There are things I have spent my life depending on, and truth be told, I have come to learn that they are not dependable. Mostly because they are….well…. things. And things are, by their very nature, subject to change. Same principle applies to people… all people. People look better and suddenly decide they need better looking company. People change. This is an undeniable and somewhat painful fact of life. People leave. Inevitably we all leave. The world, therefore, is essentially an unstable, uncertain environment. The world shouldn’t and cannot be depended upon. That’s why I choose to believe in, and depend on, an unchanging, eternal, omnipresent non-thing. I prefer not to call it God, because the very word tends to thing things up. So I try not to call it. I try to experience it.
To feel it without having to describe it. Easy to do looking out at the ocean. Hard to do looking up at a great tide coming at you. Easy to do when you look at a baby. Hard to do if the said baby sits next to you on a 6 hour journey. Easy to do when you look at a pretty girl. Hard to do if you were once in a relationship with that girl. Clearly what blocks me from transcendence is judgment. If I were able to suspend having an opinion on incessant soul shattering baby wailing and diaper odor .
Or if I could avoid thinking of how the said pretty girl is a monster out for my soul, out to make sure it is destroyed forever. If I could simply see these things as they are – actions devoid of meaning until I give them meaning – I could .experience some semblance of union with the infinite sublime. I’d instantaneously transition from a neurotic wannabe writer, to one seriously badass guru dude. People would travel great distances to ask me for guidance with their personal problems.
They would traverse deserts and great oceans in search of this dude. They would pour their hearts out to me expecting me to be the mystery solution to their vast problems. I would patiently sit there, listening to them. And when they are done, I’d wisely tell them “It is what it is.” They’d judge this as being ridiculously inadequate advice and punch me in the throat. Eventually one of the pilgrims would be so enraged that they would actually kill me. But I’d be okay with it because I’m, you know, exalted.
