Like the Phoenix from the fire...

Recently I've been rereading this book "We" by Robert Johnson. It's all about the psychology and implications of romantic love: how it interacts with the psyche, and, ultimately, if approached creatively, can balance the yin and yang of the self.

This isn't really what this post is about. But it's really gotten me thinking a lot about this balance, and what it means to have heart AND head. It's an introduction, none the less.

I can already tell that at first, this is going to get rather pessimistic sounding; cynical even. Keep reading, though, because I can all but promise a positive and uplifting ending, here.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my emotions, my motivations, my ethics. In corollary to this, I've also been thinking a lot about my friends and my interactions with them. I've been thinking a lot about how people see me, and how that changes who I am, and vice versa. All weighty topics.
People, in general, are disappointing. We, as humans, have so much potential. Of the animals, we alone have the capability to look consciously at ourselves, our emotions and motivations, and make choices on how to act. We alone have the capability to make decisions regarding right and wrong, what is ethical and what is not. Yet, so few are the people that actually DO these things. For the most part, people are reactionary, selfish, indulgent and weak. We have the capability to fix the problems in our societies and in the world, to stave off hunger, to cure any disease, to stop power hungry men from killing, abusing and torturing, both singly and in mass. We don't. Instead, we continue on with our own lives, doing little, or, at worst, contributing without second thought to our own actions (hear me, Hummer drivers??). I am learning, slowly, to love people, in general, anyway. It's really not that I hate the way they are, but rather I am angered that they are not what they COULD BE. Myself included, even if I DO feel like I try harder than most.

All of my friends are amazing. They are people, generally, of honesty, loyalty, integrity and passion. A couple of them (you know who you are) lately have made me aware of just how much I owe them. They are probably the two of my friends that have given me the most compared to what I have given back. One in particular I should thank: she has shown me the most loyalty and compassion when I have given her plenty of reason not to and little to encourage her.
Which leads me, in a meandering sort of way, to what I'm really getting at. Or at least the nearest prelude to it. I've gone through a lot in the last year...it just seems to keep coming at me. Recently this woman sent me a very supportive and heartfelt email, and closed with an encouragement not to become jaded or hard. To keep my heart open to the world. And this has gotten me thinking about this reaction.
A little over a year ago was probably the happiest time in my life. Everything seemed to have fallen into place: my life had love, direction, ambition and purpose. And then, in the space of less than two weeks, it all fell apart. This was the beginning of this lesson I perhaps only recently have been able to learn.
In the following months, I have been shown disappointment, disloyalty, disillusionment and betrayal from a number of examples. I open my heart (not just in romance) and get ignorance or disdain. A number of the people in my life have shown me behaviors and sides of themselves that hurt, deeply. I have been treated in ways I never saw coming from some of the people I would expect it from the least. I have been abandoned, deceived, and passed over.
And I feel the impulse to shut down. It's strong. I want to be angry, and bitter. I want to be cold. I want to turn the same self-serving attitude on the people (and the world) that have turned it on me. I want the protection of a walled-over heart.

The phrase "once burned, twice shy" pops to mind. You learn a lesson when you're hurt: don't do that again. But, instead, I think there is a truer lesson to learn: the ability to feel this way, to be disappointed and disillusioned and hurt, and instead of protecting yourself, open your heart to the world anyway. To say, "Yes, I love you" against all impulse to turn away. To look at the world, at people, and how fucked up it all is, and love it anyway.

I don't have it figured out. Not at all. But I do have my bearings again. I know where to turn, which direction to face, what path to walk. This is what I've been missing for a long time, now. What I've gained is not a 'thing', or even a knowledge. Instead, it's something I've lost, that I needed to lose: hope, expectation. Not the good kind of optimistic hope, but the kind of hope that keeps you attached to some particular outcome or behavior. These betrayals and disappointments are like a cleansing fire, and the good examples, the heartfelt loyalty I've been shown in the midst of it from unexpected sources cleared the smoke from the air.

Like the phoenix from the fire I feel like I've been reborn from the ashes of an intense and purifying blaze.

I know the last while I've been kinda weird to a lot of my friends that are closest to me. Expect something new.

On Safety...

Today I read a short story by George Saunders. In this story, a man named Lars Farf, in returning to find his house burned to the ground, realizes how unsafe his family really is. So he rebuilds the house without a fireplace, disallows matches in the house, etc. The more he learns about fire, though, the more he realizes his family still isn't safe. All friction related activities are moved outside the house as well. Then he hears about floods, and figures his family isn't safe from them, either. Eventually, his family is living in Safety Pods, suspended above the forest floor, and fed through tubes.

