Either This or It Remains Suppressed

Originally published on this site Mar 7, 2009

I again overcome the notion that expression is selfish and indulgent – which doesn’t mean it ain’t true, it just means I’ve overcome it for the time being. Thus, I express…
I would, were I able, speak to this aloud vs. sitting by myself and typing. I am at the moment solitary, and how can communication possibly be effective with such remove between transmitter and receivers? But we ARE in the environment we are, and this is the medium we currently use. Thus, I express here…
Were I to format these thoughts differently, it could be perceived as poetry. The choice of numbering these thoughts, the choice to attempt some version of clarity, and the choice of full paragraphical sentences greatly reduces the likelihood of such perception. Thus, I write. (Has the chance of beauty in the written word thus been eliminated?)
I cannot fully discount the virtue of the written word, for there is much to which I would have never come to know had it not been written down.
For all that HAS been written down, I must embrace the notion that there is infinitely more that I will NEVER know or understand. This will always be the case, no matter how many books I read.
I will never even have the chance to read all the books I would like to read, much like I could never drink all of the water that is available. For each book I read leads me to even more books, and there are infinitely more books available than I shall ever have the chance to encounter. Books are like water.
For what I read, and for what I find to be self-evident within the books that I read, and knowing that I’m not the only one that reads them, I cannot help AS I read them to wonder why we all continue to experience so much pain, unhappiness, and foreboding. Why is it that the words of Jesus, Plato, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Marx, Sartre, etc. have not taken such hold as to elevate our condition beyond our current state? If existence is indeed to be celebrated (and it seems self-evident that it should be) then how is it there is still unhappiness?
We all must each DO, or we will each die. If life is to be celebrated, then we must take some action in each and every moment of our lives. Because we live with ourselves in every one of these moments, in is THAT truth which makes the idea that “the SELF is of utmost importance” so difficult to release? Is selfishness an inevitability? If your every moment includes “you” does it naturally follow that you will perceive every moment to be ABOUT you?
If we lacked a perception of “self” would we then be prevented from the perceiving the beauty of all that is NOT the self? This question, and the fear of LOSING the perception of all the beauty that exists, has me holding onto my sense of “self.” The ant, with no sense of self, thinks only of the community…and does what it does only FOR the community for it has no perception of itself. While this may well appear to be acting virtuously, two questions naturally follow: is it a virtuous act if it is NOT a choice away from its “self,” and is there virtue in losing the perception of the grandeur and beauty of all that surrounds it? The ant cannot see and appreciate the aesthetic beauty of a tree. (The contrarian exclaims, “You don’t know that!” But I do, for I can see that the ant does not act for itself, and with no selfish actions it has no perception of all that it is not.)
I bear witness to a greater and greater loss of connection between people, and between people and the planet…and this as a primary reason why we are in our current condition. And I cannot let this notion go. I cannot say, “Big deal – I’m going after what I want” because I cannot accept the idea that “what I want” is important enough to be sought. I find my happiness as others make the choice to include me in their lives, in the moment that they MAKE the choice to include me in their lives. It is not for me to insist that I SHOULD be in their lives because it’s “what I want” for then I must allow that they include me because of me, and not for themselves. If I am included of their own volition, this to me is a truer agenda, and thus makes me happy. But I, like so many, suffer from the greater and greater loss of connection…as exemplified in my expressing myself here to this screen I stare at in this moment I pound on the keyboard – making no eye contact with anyone, speaking to no one, listening to no one…all of you for whom I hold such fondness, affection, and love are, at this moment, so largely removed from my life – the mere snippets in my moments when I can share the air around me with you, when your mass and magnetic field interact with mine and sensed by my skin and yours. No. These days, we connect based on what I type when I type it and then what you type when you type it. I make lemonade now with the lemons that we are given, but I can perceive the virtue in a grand, living, breathing community where we see and hear and feel each other.
I can be a pretty fun guy to be around, so I’m told (not for me to say),and despite what could be perceived as the heaviness to that which I just expressed. Maybe a do-it-yourself lobotomy???