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straight over the cliff and into the sea
Mar. 9th, 2016 03:49 pmdear resister,
you are incredibly smart, but you don't know a damn thing.
i sense you as i'm trying to move into place, reminding me of everything i do not need to be reminded of. gather the details, you whisper, just always as i am almost underway, and there is always another detail. you could use this other thing, you helpfully suggest, and it's not a suggestion i can refuse. because that would make the experience more meaningful, you see, stopping and getting that, providing myself with that option, augmenting this little ritual with a magical oil targeted toward some goal i'm working. it could not only add something significant to the experience, but deepen my connection with what the oil represents. it seems like a lot of payoff for very little effort. that's if i manage to successfully retrieve the oil, set it on the table with my other resources, and return my focus to the ritual i was preparing to perform and then perform it instead of retrieving the oil, adding it to my resources on the table and thinking: wouldn't it be nice, wouldn't it be meaningful, to drone my singing bowl along with today's chant?
resister, you are clever indeed. you automate effective derailings at every level, for every opportunity, to match every mood and season, every intent and physique. if it isn't some eternal loop of magically-charged broomsticks flooding the joint with my ill-considered impulse, it's a smaller matter that devours my efforts and, the worst part is? sometimes, at its core, what started the derailing process honestly was something potentially beneficial. oh resister, you know how to exploit "potential," don't you? with just one more little detail, this could be so much more. it's heady and mysterious, how much potential even this quite minuscule effort could provide, resister's snake oil barker assures me. anyway, what's one more minute before i begin? it'll just take a second. it's only a few dollars. it's just a quick walk to the store and then imagine! what the potential could be!
but if i manage to overcome being derailed by my noble if disorganized quest to reshape my waywardness with the beautiful meaning of one more thing one more dollar one more trip to the store, i always have unmanaged anger or circular self-perpetuating anxieties to step in and offer my motivation some slack. because that's such a more exciting way to plunder my psychic reserve than meditation or discipline. why on earth would i want to learn to control my reactions when my reactions can be so exhilarating? maybe today i'll end up giddy as a schoolgirl because i heard a meaningful song on the radio at a meaningful moment while i was having a meaningful thought, that's gotta mean something, right? or maybe i'll lose my faith in humanity because my neighbor's chain smoking started blowing in through a window i wanted to keep open. or maybe i'll cry for an hour because there's a gnat. anything is possible, i tell you! anything at all! violently inconsistent reactions to unpredictable stimulus, that's the way of it. because if the landscape is dramatically different every time i approach it, that could become a pleasure of my practice, right? such potential that provides! everything is an adventure, that way. do it every day and it becomes a drudgery, performed by a drudge. magic becomes a horrible awful no good chore. it becomes routine, not a source of uncertainty and occasionally charming fear.
because there's something rather sexy about being afraid of something you might have called up with your overwhelming and heretofore unknown powers, isn't there? there's something quite fuckable about the potential chaos of being a total novice experimenting with a technique or a working that frequently escapes vetted and disciplined practitioners and all of a sudden! like magic, you can do it! look what you didn't even know you could do! anything could happen. anything at all. suddenly he's hallucinating prophecy and he's never done one lick of drugs. suddenly she's authored seven hundred pages of revealed teachings from some entity that did not provide credentials and presumes to take over the spiritual lives of anyone she subsequently talks to about it. suddenly he knows! he just knows! that this is proof of reincarnation, viable proof of reincarnation, time to take reincarnation to the bank, always knew he wasn't like the rest of those suckers, taking it on faith.
things going all weird like that could mean you are meaningful, that ghosts and gods have been banging down your door for a dog's age trying to find a way in, and now, now that you've provided it by lighting a single black candle on the night of a lunar eclipse, you're all set to receive your summons: the cat does something weird! all the fine hairs on the back of your neck raise! suddenly you're really afraid about something that you don't know what it is! it means something! it has to mean something!
it must mean you are not simply another initiate who needs to do the work, one day at a time, one issue at a time, one foot in front of the other, no! you are the messiah of the known universe which means, among other things, that you are much too important for the future well-being of humanity to practice with any kind of consistency or restraint. so go for it, babe. cry and babble. have a fit. make everyone leave the steak and shake right the fuck now at your bad vibe. insist that ouija board moved by itself. draw a map of your alternate reality. show it to a friend. maybe they'll have a map too. maybe those maps will intersect: wouldn't that be great? have a vision of the end of the world. isn't that so much more exciting than setting a timer and chanting for five minutes?
resister, i'm catching on to you: needing everything to be meaningful means i'm desperate to prove i am meaningful. while that is an important recognition and an even more important place to come from when approaching spiritual work, such post-adolescent theatrics and all their corresponding drama are resisting deeper truth, not preparing yourself to receive it.
