All Suped-up, and Getting Nowhere

I remember one evening, walking down a street in South Belfast, and I saw something that embedded itself in my memory, as if I knew that it was a metaphor for something I would later be able to make use of. And, here is me, making use of it.

I saw a sporty looking car, all done up with the expensive alloys and spoiler. I can guess from the outside, that the inside was all rigged up with a pretty impressive sound-system, because you could feel the bass from the relative safety of the pavement.

The thing that struck me, and amused me to no end, was that this impressive looking machine was maneuvering its way over speed bumps, which reduced this snazzy looking car to a snail's pace: the car's lower-than-average body emitting nasty crunching sounds as it passed over the humps.

This made me think about how we humans often create elaborate stories of significance about ourselves. Stories of significance, that are an attempt to set us apart from the rest: from our families, from our work colleagues, from our cultures. Yet, at least in my own experience, these stories of significance, as we make our way through life, can become a hindrance to our getting anywhere that we might want to go.

But, some of us would rather cruise around in circles, being all different n'all, feigning more significance than anyone else, than go explore the barren-plained wildness of the ordinary.

But maybe that's just me trying to be different.

Never underestimate the human desire to he holy, elect, and set apart...some people would go through persecution just to maintain it.

Change: and How to Avoid it

Many people long for change in their lives; at least, many people talk about wanting change in their lives: the healthier lifestyle, the better paid job, the more satisfying relationship, the more toned body, to do more reading etc. Whatever it happens to be, it seems that there are only some people who bring about those longed-for changes. But, why do so many people fail to bring about meaningful change in their life?

Some might suggest that change in our own personal lives is a matter of will power, and that failure to bring it about is purely a matter of weakness. The strong are those that change, and live the lives the way they want.

However, what if talking about change was a sure-fire way to avoid it? What if, we actually talked about change, so that we could avoid it? Surely that couldn't make sense....could it?

Well, if you believe that humans are pretty straight-forward, coherent kinds of creatures, then you would probably be at least a little cynical about this suggestion.

However, if you understand humans like I do...as often-incoherent, often-conflicted, often self-defeating, then, you would at least bend an ear in interest to what I have to say

What do we get out of not changing?

This is an especially hard question to answer for those who are finding the thought of change paralysing. To suggest that we get something out of the lifestyle, or behaviour that we are continuing on even though we may find it deeply unsatisfying or frustrating, seems counter intuitive. It is, at least, often in conflict with the stories that people tell of themselves. But, I am sure you hear these stories all the time, and maybe you haven't realised, but, you have probably been asked to nod your head along with these stories, in obligatory affirmation.

Stories of how I would love this or that, or to do this or that, if only bla de bla de bla...and oh, indeed, I will do that when...when the time is right, when I have enough money, when I've lost a few pounds, when my children grow up and leave home, or when elephants fly. Maybe, ashamedly, you are the person telling these flying-elephant stories. I know I have been.

What are you and I willing to exchange for that satisfaction, because it doesn't come free.

We humanoids are so habit-bound, that to bring about any change in our lives, will require at least, that we experience discomfort and displeasure on the journey to greener grass.

So, how much do you really want that change in your life?

The Millstone Feeling

You wake up

you wake up with a heavy feeling

it feels like a millstone around your neck

you feel it pulling you down

and down, and further down

into where?

into you

into the darkest most terrifying parts

of you

but the millstone is not tied

around your neck

you

are

holding

on

to

it

tightly

oh so tightly

clinging to it

like a child

to a

security blanket

in an insecure world

it is yours

but it is not you

you made it

through a history of grinding

will against will

existence against existence

and you have shared yourself

and given yourself

in its making

but it is not in your gut

though you feel it there,

and you do not have to go down

with it

and you don't have to drown

with it

today

not today

and maybe you can find the surface again

and look through jaded eyes

to find

dry land

today

and maybe tomorrow

you will remember

to hold your feelings more lightly

like the hold of a healthier kind of love

that we were never taught

We are Free to be Free

What are the powers that hold sway over your life?
What freedoms do you long for?

Freedom does not exist.
It is not a real existing thing.
It is not a tangible entity that one can touch.

We only get a strong taste of what freedom is
when we have reached the point of hunger
when we are starved of a thing
that we never even knew
until it was born in us
out of the raw soil of reality

and just as we do not truly know what we long to eat
until we are truly hungry,
we cannot know what freedom is or looks like
until it is not there
until it is an absence
until the absence itself becomes tangible

that is as real as freedom ever becomes
a vision like an mirage
that is born out of longing
hunger and thirst

and, so
like many of these words that
are nothing to us
and everything to us,
we can only truly visualise
what we long for
when we are starved of it

how much will you exchange for your freedom?

What sacrifice would you make, to overthrow the tyrannies that have held you?
[even if you have been the tyranny]

For freedom is not a reality
it is not an existing thing
nor an existing set of circumstances

but
it is an attitude
and
it is a decision
and
it is an intention

and for some that has been expressed
in their last act of defiance
whether is was a defiant word
or a defiant run
toward a fence
a barrier
that demanded
they swap their desire for freedom,
for an appeasement of their fears

and for them
the cry is
fuck you!
I am free!

