What do you get when you combine a highly-reactive, super-sensitive person with a world of hyper-stimulation?
Me.
This hyper stimulation is everywhere, screaming at us to take it now, now, now, hard, hard, hard, fast, fast, fast… and we do because it’s temporary happiness, satisfaction and connection. High fat food with lots of salt, sugar and spices (whether’s its plants or animals); big explosions and intense drama in our entertainment (whether it’s movies, books or rock concerts); alcohol, coffee, nicotine, sex, porn, McDonalds, religion, facebook, sports, news, war, fashion. It’s even in the language we speak and think with.
We love our own thoughts which often have no basis in anything but just stuff we read somewhere or were taught. We assume what we know and believe is true. And that becomes the default for us. And an ideal regarding everyone else. We slowly pursue avenues of interest that reflect those defaults and find heroes to solidify that default position. We are attracted to people who make us feel like we are not alone with whatever thoughts or world views we have formed. Thus we divide the world into friends and non-friends; people we like and people we don’t. This happens from a very young age. Instead of truth, we embrace the authority of our own mental associations between our thoughts and emotions. We communicate to each other (and ourselves) with concepts that often breed dishonesty and disconnection especially when personal definitions go undefined.
We identify with the person we have become and assume that this is the person we will always be. We define ourselves through our careers, our clothing, our musical tastes, our intellectual pursuits and we spend our days impersonating that person. Slowly we become a parody of our formers selves. Attachment to these identifications brings us suffering when we realize that change is inevitable. There is no fixed, static self. Nothing stays the same. Life is impermanent.
We are addicted to the great drama that is unfolding. We are addicted to the things that make this society one of extreme narcissism and self-destruction towards our own bodies and the environment of our habitat. We don’t often consider the ecology on our personal agendas and it’s never been the main priority of any government. We take for granted the things that go beyond government like clean air and water. Those of us who are still young and jubilant take for granted our healths.
First we need to ‘achieve’ so we can fit in. We need to fulfill society’s checklist. We need money to live and money demands most of us to do something we probably wouldn’t otherwise do. Work. Jobs. Life automatically becomes a lie. We think we have freedom of choice but slowly we realize that we only have freedom of pre-chosen choices.
For a long time now I’ve known that there is a different way to live. I’ve tried for years and years and years to break loose from all the lies and my own hypocrisy but I am always sucked back in and I love it for awhile and bathe in its devilish comfort. I’m chasing this elusive thing called enlightenment knowing that it is not anywhere but right here and right now. If only I would open my eyes and look! But my eyelids are sown shut with strings of steel.
Sometimes the marathon gets too tough and I have to rest. But I get back up like Rocky and pull myself out of the fog. I know that there are no absolutes. And I know intellectually that so-called Buddha figured all this shit out thousands of years ago with his 4 noble truths. I know what I must do. I am becoming the person I want to be and that the world needs. This is all a part of this becoming. This is my way to serve. But the surrender demands sacrifice. And forgiveness. The kingdom of god is within me but I am still too scared to go within so I avoid it at all costs.
To embrace the mundane. Find peace within ourselves. Letting go of the highs and lows to find beauty in the middle way. The middle way is not just a line between two points but a higher line between two points like the tip of a triangle. Detaching ourselves from future and past. Living in the present moment. Not being afraid of awakening to our senses instead of suppressing them and dumbing ourselves down in the process. As Milan Kundera called it: the unbearable lightness of being.
It is indeed seemingly unbearable. I’ve experienced the purity of reality. It’s intense. Even thinking about all this depresses the hell out of me because I can feel my ego suffocating and this idea of “me” dying, trying desperately to hold on. This ego death is a threat to my whole existence, my songs, my personality, my relationships, and everything I have worked so hard for. EVERYTHING.
I also know that to truly embrace the artist’s way and open up completely new ways of creativity, eventualy I have to go into the unknown, the infinite, where Google and Amazon and Piratebay will no longer be of any help.
There are no sunrises or sunsets. The earth is just turning. Nothing ever ends or begins. End and beginning are the same, eternal. Like life and death that feed the ocean of existence.