you are incredibly smart, but you don't know a damn thing.
i sense you as i'm trying to move into place, reminding me of everything i do not need to be reminded of. gather the details, you whisper, just always as i am almost underway, and there is always another detail. you could use this other thing, you helpfully suggest, and it's not a suggestion i can refuse. because that would make the experience more meaningful, you see, stopping and getting that, providing myself with that option, augmenting this little ritual with a magical oil targeted toward some goal i'm working. it could not only add something significant to the experience, but deepen my connection with what the oil represents. it seems like a lot of payoff for very little effort. that's if i manage to successfully retrieve the oil, set it on the table with my other resources, and return my focus to the ritual i was preparing to perform and then perform it instead of retrieving the oil, adding it to my resources on the table and thinking: wouldn't it be nice, wouldn't it be meaningful, to drone my singing bowl along with today's chant?
resister, you are clever indeed. you automate effective derailings at every level, for every opportunity, to match every mood and season, every intent and physique. if it isn't some eternal loop of magically-charged broomsticks flooding the joint with my ill-considered impulse, it's a smaller matter that devours my efforts and, the worst part is? sometimes, at its core, what started the derailing process honestly was something potentially beneficial. oh resister, you know how to exploit "potential," don't you? with just one more little detail, this could be so much more. it's heady and mysterious, how much potential even this quite minuscule effort could provide, resister's snake oil barker assures me. anyway, what's one more minute before i begin? it'll just take a second. it's only a few dollars. it's just a quick walk to the store and then imagine! what the potential could be!
but if i manage to overcome being derailed by my noble if disorganized quest to reshape my waywardness with the beautiful meaning of one more thing one more dollar one more trip to the store, i always have unmanaged anger or circular self-perpetuating anxieties to step in and offer my motivation some slack. because that's such a more exciting way to plunder my psychic reserve than meditation or discipline. why on earth would i want to learn to control my reactions when my reactions can be so exhilarating? maybe today i'll end up giddy as a schoolgirl because i heard a meaningful song on the radio at a meaningful moment while i was having a meaningful thought, that's gotta mean something, right? or maybe i'll lose my faith in humanity because my neighbor's chain smoking started blowing in through a window i wanted to keep open. or maybe i'll cry for an hour because there's a gnat. anything is possible, i tell you! anything at all! violently inconsistent reactions to unpredictable stimulus, that's the way of it. because if the landscape is dramatically different every time i approach it, that could become a pleasure of my practice, right? such potential that provides! everything is an adventure, that way. do it every day and it becomes a drudgery, performed by a drudge. magic becomes a horrible awful no good chore. it becomes routine, not a source of uncertainty and occasionally charming fear.
because there's something rather sexy about being afraid of something you might have called up with your overwhelming and heretofore unknown powers, isn't there? there's something quite fuckable about the potential chaos of being a total novice experimenting with a technique or a working that frequently escapes vetted and disciplined practitioners and all of a sudden! like magic, you can do it! look what you didn't even know you could do! anything could happen. anything at all. suddenly he's hallucinating prophecy and he's never done one lick of drugs. suddenly she's authored seven hundred pages of revealed teachings from some entity that did not provide credentials and presumes to take over the spiritual lives of anyone she subsequently talks to about it. suddenly he knows! he just knows! that this is proof of reincarnation, viable proof of reincarnation, time to take reincarnation to the bank, always knew he wasn't like the rest of those suckers, taking it on faith.
things going all weird like that could mean you are meaningful, that ghosts and gods have been banging down your door for a dog's age trying to find a way in, and now, now that you've provided it by lighting a single black candle on the night of a lunar eclipse, you're all set to receive your summons: the cat does something weird! all the fine hairs on the back of your neck raise! suddenly you're really afraid about something that you don't know what it is! it means something! it has to mean something!
it must mean you are not simply another initiate who needs to do the work, one day at a time, one issue at a time, one foot in front of the other, no! you are the messiah of the known universe which means, among other things, that you are much too important for the future well-being of humanity to practice with any kind of consistency or restraint. so go for it, babe. cry and babble. have a fit. make everyone leave the steak and shake right the fuck now at your bad vibe. insist that ouija board moved by itself. draw a map of your alternate reality. show it to a friend. maybe they'll have a map too. maybe those maps will intersect: wouldn't that be great? have a vision of the end of the world. isn't that so much more exciting than setting a timer and chanting for five minutes?
resister, i'm catching on to you: needing everything to be meaningful means i'm desperate to prove i am meaningful. while that is an important recognition and an even more important place to come from when approaching spiritual work, such post-adolescent theatrics and all their corresponding drama are resisting deeper truth, not preparing yourself to receive it.
