Caviar Monkeys

If I were a monkey

who had been fed on caviar

for the first few years of my life

I could end up

spending the rest of a short life

holding out for caviar

refusing to find sustenance elsewhere

or I could learn to palate

other more humble flavours

from other sustaining foods

that would help me survive

and the reality is

that those more humble

maybe even mundane foods

would provide better nutrition for me

me, the little monkey

with a penchant for caviar

the luxurious foods

would have long term ill-effects

and I think this is the case

with significance

for this is the thing we are fed

in our early formative years

and we can end up hankering

after continued significance

starving ourselves

of the ordinary satisfactions

that initially taste too bland

even, too repulsive to stomach

and we get the gag reflex

because something in our mind

has already chosen the repulsion

and has us gagging

and so, we hanker for the luxury and starve

or
we learn to live more ordinary lives

Better the Devil you Know

The essential difference between an escape and a distraction is to do with location. With an escape, you go somewhere else, but, with a distraction you stay right there where you are.

Many people that think they are escaping, are simply engaging in the act of distracting. This is so, because, there are no easy ways out. There are no get-out-of-jail-free cards in life outside the illusion. In a world where the jails, are the lives we have created and maintained for ourselves, and the bars of the cell are our behaviours...freedom can only exist in change of habit.

With a distraction, we don't go anywhere, we just whirl stuff around in front of ourselves to take our focus off where we are standing. As soon as the distraction has lost its momentum, we get the dawning realisation about where we are, and see that we haven't budged an inch, and start feeling anxious and hungry for another distraction.

We might call our distractions 'escapes', hoping to convince ourselves that we have gone somewhere else altogether different, when this is rarely the case.

In the movie Collateral, Jamie Foxx's character in the movie, is a taxi driver who has fooled himself into thinking he is escaping his life-as-it-is, when actually he is hooked on his life-as-it-is. His behaviours are so fixed and unchanging, that he appeases himself by staring at a postcard of a sunny destination. This is a destination he will never arrive at because he is distracting himself. Distracting himself enough, so that he can avoid the difficult and daunting movement that freedom necessitates.

But, what is he, and what am I, and what are we distracting ourselves from?

Change

Terrorised by the devil we don't know

People don't want freedom, they want comfort

Or, at least, they want both,

and for the most part

will sell their freedom in exchange

for the subtle lure of comfort

and true escape and true change

will only come

when we put freedom over comfort

when the devil we know

is killing us slowly with boredom

maybe its time to take a ride

with the devil we don't know

Lest we Forget

We get together and remember

our tragedies and our losses.

communites large or small

sharing its grief or disbelief

and we say,

it is good to remember

lest we forget

and we remember

our wars, holocausts and genocides

and we maybe hope

that by remembering

we will prevent these

horrifying acts

from ever happening again

but,

how do we remember,

and

what exactly are we remembering?

I ask these questions

because I think we can insulate ourselves

from the realities of

what humanity has proven itself to be

by remembering

with a sense of disbelief

we can keep ourselves separate

from the vile evil-doers

as if they were born of hell

and we were born of heaven

we can remember

in a way that helps us

keep a mythology

about human progress

intact, and unedited

this kind of remembering

keeps ourselves

lost in a little mist of innocence

where we stay

baffled and bemused

by the acts of others

and we would far rather

stay that way

than find out

that all those

perpetrators and victims

were ordinary people

like you and me

that fell either side

of that all too fine line

that any one of us

could find ourselves

on the wrong side of

but, isn't that is too close for comfort?

so lets forget

lest we remember

Fixing the Leaks

I think that we oftentimes convince ourselves that avoiding things is easy, as if to avoid the difficult and the challenging, were to embrace the stress-free life. Some have become so used to avoiding things, that they call themselves lazy, as if this behaviour has become a part of their identity. We may even come up with clever meaningful stories about why we don't do particular things. We can avoid things for all sorts of reasons. It can be from lack of self-belief, fear of failure, or addiction to established comfort zones, or any number of self-created, superstitious, narcissistic narratives. However, it is erroneous to think that the avoidance is easy, and energy-saving.

Avoiding things is an action. It has a hidden intentionality behind it. It is a repackaged resistance. It drains energy in hidden ways, that will leave us lethargic and apathetic. It steals the energy that we could otherwise be putting into addressing our fears, and steals the opportunity of finding a truly personal fulfillment. Personal fulfillment, can only come through challenging our fears, and expending energy in that general direction. Our fears communicate to us what matters to us. Fear is the field in which our treasure is buried. We can leave it there and never find it if we so wish.

Avoidance is resistance. Resistance expends energy, but it is a use of energy that is like a leak in the system. It drains away under the surface, and you lose the energy you need for things that might be important, significant or meaningful to you.

If we are not putting ourselves to things, if we are not challenging ourselves in some way or other, or if we are avoiding the things we fear, we will end up with lives that feel stagnant, repetitive, mediocre, empty, boring, meaningless and without worth.

We can not expect to have lives that feel meaningful and significant, if we do not channel our energies into tasks, if we do not challenge ourselves, if we do not take some risks.

Things...what are those things...those things we avoid? A broken relationship? A risky vocational venture? Being truly ourselves with others? The better life?

Fix the leaks, divert your limited energies, direct them toward living the fullest life you can muster, in this blip of time we call life. Not because we must, not because we are obliged to, not because of what others might think, and not because it matters; just because you might feel alive again, and we all know, even if only from distant memory, that that feels good.

A Pleasurable Resolution

Keep your vices

Keep your guilty pleasures

Let your new resolution be

to get rid of the guilt,

not the pleasure

isn't life difficult enough

and short enough

so why would we want to deprive ourselves of pleasure?

