A Poverty of Stimulus

Yesterday and last night I was having cell phone trouble. I was able text intermittently but was unable to access the internet or use any of my internet-based apps and unable to make or receive phone calls. Oddly this happened only at home. When I was out and about the phone worked fine. To make the long story short, and after over TWO HOURS trying to fix the problem with my phone's cell service company, it seems the problem is external. They suspect there is something wrong with one of the towers in my area. That would explain why phone calls to and from my home location don’t work.

After that two-hour call I was frustrated. As the evening progressed that frustration began to grow. Not being able to have my drug, to get my fix, having my compulsion denied me started to become anger. There was a point where I literally had no idea what to do with myself. In that moment the realization of my dependence hit me. I'm an addict! A strange feeling of being severed from some sort of hive mind washed over me. All the “other voices” I had come to depend on to entertain and distract me; the apps, the games, the social media; random googling, losing myself down the YouTube rabbit hole had been suddenly silenced. A poverty of stimulus. I felt an odd sense of punishment. I'd been a bad boy somehow and Karma or the Cosmos had banned me from the amusement park. In short, I was jonesing.

It was an odd and very creepy sensation that sense of helplessness. The moment I realized I was in panic-anger-jonesing mode I also realized the moment was an opportunity. I backed away from it and got into my mindfulness mode. The place where I get quiet and recenter. "Removing" myself from the situation and turning inside to those places that calm me. I allowed myself to "return to the breath" as the saying goes. "I'm here. In this place. Right now. I have no say over what is external. I do have a say in how I react. Breathe in. Breathe out. I am here. I am now." This is how I put myself to sleep last night. "Your phone is a thing. It is external. It only affects me if I allow it to. Breathe in. Breathe out." I woke up this morning with a better understanding of my drug use. The choice is mine. I will be controlled only as much as I allow myself to be. I made the promise to myself and the commitment to devote more of my time to the things that give me more genuine pleasure and satisfaction; reading, walking, working out, cooking, time with my dog, etc. 

These are things that matter.

Idle Sunday Morning

I had a great morning walk with my dog, Rufus. The leaves were rustling in the breeze and I could hear Fall approaching. We came back inside and played some. Rufus was really into it this morning; dropping his favorite toy in front of me then trying to play keep away when I went to grab it. He ate breakfast and laid back down for a kingly snooze. I putzed in the kitchen with a recipe I've been wanting to make, Thai sticky coconut chicken rice. The apartment smells of delicious red curry, coconut, and chicken. As I puttered in the kitchen with the recipe I had some great jazz playing and John Coltrane’s My Little Brown Book came on. Perfect Idle Sunday Morning music! The point to all this? This has all given me an incredibly centered and present sense this morning. It's a delicious mindfulness to be immersed in today. 

The Speed of Life

Making coffee this morning I realized more than likely I have less years to live than years I've lived in my current city. That’s not some fatalistic, depressive thinking. It’s just a realization about how temporary and quick it all is. I really felt it in that way that a reality hits you some days. You find yourself so deeply anchored in the revelation of the moment. You are here and now in this thought.

We think seventy or eighty years is a long time but it’s not. This is why we must be so careful in how and what we fill our thinking with, how we spend our time and who we spend it with.

Nothing terrifies me more than getting to the final scene of Act 3 and be holding an empty bag.

The Storm of Distraction

I've recently experienced a personal setback. Some days it has left me panicked and angry. I wind up allowing then negativity in and within an hour I'm emotionally helpless, full of despair and lacking any confidence what so ever. However, when I change my setting (taking a walk, going and sitting in another room, etc.) I begin to emerge from those feelings. I've realized coming off those feelings is like driving in thunderstorm. I'm gripping the steering wheel and the adrenaline is pumping me full of fear and doubt. Suddenly I've driven out of the storm and everything is sunny and calm. I realize I was safe and being sensible and focused the entire time. I allowed the storm steal my confidence and take control. All the while I was centered the entire time. The base of my confidence was never taken away, I just let something distract me from relying on it and believing in it.

