life’s nowhere close to ending because I’ve got a long way to go and lots of learning to endure.

…

Love from a friend who gets down,
who clowns,
who trips and falls,
who’s trying to do some kind of best. And failing a lot. But making some progress, I like to think.

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For Joy

Mimamsa says those who remain in samsara (the cycle of suffering) do so in ignorance. But what of those who simply believe they love their suffering? And those who would rather remain in suffering than perform the work required of exiting from it. These simply forms of ignorance?

The other day, a girl said to me: “I just know that enlightenment isn’t for me in this lifetime.” Okay. What can I argue that with, when someone blatantly tells me and themselves that they’re not willing to do what it takes to embrace the joy they were created to eventually achieve? It’s the excuse about a certain position on a path. An excuse that I have used, that in ways I continue to use, and I’m unsure whether I buy it anymore.

We live in a (Western) culture of hypocrisy. That is not to say hypocrisy doesn’t exist outside this culture, just that I see now that I wade within a gaggle of people who think one way and do another.

I myself am one of these people. And I continue to be inclined in thinking that I do not know how to act in accordance with my beliefs. What does this mean, practically? How does it look from moment to moment, decision to decision? Here I am, reverting to old habits that are manifestations of my suffering. And I know now that it’s not a matter of stopping myself from engaging in these habits. Rather, it’s about changing whatever is the cause of the habits. At the root of them. And what I believe is that the cause of suffering is failing to engage with and act upon your inner truth, guiding knowledge. Essentially: ignoring God. But, I ask, how do I engage with God amidst all of these societally-imposed obligations? And is the answer to find myself within these limits or rather to eliminate the limits and thus more firmly direct myself towards the listening of the universe? Perhaps some are able to stay grounded within the obstacles and others need to escape them to find truth? Is this the difference between monastic and tantric methodology?

Does activism matter at all if your actions outside of it conflict with your beliefs? Does anything matter at all if you do not behave in line with what you feel and what you know. I feel, I do, that I cannot make real change or difference in anything without first knowing myself and never straying from that.

I long for him

like pieces missing in a rainbowed puzzle

of mine own Truth

everyone else pales

all connections seem forced and putrid

I wake up wishing I were on a floor, coldness outside and chipping paint surrounding. The most limited resources engulfing us and yet both needing nothing but the nourishment we feed one another in simple presence.

But I cannot go to him because I want to feel whole. And I cannot go to him because I want him to feel better. I can only go to him when I’ve disbanded all illusions and I sincerely want him for no other reason than because that’s what’s inside of me.

It can’t be a mind-thought. It can’t be a heart-thought. It is only a source-know that can lead me to him again. [God I hope to be led to him again]

And the why it isn’t now

is because I continue to make simple mistakes and I know they would result in abuse of what we share, like they already have. And I can’t go to him until I am secure in myself. So I can understand and look him in the eye and explain every treacherous act for what it us and be resolute in knowing that such treachery has sparked out like a gradually-weakened flame and no longer appears to waver me or shake any foundation.

I wish to be ready now

but i know if i went now he’d spy my weaknesses and they’d remain him in torment (because they keep me there, and we are One).

And I want to believe we could overcome them together, but I fear crossing that line into a path of needing him to assist me. And the last thing I want to do is come to him solely out of belief that he can help me ascend.

The only way I want to come to him is from my own intuition. Disbanding overuse of mind and overemotionality. And our stars are so aligned that surely their magic will allow happenings to unfold in a manner conducive to our workings together

as long as I am able to do my own work

and not stray from that work. Regardless.

And I am still not achieving there. But even so, hope holds out for me because I know my potential so well.

And here I go.

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Feel Your Human

“It’s hard being a family.”

– KW [Lauren Ambrose]

The movie allowed the story to remain and properly reached into its depths. The terror and the brilliance of it were well preserved. The soundtrack was entirely intuitive and young.

And the thing I love about this movie (and the book preceding)

is it shows mistakes. Everyone in the story is constantly making mistakes. They suffer from moments of weakness, from lapse of judgment, from too-big emotional reign, from selfishness. And the mistakes affect the outcomes of the situations in serious and confusing ways. This story is about love and about remorse. It’s about learning. It’s about not having the answers and making mistakes even when you mean well.

The ecstasy of love and community was there [sleeping in a pile]

The reach of someone’s frustrated anger was there [concern for Carol and his ability to destroy everything]

The resolution wasn’t there and that’s what makes this story so brilliant. Because though Max is folding into his mother’s arms at the end, we know that he isn’t going to be happy forever. Life and circumstance will come for him and he’ll be responsive to that. He will hate again and be selfish again and break someone’s heart again because that’s what happens. Eventually he may learn how to hold things up higher,

but it takes practice. And I’m not sure perfection in happiness is a reachable goal.

We’re all full of blemishes.

And though we can wish for a life of ecstasy, people (and ourselves) are going to make mistakes and deny us that. So we must feel and hold these mistakes, then release them upwards as balloons and move on.

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