As you might have read in one of my previous blogs, I have considered life to be to “meaningfully meaningless,” and sometimes I become depressed by such a belief. I wonder around thinking of reason as to do much of anything, and I end up spending my time on activities which merely use or waste my time. In these times I am often alone, as I often am, and I wonder about why I am alone. The other day I considered it was karma; I have karmic aloneness. I thought, I owe it to my self to be alone rather than seek company. That wears off easily.
Then today I took a bathroom break from watching the move The Duets and I thought, I have no real material wealth or sentimental wealth, and I think “most” want one or both of these qualities in someone in which they spent their time, romantically or otherwise. I thought, perhaps I have not acquired material or sentimental wealth because I don’t want to be seen or used as a disposable commodity i.e. I am only desired company when I have the “appropriate’ material or emotion the other needs. However, if I don’t have material things or sentimentality I will never be used and/or then disposed of. This is a good way to insure aloneness.
Then I realized there was a time when I had both, material and sentimental wealth. When I did I was “in love”. And in my “disposal” I became jaded, angry, and diminished, among other things. Then I realized, I can’t clam up or resent anyone for “disposing” of my once my giving is no longer useful. Just as I have limited life, my giving does as well. It runs its course. But can I accept that?
Then I remembered Ram Dass saying, “All you can do is throw your bread upon the water.” There is the image of fluffy bread hitting the surface of the natural water and in moments the water is absorbed into the bread as it becomes uneatable.
I then decided to read the source of Ram Dass’s quotation, the Bible.
Ecclesiastes 11
1 Cast your bread upon the waters,
for after many days you will find it again.
6 Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let not your hands be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.
7 Light is sweet,
and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.
8 However many years a man may live,
let him enjoy them all.
But let him remember the days of darkness,
for they will be many.
Everything to come is meaningless.
Meaningless. Really?
What is to live for if even the Bible says “Everything to come is meaningless [and is a chasing after the wind.”?
Ecclesiastes writes,
9 Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart…
And then as I we live happily, and follow our hearts, we “cast our bread upon the water,” and “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven,” and we “do not know the path of the wind,” and even though there is a time and a season for chasing the wind, I suppose as we cast our bread the wind will take it where it will, and perhaps in many days we will find it again.
A man reaps what he sows…. 9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (GALATIANS 6: 7-9)
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Playing
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
The finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play...
The rules of the finite game may not change; the rules of an infinite game must change.
Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.
Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.
A finite player plays to be powerful; an infinite player plays with strength.
A finite player consumes time; an infinite player generates time.
The finite player aims for eternal life; the infinite player aims for eternal birth.
The choice is yours."
-James Carse, Infinite and Finite Games"
Today, I learned I am most definitely a infinite player.
And that is all I have to say about that.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
The finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play...
The rules of the finite game may not change; the rules of an infinite game must change.
Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.
Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.
A finite player plays to be powerful; an infinite player plays with strength.
A finite player consumes time; an infinite player generates time.
The finite player aims for eternal life; the infinite player aims for eternal birth.
The choice is yours."
-James Carse, Infinite and Finite Games"
Today, I learned I am most definitely a infinite player.
And that is all I have to say about that.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Every moment....You never know
“Everything has a purpose, even this, and it is up to you to find it”
–from the film “Peaceful Warrior”
“There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self. The Self is free from all quality. If there is unity there is also duality. The numeral one also gives rise to other numbers. The truth is neither one nor two. It is as it is.”
-Sri Ramana Maharshi
Every moment is a chance to awaken.
Every moment?
What is awakening?
Awakening is often referring the spiritual path of the Buddha (or Awakened One). For the Buddha, when he awoke, he is believed to have realized complete awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was ignorance, along with steps necessary to eliminate it.
If every moment is a chance to awaken, then every moment is a moment to realize the nature of human suffering. I believe in order to have this moment of awakening we have to experience human suffering in order to realize its nature.