Sunrise Serenity

Sitting with my coffee in the early morning quiet. I can’t fully express just much I love this. It is the most centered and peaceful moment of the day. Watching out the window as the sun comes up I think it’s the time when the day still belongs to nature; we haven’t cluttered it up yet with our noise and nonsense. I actually feel like nature is allowing me to be a part of their morning. As my friend Dan says, "I love the early morning period before anyone else gets up. The day changes when they do." Indeed so. By 9am the secret of the early hours is over. For now though, I will simply cherish the moment and be humbled by my part in it. 

Micro to Macrocosm

I was walking my dog Rufus earlier this morning when he paused for some serious sniffing near the neighbor's fence. Next to me was a corner brick column that anchors the fence with a large, square cement capital. While Rufus was busy sniffing around I noticed the top of the capital was covered in various lichens of different shapes and colors. Also on top were a multitude of ants scurrying about. That's when several acute thoughts struck me.

In this spot were a variety of species that inhabit the planet. Lichens, ants, trees, grasses, a canine, and a human, just to name a few. The lichens, considered by some to be the oldest living organisms on the planet, are beneficial to both trees and animals. The ants were tirelessly going about whatever their business was, probably unaware or unconcerned with the lichens. The grass and trees were soaking up the sunlight, busy with their photosynthetic business. They were unaware or unconcerned with the ants who in turn were unaware or unconcerned with the lichens. The canine was busy sniffing the ground unaware (and definitely unconcerned!) about the photosynthesis going on around it by the plant life that was indifferent to the ants who were indifferent to the lichens. The human was the only one to realize the profound nature of the moment. We were all living in our own realities, our own universes, and yet all existing in the vast and beautifully overlapping Venn diagram of life in the cosmos.

I will move through my day a little more in awe and little more humbly and tenderly.

The Comfort in Collapse

I was just talking with my upstairs neighbor a few minutes ago. He’s the recycling cop for the building. He goes through the trash and picks our the recyclable things people have carelessly thrown away, then drives them to the nearby recycling center. We were talking about microplastics and how they have now been found in the human bloodstream. It gave me an odd sense of resignation mixed with comfort.

For people my age, 60ish, down to people roughly in their 40s, I think are the last great generation of humans. Despite our best efforts, I'm afraid it's pretty much downhill from here. Yes, we can create massive solar or wind farms to be more renewable energy conscious. Yes, we can drive electric cars or bicycle. But plastic is going to be our undoing. Plastic will choke and kill our oceans, pollute our lands for thousands of years, and now, poison our bodies. Sadly, despite my and the collective efforts of so many others, the tide is just too large to overcome and I feel an immense sadness about that, and yet it's comforting in a strange way.

Being an introvert I spend a large amount of time by myself. I value and treasure that "Me Time." I meditate, employ mindfulness practices daily as often as possible, eat as little meat as possible, and recycle the crap out of everything. This is where the strange sense of comfort comes in. As strange as it may sound, watching our greed destroying the planet from the safety of my own emotional and physical solitude is what gives me that comfort. Will I keep doing the things I'm doing and educating others where possible? Absolutely. Resigning myself to the situation, however, and accepting the larger reality it brings me a sense of peace. I can let go of the desperation and embrace the inevitability of what's coming while still trying every day to make it as better as possible. When it all collapses and the air is no longer fit to breathe and the planet has gone to war over water, I will sit and sip my coffee and read my books. I will let it swirl right on by, accepting the fate of it all knowing I did the best I could. That will be enough for me.

Feeling, Knowing, Embracing

This came to me in my hypnagogic state early two mornings ago.

There are three stages to greater awareness; feeling, knowing, and embracing.

I'll use the example of mindfulness. 

One FEELS (has a vague notion or hint) mindfulness may have some benefits.

As the person begins putting mindfulness into practice they come to KNOW it’s something that works, helps, etc. 

Eventually the person reaches a point where deeper revelations present themselves. They don’t just feel or know it. They understand mindfulness not as a fact or tool to be implemented in some mechanical sense. They open themselves to EMBRACE it which expands their awareness of themselves and their surroundings.