Shopping for Perspectives

I was just thinking about what it would be like, if we could just buy a new perspective whenever it suited us, like buying ourselves a little treat...a gift from self to self. Maybe this is what we attempt to do with our New Year's resolutions. However, there is something of those, that resolutely stinks of the same old perspective, with the reins tightened up...and the fun squeezed out. No room for fun in our quests for self-acceptance. We think that we change, because we started going out running, and eating healthier...but, my inkling is that it is often change without substance....and the same old tyrannies still hold the fort...and rule the roost.

One of my little North-star thoughts, that guides me through times of difficulty, is that my perspective is contingent. Contingent, in that, it could very well be other than it is at that given time. My perspective, for good or for bad, has been forged from the fires of my history (even if how I see things may seem markedly different from the perspective I was born into)...and, another person could easily be in the same situation that I might (hypothetically) find myself in, but they could think about it, perceive it, respond to it, deal with it...in remarkably different ways. There is a whole spectrum of ways in which we could see the very same situation...even our very own situations...our very own immediate surroundings, immediate feelings...the stuff that is going on right here, and right now as you sit at the computer.

I am not really talking about our perspectives on the vast world that exists away from our own little corners, [although, this thought applies to all that too]...but, what really interests me is how we view ourselves...and the multitude of ways in which we could perceive ourselves differently. It is indeed interesting, when we use the variety of other possibilities to be a mirror to ourselves, how it is we are perceiving ourselves. When we take a few moments to think about all the other variety of ways we could look at our lives, and at the decisions we make or don't make, and at our behaviours...we realise, that we could see things radically differently, or even just a little bit differently. And yet, we are often so brilliantly resistant to the possibility of another perspective...we are often glued into place, refusing to allow ourselves a different perspective [with the exception of the New Year's resolution charade, which as I suggested before...keeps the old perspectives firmly in the driving seat].

If we managed a little moment of freedom, in that little rift of multiple possibilities, without feeling too nauseated, we might let our minds wander over the wild vast plains of contingency. We might even feel released, at least for a while, from the ways we often thought we needed to think about ourselves. It often seems to me, that we feel obliged to see ourselves the way we do, as penance for past family crimes [and I am speaking here, to those that feel weighed down...for there are some strange people out there who seem to be completely bouncy with self-empowerment]. Some of us seem to punish ourselves ceaselessly for some strange unspoken crimes against the family...as if the family were the mafia, and we now live in fear of being caught and punished...so in the meantime we give ourselves a little daily does of self-flagellation.

Anyways...fuck all that...all I am wanting to say, is that you could see yourself differently. You could you see yourself as more adequate...more acceptable...more lovable...more desirable...more able...more worthy, than you currently do. And it is infinitely interesting why you happen to be seeing yourself the way you do.


I speak to me, I speak to you.

I dare you to try this out as a little mental stretching exercise.

When you find a position you like...

...just sit in that position for a little while...

...and breathe...

...and enjoy

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust

This isn't just a story, this is the Truth

we are only ever talking about ourselves

me too

of course, this talking
is forever intertwined with some plot
regarding what is going on out-there
but,
contrary to what we tell our audience
what is going on out-there
is really only a small part
of the more major plot
that is really
us
telling the story of ourselves

in an act that would make any illusionist envious
we employ the sleight of hand
that throws the gaze of our audience-of-others
away from
us
onto the world around
us

we distract them
from stories that we rarely tell directly
toward another telling of our stories
one that we feel is safer
and takes the limelight
from
us
....to
.......some
................where
...........................else

we make suitable stories
out of
social theories
and
political theories

we tell stories of
art and history
of
science and math
of
theology and philosophy

we tell dramatic stories
writing our own special histories
of the world
telling versions of happenings
that we sprinkle magic truth-dust over,
rendering them
far more correct
than any other story-on-the-go

and
these stories provide
us
with a paradoxical cloak
where we
simultaneously
hide ourselves
and
reveal ourselves

but,
we are only revealed in disguise
as if we had fooled ourselves
into thinking we were not
the subject
of the story that we tell
in the encounter
between
us and the other

and

this illusion of suspended space
created by this
all-too-human act of trickery
lulls us into
heated debates
loaded with vitriol and violence
and

fooled into thinking
we we were not talking
about ourselves,
we alchemy
our thoughts into opinions
our feelings into stances
our fears into meta-narratives

and we will fight the difference of opinion
as if we were gods
in the world-of-rights
we will rage and seethe
when the other

does not align
does not conform
does not agree
with
us

even more so
when we believe that
we
are defending
others

speaking on behalf
of others

even others who have never
asked
us
to speak for
them

while we sit in our
positions
where we are the god
in the world-of-right
assuming the needs
of others
guessing the desires
of others

blurring the line between
righteous indignation
and
self indulgence

Weighing it up

I used to
measure deeds
by right and wrong

your deeds...my deeds

measure words
by truth or lie
measure experiences
by good or bad
quality, 
or a waste of time

measure people by integrity
or pretense
measure myself
as clean
or dirty
by productivity
or laziness
as managing
or stupid

and by many other measures
that were not forged out
of the shit of this life
but,
were hammered out
of the illusions of heavens
where ideals
thrive in ethereal balloons
buoyed up on immutable illusions
that will never burst

fuck all the measures
that are born in heaven
fuck all the measures
that are born
in unearthly places
in inhumane wombs

for they are not for me
and
they are not for you
lest we curse ourselves
and others
with them

hanging grindstones
round our skinny necks
far too near the ocean
of our own humanity

let curiosity
break apart
our
measures

let curiosity
redeem us
from
our tethers