Currently, I am involved in Summer school, where I am taking two classes: Chemistry 111 and Education 201. The Chemistry class meets 4 days a week and an additional 3 times for the laboratory work (a total of 5 hours of Chemistry a day). The Education class meets twice a week for c. 4 hours. Therefore, on Tuesday s and Thursday s I am in class for a total of 9 hours a day, not including homework time.
Now that you have the set up, I discovered a week ago I failed the midterm (60%). I was disappointed. I thought, “I might fail this course.” And if I fail the course…
1) don’t graduate from college in the Summer
2) I have to take classes during the Fall semester
3) Will not have a job
4) I will not have worked during the summer to pay for Fall living expenses
5) Logically, I would have to retake Chemistry 111.
6) I am sure there are other things…
When I discovered the pressure I had put on myself to finish this course, I realized in order to pass I need a Chemistry tutor. I was able to have two Chemistry tutors. I began to study for longer periods of time, and I was continuing to make low grades on the quizzes (a moment to see if I know what I think I know, and to pull up my grade). I began to get more frustrated.
I then realized how I am failing this course. I am not remembering and processing the nuances of the class material. By forgetting, not knowing, or merely getting confused with the quiz material I am making the same mistake over and over, and making a low grade on the quiz.
So I learned something about myself. I learned I don’t make or remember small differences in mathematical data, computation and theory.
What do I do? I can’t change how I process information. However, I know I process the data of Chemistry to a level which is not aiding me in passing the class....I discovered how I am creating my suffering. I have come to realize my ignorance, and so… how do I eliminate it?
I realized my list of six things that would happen if I failed this class, (1) I don’t know for certain they would happen, (2) I can simply decide nothing on that list is bad.
As Sri Ramana Maharshi said, “There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self”. Being that my Self is all aspects of my life, passing or failing Chemistry is neither good nor bad.
* * *
The farmer had a horse and the horse ran away, and the neighbor said, “Oh, isn’t that too bad.”
The farmer said, “You never know.”
The next day, the horse came back followed by a beautiful wild stallion. The neighbor said, “How fortunate.”
The farmer said, “You never know.”
A short while after the son of the farmer was riding the wild horse, fell and broke his leg. The neighbor said, “Isn’t that terrible.”
The farmer said, “You never know.”
Short there after the government was coming through conscripting the young men for service, and because the boy had a broken leg he was left behind. The neighbor said, “How fortunate.”
And the farmer said, “You never know.”
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Inspired by reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"
Today on my lunch break I stopped at Borders bookstore. I picked up the book "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"(Muriel Barbery) and began to read. In this book, there is a 12-year old girl who is extremely intelligent. She is intelligent enough to surmise that life is absurd and has no meaning. I continued to read what little I could, since I was falling asleep as I was reading--this had nothing to do with the book's content.
On my way out the bookstore's door, I thought, Indeed, life has no meaning in the since any inherit meaning to discover. Life's meaning is not like a hidden room in a mansion; it is there all you have to do is find it.
Life at its most fundamental sense is formed, like babies are, from two components (the mother's egg and the father's sperm). The two people did not create life, they formed life using their collective resources. I think the fundamental shaping of life is analogous to the meaning of life, we shape it with what we have i.e. the resources of our life.
I began to think about this shaping of life like a painting (I am a painter, so I began here). Often, you begin a painting with a white "blank" canvas. This white "blank" canvas analogous to life's meaninglessness. However, because the canvas is white I can apply paint to it and shape the colors into whatever image I want (to the best of my abilities). Life's meaninglessness provides this same opportunity. Because life is meaningless I can apply and shape any meaning I want onto it. Therefore life is meaningless, but my life can have any meaning I want.