The Body of Theseus

An odd thought occurred to me this morning. Is the human body a Ship of Theseus? Our cells are replacing themselves by countless numbers every second of every minute of every hour of every day. If that is so what really makes us who we are? Are we the same person we were at birth? I suspect not. It turns out it’s not the physical form that makes us who we are. We are indeed that Theseus ship. 

I’m certain when parts were replaced on the ship they weren’t replaced with parts exactly identical. A deck plank might have a slight warp the one before it did not, etc. So does that happen with us? Does one regenerated cell that is slightly misshapen from its predecessor change the others and down the line change our physical form slightly? The “infrastructure” that helped to create and contain our “essence” is being replaced daily, but the essence remains. This is one I’ll be pondering for a while.

Driver arrogance

Last night I was riding in a Lyft car on my way to dinner with friends. At an intersection the car in front honked and the driver gave the finger to a car and driver at the stop sign to our left. Apparently he wasn't moving through the intersection in the way the driver ahead of us would have liked. Seeing that happen the oddest thought struck me completely out of the blue. I said to myself at that driver, “This place isn’t yours. You’re just a temporary tenant. Treat it respectfully. Asshole.” 

Such a strange thought to have to an event unrelated to it. Even down to such a granular level as cars at an intersection we think all of "this" was created for us. We believe it's here for our convenience and plunder. How sad and arrogant.

A Message

Oh, to live long enough to hear we've received a message from another race in the cosmos. To finally know for certain in the vast universe that we are not alone would comfort me. Even though the likelihood of us ever meeting would be next to nil, to know there are intelligent beings just as curious if we're out there as we are if they are.

That would be enough for me.

Mattering

I went to a birthday party last night. I had a couple cocktails, a gummy, saw lots of friends, sang happy birthday, and ate some really good food. You know what though? There’s a lot of the evening I feel I’ve outgrown. Yes, it was fun but being home comfortable and safe in my space would have been just as fun.

There are a good many things I find infinitely fulfilling; taking a walk, reading, listening to music, enjoying the companionship of my dog, the list goes on. These things touch a place in me where meaning and purpose flow from. I feel these things resonate there, spill out, and flood my essence. It anchors me in the moment with a deep, mindful, and self-aware joy. I’m not certain many others, if any, at that party last night feel or could understand that. The problems and frustrations of the day are all temporary matters. They are not constructions of the universe. They are complications we've designed to help us feel like we matter. The thing is we already do. Most don't slow down long enough to feel it all welling up from within themselves.

Moving through life aware of my own finiteness comforts me. I know the day will come when I cease to be and I will return from where I came. Knowing that as tiny as I am in the cosmos I played a part and I mattered. It wasn't my credit score, how much debt I amassed, what kind of car I drove, how big my house was, or how much money I had in my checking account. When the time comes it will be that I was self-aware enough to know simply being here mattered.

Storm of Connections

For the last two hours Rufus (my constant French Bulldog companion) and I have been in the midst of tornado warnings, thunderstorm warnings, lightning, high winds, and possible hail. As I watched the local meteorology team track the storm and give updates, "We now have confirmation of a tornado on the ground..." I could feel the not-so-subtle tap on the shoulder reminding us that we are, indeed, not in charge. Experiencing Nature's power, however, I was overcome by an odd sense of comfort. It made me feel connected and extremely present. Each lightning flash was a millisecond in time that I understood could be split into infinite slivers, an eternity of awe and humility in the wink of an eye. Thunder rumbling its way into my chest making me feel aware and expansive.

Now the storm has passed, it's silent, and I feel exhausted from the experience. That level of bombardment on the essence can be draining. But in that state I feel a lot has been stripped away and I'm left with a kind of kinship that vibrates in me deeply. It's a curious mutual respect that I'm still trying to process.  

Lessons in Happiness

I went to what was hands-down the strangest wedding and reception last night. For starters it was a combination wedding/reception/baby shower. The groom was the brother of one of my closest friends. They’d already had a baby and been married in a courthouse ceremony but wanted the “official” thing, so it was kind of a redo, more for the mother of the bride's sake, I suspect.

