People search all of their lives for contentment. A source of joy. A source of relief. A feeling of freedom. They think that a certain path or a certain destination will make them happy. So they search for it in other people, in things, pieces of paper, careers, a lover, a marriage, a tangible something. When they are done with all those experiments, some of them realize that happiness is something that cannot be defined, bottled, inked, or manifested through something external to one's own mind and heart.
I've learned that the things we get the most excited about are those things that end up disappointing us the most, somehow. As one of the replicas of myself says The air outside the coffee shop felt too much like what she’d left. Always deceiving you with its lazy glamour and promises of paradise. She’d fallen into that trap once and found herself hating what she’d once loved. That's the thing about anything external. It can't live up to promises that the soul wishes to keep.
So the only thing we can do as humans is realize that happiness is not a temporal feeling or something that we can find, or seek, or capture. It is something that is already free, something that already exists and yet cannot be touched, or seen, or realized unless we stop seeing what we see. It is internal. It is peace. It is contentment. It is calm.
It is the place that we never leave, the person that we know and smile back at, the mountain that we only think we have to climb. It is that illusion that we chase. That illusion that changes each time we change. Peace and contentment are not horizons that we imagine we will someday become a part of. They are things that Nature does automatically. Simple breaths. Simple acceptance. Simple Being. Not as what it thinks it should be, but as what it already is.
That elusive thing we humans call "happiness" is an illusion because it can only exist within each of us. It can only exist in how we see.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Butterfly Colors Continued
You’re going to have to choose. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, you have to choose. It isn’t easy, that choice. And people wait. And people hope. For us to choose. For us to say yes. So that we can start living. And realize how precious time is. How precious those things about life are that we can’t grasp when we’re not sick, when we think we have everything, when we believe in only what we see, when we aren’t forced to tell ourselves the truth.
Some of the paths that we choose to take look polished, pristine, and safe. Some are ambiguous because they're a little narrower, are comprised of gravel instead of blacktop, and curve around the shadows of things we can't see unless we keep following what has already been laid out for us. A few don't exist yet because we're the ones who are going to have to break the ground and carve them out. The few of us who spend the time to envision something that hasn't been done yet, and who might make it a little easier for those who come after us, are the ones that travel alone.
The last stretch of that path was the toughest because the garden was so near. You could say that you saw it without ever walking in it, or sitting on its benches, or touching its orange red flowers, or staring at the city through the outlines of two palm trees, or watching the bird bounce up and down into the valley on a carpet of wind. But that wasn’t what she wanted--a side view or an almost there feel. So there went her left foot, and then her right, and then her left again. She turned on the spicket of water, filling her mouth, her throat, her stomach. It tasted a little like the bronze metal it had come from, but it was cool enough to splash and rub against her skin. Dante’s View, read the sign. Like Dante’s Inferno, she thought. Tricky to get to without a map or a GPS. But like any destination without a blueprint, an adventurous surprise.
Some of the paths that we choose to take look polished, pristine, and safe. Some are ambiguous because they're a little narrower, are comprised of gravel instead of blacktop, and curve around the shadows of things we can't see unless we keep following what has already been laid out for us. A few don't exist yet because we're the ones who are going to have to break the ground and carve them out. The few of us who spend the time to envision something that hasn't been done yet, and who might make it a little easier for those who come after us, are the ones that travel alone.
The last stretch of that path was the toughest because the garden was so near. You could say that you saw it without ever walking in it, or sitting on its benches, or touching its orange red flowers, or staring at the city through the outlines of two palm trees, or watching the bird bounce up and down into the valley on a carpet of wind. But that wasn’t what she wanted--a side view or an almost there feel. So there went her left foot, and then her right, and then her left again. She turned on the spicket of water, filling her mouth, her throat, her stomach. It tasted a little like the bronze metal it had come from, but it was cool enough to splash and rub against her skin. Dante’s View, read the sign. Like Dante’s Inferno, she thought. Tricky to get to without a map or a GPS. But like any destination without a blueprint, an adventurous surprise.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Empowerment
No one can determine who I am But myself My parents can not My teachers can not My friends can not They can guide me But in the final analysis The problem is completely mine For I have abilities That are completely unique to me And the challenge of Life Is for me To discover them To develop them To use them For then and only then Will I know Who I am -JavanI'm sorry if I have faith in my ability to see my story through and I'm sorry that I know how to follow my own instincts and not be completely controlled by others. I'm sorry I like to think for myself instead of letting my work be created for me by consensus. They didn't think I could actually do my last job either, but I did it. And I did it just fine--my way. As I go through the boxes, the old papers, the old self, I find remnants of yesterday's wisdom. The kind of pieces that make you smile and feel good about today's challenges. You realize that you don't have to apologize for who you are or hide her. There won't be any apologies for following your own vision. There is no more trying to figure out how to please someone else best. You have everything you need. Strength instilled by survival becomes release. There's nothing to worry about, whispers the wind. It doesn't matter what you choose. You are already happy. The courage to awake doesn't need to be found. It has always been and will always be here.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A Different Type of Calling
I've been thinking about how HSPs and empaths feel different or out of place in many environments, especially in professional or academic ones. Perhaps there are a multitude of reasons for this: overstimulation, a sense of wanting to change the way things are for the better, but not knowing exactly how yet, being more passionate about the profound and becoming frustrated when others just "don't get it," and wanting something more than self-elation and outward success just for the sake of a "pat on the back" from your peers.