Then I thought, Wow that is overwhelming. I have heard an economist say that products don't sell if there are too few or too many choices. Too few and you want more options, and to many and making a choice is too difficult. When I considered a market economic point-of-view I thought of a quote from the film "Adaptation," when Susan Orlean says, "There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. "
To create a specific meaning for life, or even to believe life has a meaning and all we have to do is find it allows us to whittle the world down to a more manageable size. I am skeptical about this approach. However, I see it happening all the time. I see people constantly limiting how much of the world they can manage. They only have a few close friends, or only hangout with their significant other, only communicate with people who are in their immediate location, etc. I am not suggesting this is incorrect. I think they are examples of people whittling their world to a manageable size. But why?
I infer, just as the character from "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" posits that life is meaningless and absurd, if we can manage, narrow and "whittle the world down" shaping a meaningful life is a less difficult task. However, the flip side is that shaping a meaningful life is not a difficult task, no matter how small or large we perceive the world to be. It is not difficult because there is no need to control life.
Hence, you can not control the meaning of something which is meaningless. However, you can use your acquired, meaningless resources to compile and shape and impose meaning onto life. Then, from your perspective, life will appear to have meaning.
The inverse of this would to say life has no meaning and in saying that, life has a meaningful meaninglessness.
On my way out the bookstore's door, I thought, Indeed, life has no meaning in the since any inherit meaning to discover. Life's meaning is not like a hidden room in a mansion; it is there all you have to do is find it.
Life at its most fundamental sense is formed, like babies are, from two components (the mother's egg and the father's sperm). The two people did not create life, they formed life using their collective resources. I think the fundamental shaping of life is analogous to the meaning of life, we shape it with what we have i.e. the resources of our life.
I began to think about this shaping of life like a painting (I am a painter, so I began here). Often, you begin a painting with a white "blank" canvas. This white "blank" canvas analogous to life's meaninglessness. However, because the canvas is white I can apply paint to it and shape the colors into whatever image I want (to the best of my abilities). Life's meaninglessness provides this same opportunity. Because life is meaningless I can apply and shape any meaning I want onto it. Therefore life is meaningless, but my life can have any meaning I want.
Then I thought, Wow that is overwhelming. I have heard an economist say that products don't sell if there are too few or too many choices. Too few and you want more options, and to many and making a choice is too difficult. When I considered a market economic point-of-view I thought of a quote from the film "Adaptation," when Susan Orlean says, "There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. "
To create a specific meaning for life, or even to believe life has a meaning and all we have to do is find it allows us to whittle the world down to a more manageable size. I am skeptical about this approach. However, I see it happening all the time. I see people constantly limiting how much of the world they can manage. They only have a few close friends, or only hangout with their significant other, only communicate with people who are in their immediate location, etc. I am not suggesting this is incorrect. I think they are examples of people whittling their world to a manageable size. But why?
I infer, just as the character from "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" posits that life is meaningless and absurd, if we can manage, narrow and "whittle the world down" shaping a meaningful life is a less difficult task. However, the flip side is that shaping a meaningful life is not a difficult task, no matter how small or large we perceive the world to be. It is not difficult because there is no need to control life.
Hence, you can not control the meaning of something which is meaningless. However, you can use your acquired, meaningless resources to compile and shape and impose meaning onto life. Then, from your perspective, life will appear to have meaning.
The inverse of this would to say life has no meaning and in saying that, life has a meaningful meaninglessness.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Peter and I talk...
Today on my lunch hour I saw an old man, with a white cane, wearing a safari hat, jean shorts, a flannel shirt, and a sign around his neck, which read: "I enjoy company. How about a 5-minute conversation?" I loved it. I was about to get up to invite him over, when a woman from another table asked him to sit with her.
Meanwhile, I sat at my table, eating a cookie and drinking coffee, writing some notes on the opportunities of two different types of aloneness ("all-one-ness" and "a-lone-ness").
I was in the middle of pondering the question, "What are the specific opportunities of my aloneness?" when a I saw the woman from earlier inquisitively address a couple. She asked her question, put her thumb into her pocket. The couple began to look around in their bags. I inferred she wanted a pen or a pencil. So I asked her, "Do you need a pen?" She said she did. I handed my to her and she walked back to her table. She returned with the pen, and then returned again, and I said, "Do you need the pen again?"