Friends at my table kind of heckled the whole thing as a little “lower”. The carafes of wine at the tables were suspect, looking more like a strange rosé Kool-Aid. The open bar was bizarrely stocked. No bourbon just scotch, several bottles grenadine, rums I'd never heard of, and no lemons, only limes. The bar was supposed to be open from 7 - 11pm, but the bartender kept telling us, "Not yet!" The silverware was mismatched. The dinnerware was standard cafeteria issue. It was Mystery Meat Night with what I think was boneless chicken breasts and some sort of paper-thin Salisbury Steak’ish kind of thing. The mashed potatoes clearly came from a box, and the salad was a weird concoction with Lima beans and pigeon peas. After dinner the DJ got going with 80s music and a smoke machine that turned the reception into a weird retro-80s gay bar vibe. The entire thing, start to finish, from the front door to the back was what some people would politely call "tacky".

The entire evening though, I watched the room. Observing, I realized everyone there was truly happy. The bride and groom were all smiles, their parents were completely in their element, and everyone was dancing, laughing, drinking, taking pictures, shuffling around tables to visit, etc. Everyone was present and very much in the moment. No one there gave two shits about what the beef dish was supposed to be, if the silverware matched, or that the plates weren't fine china. It simply didn't matter. That's not what the evening was about. It was about all the individual joys of the evening and the collective joy of the room.

The evening was a tremendous life lesson about what genuine and unconditioned happiness is. I came home last night feeling uplifted, having had the time of my life, and I went to bed feeling like I get "it” just a bit more than I did before.

Birthday Thoughts

Today is my birthday. I'm 59 today and so begins the last year of my 50s. I suppose it freaks some people out, but I welcome it. A friend said to me recently that his 50s is when he "got it" and I have to agree. My 50s were the final scene of Act II. Next year will be Act III, Scene 1 and I'm looking very forward to it.

Last year, and even more so this year, I’m discovering something about birthdays as I age. I don’t need to be feted with huge parties, enormous cakes, or showered with gifts. Like last year, I took the day off as a day to spend on some really good Me Time. I woke up early today to my usual 5a-5.30am coffee, I went to the gym, and came home to my furry companion Rufus. He's been extra attentive today and I can't help but think he knows today is something a little more special than all the other days. We took a great walk around the "Big Block" and I found myself more present and grateful than usual. My spirit is untroubled and unhurried. I’ll spend the remainder of the day reading, playing with the dog, and just appreciating being here. I've thought today about some of my friends who didn't make it this far. I can't help but feel a sense of responsibility to them. To live my life as fully as possible and for myself and for them. To let their spirit live vicariously in me. To keep them close in my thoughts and heart. As I age I'm more appreciative of these things. They're far more precious and rewarding than any physical gift I could receive. 

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The Eternal Morning

Rising before dawn is one of my most intimate joys. Sometimes those mornings seem eternal. The sunrise is a little slower. The coffee goes down just a tad more deliciously. The dog’s snoring a little more comforting. Every sound my 104-year old apartment makes is some sort of joyful, secret whisper. The world seems a little quieter outside. It’s mornings like that I feel hyper present, in tune with and touching every slight nuance of everything.

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Sensible and Balanced

A few days ago my friend Dan said I was "...sensible and balanced, as always," in response to a comment I'd made about my work ethic. I kept coming back to what he said for several days and came to some realizations. As probably a lot of people do, I realized that I walk around some days thinking I'm not as sensible and balanced as everyone else. We constantly compare ourselves, almost unconsciously, to others. That applies to sensible and balanced, as well. We try to be those things based on how we see it supposedly in others. We're comparing our authenticity to a carefully crafted façade. We're gauging our truths on the false projections others want us to see. It's part of that weird conditioning society has put on us. We walk around thinking we've somehow not lived up to "the standard" if we don't have or do certain things in a certain way. This is categorically false. Being sensible and balanced helps me see that and as my friend Dan said, "...which isn't always comfortable." Indeed.