All this got me to thinking about safety myself. Rather, got me thinking about it again. As a nation, we spend billions and billions of dollars a year to fight terrorism, so we can be safe from terrorists. We worry about cancer, heart disease, violent crime, etc. Disregarding the obvious problem that we don't actually worry about the things that are likely to kill us (like heart disease…we just keep on eating Oreos), and worry about the things that won't (like terrorism…check the stats…it's not gonna get ya), there's some other problems I'm concerned with as well.

First of all, I think a lot of concern with safety is really concerned with loss. What we're afraid of is losing something: a lover, our health, our property, our lives and our families lives.

This brings me to a lot of other stuff I think about a lot. No matter what I do, I can't be safe from loss. Not at all, in fact. In fact, I'm going to lose. Everything. Absolutely everything. Nothing at all in this world do I get to keep, not even my own body, and probably not even my own consciousness, or ego. And I'm worried about being safe. I worry about it a lot, in the back of my mind.

Still, though, there's something to be said about knowing, deep down, that everything around me is impermanent and fleeting. At first, this understanding knocked me to the ground, figuratively speaking. For a long time. Years, in fact. It took me a long time to pick up the pieces. I probably still am. The feeling is like nothing I've ever experienced. It's like that feeling when you think something really bad is about to happen and there's nothing you can do about it. Like watching a car bear down on someone you love dearly, but worse. Whenever I thought about it I could feel panic surging from my chest to settle in the tips of my fingers. I wanted to shake them, fiercely. I felt like running in circles.

What to do after that calms down though? When the realization that I'm completely and utterly fucked, from the beginning, and there's nothing I could do about it? That it was in no way up to me, that this is just the way the universe is organized? In a word? Freedom. I felt it coming pretty quickly after that, really.

The universe is a terrible place. Existence is terrible. Buddha was right: samsara is fire. Everything is fire, burning, burning. All is consumed, and nothing remains in one place, whole, for long. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, is how we say it in the west. At first glance, it's cruel and harsh, unforgiving and cold. Everything slips through my fingers like so much dust and ash.

But like everything else in creation, there are two sides to it (and if you get into the numerology of it all, the two become three, and with the original two, it's five. Get that Ryan?) The other side is beautiful. But to get to the beauty is difficult, and requires a sacrifice. Nothing is free. The sacrifice is yourself and all you hold dear.

The universe shimmers. It's impermanent, and that's what makes it shift and evanesce like oil on water, like the northern lights. Everything is like this. Even one little bit of something permanent would ruin the surface tension of it all and it would coalesce and precipitate, sinking into the blackness. The universe works on a binary, on and off, light and dark, being and not-being. We really can't mess with this at all, yet we walk around day to day, all through our whole lives pretending this isn't true, trying to secure a place for ourselves, trying to be safe and secure, warm and protected. This is not the real world. Doing this might make a person feel good, but I think the price for that good feeling is too high. It's not the Truth.

This brings me around to freedom again. I am freer now, and getting freer all the time. Buddha's response to this was to break the curse, to release all attachment to Samsara. This, truly, is annihilation. It's loss of ego, absorption into the Big I, OHM. I like the fire, the burning. I will be consumed. I choose it freely.

Of course, there are some drawbacks. Some of which I've come up against to deal with recently, and found, surprisingly, myself to be rather well equipped. Better than I'd hoped, for sure.

The reciprocal of no longer really needing or wanting or even respecting safety is that I no longer really find myself interested in interacting with others on such levels either. In other words, I don't really make people feel safe. I've lost more than one lover to this—my first, and one quite recently. In our culture, and in most cultures, people want to feel safe and secure in their relationship. I've even tried this myself a couple of times. I have to admit, I like it. I have a natural predilection to move that direction. To want to feel assured that my lover will be there the next day, the next week, the next year. This is never assured, no matter what. No matter what my lover tells me, no matter what vows we make. People get diseases, hit by busses, fall in love with other people, or simply fall out of love with you. There's absolutely nothing that can be done about this. But we don't believe that, and try, we try really hard, to make it safe. And by trying hard like this we build elaborate and complicated cages around our lovers, ourselves, and each other together.

In fact, quite a few times people I know have seen the way I am and heard the way I am, and ask me how I can be like that. The answer? I really can't find any other way to be. And what's more, when I've walked away from all this that most people find so important and integral in their lives, I've found something else. It's hard to understand, and even harder to convey to another person. It has something to do with freedom. It has something to do with truth and honesty. It's not a safe feeling at all. In fact, sometimes the terrible side of it rears its head and I find myself shaking, unable to sleep at night. Other times, though, when I watch people stuck in shitty relationships, like my sister and her fuckhead husband, or when I watch people working 40, 60, 80 hours a week at a job I know they hate doing, I feel ok. I know that if I get sick of doing what I'm doing, I can take it or leave it. Nothing traps me. I have nothing to lose.