She said she didn't and wanted to know if her friend(the guy with the sign around his neck) could sit with me. I said he could. I was intrigued and wanted to ask him about his sign.
He sat down, told me his name is Peter. I asked him about his sign.
He said, "I am blind, and I spend a lot of time alone in my house. I get cabin-fever, you know. So I decided to make a sign. And it has worked. I have met a lot of nice people since."
I said, "When I saw your sign I was a little envious."
He said, "You should make your own sign."
"I think it is a great idea, and if it weren't for social stigmas, I would make a sign."
"What?"
"Stigmas"
"What stigmas?"
"A young guy showing his desperate need to not be alone. I mean, you have to really own your aloneness."
He said, "Yeah, sometimes I get really depressed, and sometimes I accept it."
I told him I was writing about aloneness before he sat down. He asked me what I wrote, and told him I was writing about aloneness's opportunities and how I split aloneness into two categories. I told him I thought aloneness can allow us to be more adaptable.
He said, "We are social creatures. We need to talk to people."
I agreed. The conversation meandered a little. He then told me how his life is in turmoil because he is in the process of divorcing his wife. He said, it would be okay if she wasn't still living in the house. However, he also expressed some lentiment because he is losing a person who could help him live more easily, but he can't do it because she isn't emotionally stable.
Here is a blind man, who began to lose his eye sight in 1987. He went into early retirement because of his eyesight was failing. He was a flavor chemist. He comes to Weaver Street Market Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11:30am-2pm so he can talk to people.
Today, Peter and I talked. We talked about aloneness or perhaps (at times), we talked about loneliness.
Meanwhile, I sat at my table, eating a cookie and drinking coffee, writing some notes on the opportunities of two different types of aloneness ("all-one-ness" and "a-lone-ness").
I was in the middle of pondering the question, "What are the specific opportunities of my aloneness?" when a I saw the woman from earlier inquisitively address a couple. She asked her question, put her thumb into her pocket. The couple began to look around in their bags. I inferred she wanted a pen or a pencil. So I asked her, "Do you need a pen?" She said she did. I handed my to her and she walked back to her table. She returned with the pen, and then returned again, and I said, "Do you need the pen again?"
She said she didn't and wanted to know if her friend(the guy with the sign around his neck) could sit with me. I said he could. I was intrigued and wanted to ask him about his sign.
He sat down, told me his name is Peter. I asked him about his sign.
He said, "I am blind, and I spend a lot of time alone in my house. I get cabin-fever, you know. So I decided to make a sign. And it has worked. I have met a lot of nice people since."
I said, "When I saw your sign I was a little envious."
He said, "You should make your own sign."
"I think it is a great idea, and if it weren't for social stigmas, I would make a sign."
"What?"
"Stigmas"
"What stigmas?"
"A young guy showing his desperate need to not be alone. I mean, you have to really own your aloneness."
He said, "Yeah, sometimes I get really depressed, and sometimes I accept it."
I told him I was writing about aloneness before he sat down. He asked me what I wrote, and told him I was writing about aloneness's opportunities and how I split aloneness into two categories. I told him I thought aloneness can allow us to be more adaptable.
He said, "We are social creatures. We need to talk to people."
I agreed. The conversation meandered a little. He then told me how his life is in turmoil because he is in the process of divorcing his wife. He said, it would be okay if she wasn't still living in the house. However, he also expressed some lentiment because he is losing a person who could help him live more easily, but he can't do it because she isn't emotionally stable.
Here is a blind man, who began to lose his eye sight in 1987. He went into early retirement because of his eyesight was failing. He was a flavor chemist. He comes to Weaver Street Market Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11:30am-2pm so he can talk to people.
Today, Peter and I talked. We talked about aloneness or perhaps (at times), we talked about loneliness.
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