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Before It's Too Late...

"We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world - to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear...We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it."
— Wendell Berry

Image: "There Came a Wind" by Phil Koch

The Comfort of Mindfulness

In bed this morning around 5am I rolled over and pulled the covers up high. I was warm and snuggled in and I felt rested, not only in body but mind. I felt completely unencumbered by anything and a nice phrase came to mind: Comfortable in my mindfulness. It’s the cozy, snuggled-up feeling you get when you know you’re wrapped up in safe and sound in your sense of self, mindfulness, and presence.

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Deeper Meaning in the New Year

On these first few days of 2024 I'm being flooded with all sorts of different emotions. I can be sad one moment then hopeful the next. Through it all there's a sense of a deeper self trying to touch something. Something "more," something more deeply meaningful. It feels like something I've been in communion with before but my current self has lost its way from it and is trying to return to it. I get the sense that whatever this "it" is, it's expansive. I can at moments feel myself a part of it. In a flash of an instant I can feel myself everywhere and part of everything. 

I went to a friend's house for a small New Year's Eve gathering, but I'm feeling unfulfilled from the experience. I felt as if I belonged somewhere else that night. Marking the passage into another year feels like something that should be done outdoors beneath the expanse of the sky and the Universe. Noisemakers, funny hats, and glasses of champagne feel trivial and insulting to what the moment truly means and is. Somehow it seems cheapened by the way we celebrate it. When I imagine celebrating I picture myself alone on a beach or in an open field being one with my surroundings. The sky and nature spread before me, offering itself to me as I am to it.  

There is something more I'm meant for. I feel it as true as anything in my heart and soul. I don't have very long on this planet. None of us do. I need to connect and find the deeper thing or things I'm trying to connect to. I don't know what "it" is, but I know it's there. I feel it calling me through my kenshō moments, the dream snippets I have that take me other places, and the flashes I have of being someone totally different in scenarios I know I've not experienced as the person I am now. I've come to believe that a lot of my actions are me trying to get there, but the actions are misdirected. I've been using the wrong things to accomplish the right goals. 

Interestingly, this all comes back yet again to the strange yet comforting feeling of a need to pull away from certain people, places, and things (PPTs) even more. I can feel my deeper, inner self wanting for something “more.” Some more meaningful thing that the “superficial” world can’t provide. An almost indescribable feeling of my inner essence self needing to commune more deeply with the authentic and shun the superficial. I sense it to be some sort of larger current I should be swimming in that has larger and deeper harmonies. It’s almost clear in flashes of understanding that some activities of my past (drinking, smoking, sex, indulging in food, etc, etc) were attempts of the “surface self” to capture that harmony. These, as my friend Dan says are nothing more than red herrings. Incorrect activities for the correct sensation, so to speak. 

As he has said, "I think when we're in a heightened state of awareness, we are especially susceptible to the negative influences of others. We need to keep our distance." He is so correct and I would add "other things" to that statement as well. I think being more of an empath than the average person is what causes some of that. I see under the surface of things much more than most people. I don’t just skim the surface like they do. I can "feel" the more, and that's what calls me. 

I'm finding more and more anything that stimulates my brain, the endorphins, or other "feel good" hormones is worth the effort. That excludes things like drugs and alcohol of course. Those are false arousals of the mind. They do more damage than the temporary euphoria most mistake for the real thing. My friend Dan refers to them as "wonders inisde." An interesting and most accurate phrase. I find the internal journeys are much more fun. Sleep and dreams are good examples. Some evenings I can't wait to get to bed so I can start dreaming. And moving throughout the next day with the influence of those dreams on my mood and outlook feels incredible. It's like I've been able to shed the skin of mundane traps of an everyday, ho hum existence and walk within a new, deeper perspective that nourishes my deepest inner self. 

Maybe that's what this is exactly all about. Finding clarity of mind more stimulating than anything else. Putting my mind to work in true and meaningful ways it enjoys. 

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