Yet,

guilt drives so many of us

and we will get caught up

in purging ourselves

of our

unacceptable behaviour

less controlled behaviour

childlike behaviour

human behaviour

purge ourselves for our failings,

we the priest, we the sinner

handing out our own penance.

Do not steal away from your life

instead,

add to your life

bring more and more richness to your life

let it be textured

let it be pleasurable

find as many things as you can to find pleasure in

these may be new activities

and fresh experiences

you have never before explored

make it your goal to free yourself

from guilt

from shame

make it a year for finding ways

to live more fully

to live more freely

of course,

we may not even have that many pleasures in our lives

as we currently exist

or the things that were once pleasurable

have lost their enjoyment

so adding pleasure to our lives

may require us to breach our defences

may require us to jump the fences

may require us to say

FUCK IT

to our own retinue of

self-created and borrowed

legalities and principles

that help us to justify avoiding

risk and change

and when it comes down to this

down to the nitty-gritty

it becomes a decision

over an exchange

of pleasures

the pleasure,

of the status quo

the comfort and convenience

of doing what we have always done

even if this no longer brings anything

that we might honour with the name pleasure

and

the possible pleasures

that we might discover

as we test and try

and experiment

with things we have never done before

or re-encountering things

that used to bring us

pleasure

imagine we resolved to enjoy our lives as much as possible

without feeling guilty for it

imagine that for the rest of your life

you increased the amount of pleasure in your life

without worrying about what anyone else thought

increasing your potential for pleasure

opening up opportunities for pleasure

dropping your resistances to unknown pleasures

day by day, year by year

would you ever regret that?

Ye Must Be Born Again

Ye must be born again!

Of course, I don't believe that you or ye must be born again, after all, you can do whatever the fuck you like. We can all do whatever the fuck we like, whether we choose to or not. We don't have to be born again at all. We can continue to live as we live, for as long as we want to. Some are more than happy with they way they do life, and living and relationships. For us others, we have suffered frustrations and disillusionment, we have fallen foul of expectations and disappointment. We have yearned for something easier and simpler, something that seemed at the time, too far out of human reach.

Most people around us, just pat us on the back, and hope that our next lovers [friends, colleagues etc] will be better suited to us, and that circumstances will change in our favour. Most people around us are just as afraid of change as we are, and are just as willing for you to maintain your status-quos, as they are to maintain their own.

However, patting each other on the back, and reinforcing unsustainable behaviours, does not promote the better life for anyone. Instead, I want to utter words that speak of redemption.

To be born again:

from darkness, into the light

from womb into wildness

from bondage into freedom

from heaviness into lightness

from lethargy into vitality

from dependency into dance

from clinging into loosening

from poverty into abundance

from blaming into journeying

from expectation into acceptance

from disillusionment into fresh vision

from disappointment into re-crafted stories

this may sound like mystical mumbo-jumbo to some of you

and for some, they need it to remain as mystical mumbo-jumbo

so that they can avoid the kind of self-awareness

that might evoke uncomfortable change

but, for some others

they may seek out the paths

as faint as they may be

and start putting one foot in front of the other

and start moving slowly and hesitantly

toward somewhere better

not emptily for the sake of others

but in the good-enough act of self-nurturance

it will never look the same in each person

for we are all emerging out of our own histories

into tellings and re-tellings of our tomorrows

there are no answers,

but there are scents we might follow

there are traces and signs of ways

and in this,

I wish you well

for oftentimes the road does not rise to meet us

Cosy at the Crossroads

Oftentimes we mix up freedom with possibility.

This is the mistake of capitalistic democracies, that sell us the idea of freedom but appease and sedate us with lots of options, however, it is a very human mistake. We think that freedom is the availability of possibility, and so we sit at the crossroads surrounded by hundreds of avenues, and we set up camp at the crossroads, thinking that we are free-er there.

Yet, freedom, in a seemingly paradoxical way, is expressed through choosing a path to venture on. What I am suggesting, is that freedom is best expressed with intentional self-limitation. Does that make sense?

It isn't actually paradoxical at all, it is simply the contrast of the illusions we like to maintain about ourselves, and the reality of what we are actually doing. Of course, no-one can really tell what the illusion or reality is for each individual...these are the kinds of secrets we can even keep from ourselves...the truth about what we are doing, and why we are doing it. Do we keep ourselves hooked on the idea of freedom, but stay appeased by the availability of options? Only we can tell the truth about that...to ourselves, and for ourselves.

Of course, in admitting that we have set up camp at the crossroads, we encounter the reasons why we haven't set off on any of those roads. We encounter our fears, anxieties and probably a vast arsenal of protective thoughts, that help to keep us safe and sound in the status quo. Hedged into our safer worlds with stockpile of rusty excuses.

Maybe we fear failure,

by the standards of significant others

or

by the more impossible standards we have set ourselves.

Maybe we fear success,

afraid, that to succeed is to offend someone.

Maybe we feel that the world is set against us;

that good things just don't happen to us.

Maybe we are afraid of doing what we want

for fear of upsetting someone else.

Maybe we are afraid that if we set off on one path,

that we will miss out on another.

Maybe we are just afraid of leaving the safety

because we have become addicted to ease.

There is obviously a time for both of these things at different times in our lives. A time for venturing out on a new path that we have chosen, even if only temporarily. There is also a time to reflect on what possibilities are available to us; which of those lie open, and which of those need effort and commitment. All the time, weighing up the investment of our efforts against the reward we get from the risks.

Wherever you are at...I wish you grace for yourself for the journey, if you choose to go on one.