One of my former bosses at that so-called company used to say "Imitation is the highest form of flattery." But I disagreed. I thought that almost everyone walked around like robots there and didn't think for themselves because they would rather make money for the sake of making money, and nothing else.
Despite my persistent ability to excel in the world of academia, often by producing mass amounts of "bullcrap" that makes sense somehow (yes, some of my former profs and mentors might disagree), I've suddenly realized that I'm not going to feel comfortable in my latest degree program because my ambitions for myself and my writing projects are different. Instead of hearing "Imitation is the highest form of flattery" the line is "Great writers steal." For some reason, lines like that still make me cringe. Not because I think it is wrong to borrow a technique or two (as long as you make them your own somehow), but because at the core of my being I do not want to be a robot. I want to think for myself. It's one of the main reasons why I left that so-called company.
I want to follow through with that ability that is very difficult to do--the ability to listen to one's own inner voice despite the noise of everyone else's opinions and one's own anxieties. I already learned that lesson. I don't want to repeat the consequences for not doing so in this new environment.
I want to create something that lives beyond the page and makes an audience feel. I want to inspire and create something that speaks to a profound experience that can connect an audience to something that is both inside and outside of their own selves. I don't understand why submitting to literary journals, contests, and AWP awards are more important than what I believe the purpose of art is--to inspire humanity to keep living, despite the darkness that exists in the human condition.
I know that I am not in this for a career. I am in this to make a difference somehow. To make someone else's journey in life easier. I know that I cannot isolate my work, but that I also need to feel like it is ready before I put it out there. And so I do not rush, nor do I follow all the "advice" I am given, nor do I strive to submit something I believe is passionless in order to please or be understood by my peers.
Release is realizing that it doesn't matter what the ending is and that what is, is everything. A friend of mine echoed to me last night what I have been feeling for awhile. "You don't need the program to do what you want to do." And I think that's true. I don't.
But sometimes we wonder if we're not where we are because something else needs us. Sometimes we are faced with making sacrifices and changes that we'd rather not make because we are the ones who "get it." Even if what we say, what we do, and what we produce are not fully realized until we have already disappeared.
One of my former bosses at that so-called company used to say "Imitation is the highest form of flattery." But I disagreed. I thought that almost everyone walked around like robots there and didn't think for themselves because they would rather make money for the sake of making money, and nothing else.
Despite my persistent ability to excel in the world of academia, often by producing mass amounts of "bullcrap" that makes sense somehow (yes, some of my former profs and mentors might disagree), I've suddenly realized that I'm not going to feel comfortable in my latest degree program because my ambitions for myself and my writing projects are different. Instead of hearing "Imitation is the highest form of flattery" the line is "Great writers steal." For some reason, lines like that still make me cringe. Not because I think it is wrong to borrow a technique or two (as long as you make them your own somehow), but because at the core of my being I do not want to be a robot. I want to think for myself. It's one of the main reasons why I left that so-called company.
I want to follow through with that ability that is very difficult to do--the ability to listen to one's own inner voice despite the noise of everyone else's opinions and one's own anxieties. I already learned that lesson. I don't want to repeat the consequences for not doing so in this new environment.
I want to create something that lives beyond the page and makes an audience feel. I want to inspire and create something that speaks to a profound experience that can connect an audience to something that is both inside and outside of their own selves. I don't understand why submitting to literary journals, contests, and AWP awards are more important than what I believe the purpose of art is--to inspire humanity to keep living, despite the darkness that exists in the human condition.
I know that I am not in this for a career. I am in this to make a difference somehow. To make someone else's journey in life easier. I know that I cannot isolate my work, but that I also need to feel like it is ready before I put it out there. And so I do not rush, nor do I follow all the "advice" I am given, nor do I strive to submit something I believe is passionless in order to please or be understood by my peers.
Release is realizing that it doesn't matter what the ending is and that what is, is everything. A friend of mine echoed to me last night what I have been feeling for awhile. "You don't need the program to do what you want to do." And I think that's true. I don't.
But sometimes we wonder if we're not where we are because something else needs us. Sometimes we are faced with making sacrifices and changes that we'd rather not make because we are the ones who "get it." Even if what we say, what we do, and what we produce are not fully realized until we have already disappeared.
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