The Search for Meaning

A friend recently told me that now that she has all of the money she needs, and doesn't really need to work anymore, and she now finds herself struggling to find meaning in anything that she can do.  She told me that she didn't expect much sympathy, as this problem is not one that really plucks at most people's heart strings, but I knew EXACTLY what she was talking about.  A year after I moved to Costa, I felt the exact same thing.  While I didn't have much money, the world was open to me.  I could do anything at all.  And I was stuck.  What on Earth would be meaningful?  There seemed to be no reason to make one choice over another.

I asked myself if really I thought I might just move back to the States, get a job, and be just like everyone else in the world.  Disgusted with the thought, I packed my bags, and here I am. Just like everyone else around me.  Meaningless.

But last week, I realized something.  Six years ago, just post-Hoffman, I experienced a few months of clarity.  Openness to the world.  Happiness.  Love.  Freedom.  Detachment.  I've described it in detail, I'm sure.  But what I realized last week is that in that time of my life when I felt most me, most alive, most in touch with the universe, I didn't concern myself with meaning. 

And then it hit me.  When you are you - when you allow yourself to let God/the light/the Holy Spirit/your spirit drive you and all of your programming/patterns/habits/pain body are stripped away, you become meaningful.   You don't have to think about what you can do that would be meaningful, because what you do is meaningful.  Whatever it is.  At that point, trying to determine the purpose of your actions or of your being is, in fact, meaningless. 

And so I again set on my life's pursuit.  I'm no longer convinced it is to find the middle way.  It is to just be me.  At any cost. 

But to find the courage to make that leap...

I am again feeling that you can't ease into it.  You must make that leap.  But where that strength comes from...

The New Environment

I was in a discussion today with Kelli, and the homeless came up when talking about responsibility.  And I had a thought that I thought was worth sharing.

Those that don't want to live in society don't have a place to go. Society has replaced the environment with society.  It has robbed the fish from the rivers, the buffalo from the plain, and the fruit from the trees.  Society now is the environment.

Some choose to just live off of the environment.  Something that may be much closer to our nature as human beings.  It's sad for them that their environment is now our society, and instead of catching fish or gathering berries, they instead have to beg for money and live off of the government.  And they lose a sense of self worth - because they now have to beg, borrow, perhaps even steal to even just live.

And we judge them for it.  We judge them for taking what we 'made' or 'earned' without recognizing that we took the lush environment that would have supported them otherwise.

Sure, there are many that beg for booze or steal for drugs.  And that's sad and deserves perhaps even more compassion.  But to judge those that just want to live, and are forced to live off of this new environment because the old environment doesn't exist - that just seems like we're pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

Searching for the Middle Way

It occured to me today that a large portion of my earlier blogs tried to reconcile a spiritual existence with a human existence.  It seems that even one single attachment, one want, one desire - one single human element makes a spiritual existence impossible.  In fact, just one single human element starts a chain reaction that runs its course to a totally human existence, practically void of spirituality.  I won't get into the logic here, but my experience has shown that to be true for me. 

And in meditation today, as I opened my eyes, there sat a buddha statue in front of me, smiling at me.  And I realized that the Buddha went through the same experience.  He could not find his way to enlightenment from a human existence.  He had to totally give up his entire human existence in order to attain enlightenment.  Afterwards, he was able to look back and develop the middle way - a moderate path to enlightenment. 

I'm no Buddhist.  But I'm frustrated by the search for the happy middle ground - the ability to be spiritual and human at the same time.  Several years ago, I made a quick switch from 95% human to 90% spiritual.  That 10% humanity left in me has grown and grown for the past several years to 90%, and in the meantime, it feels like my spirituality has shrunk to the remaining 10%. 

What I seek is to survive within the human world - with all of its distractions - but remain fully spiritual - without want or attachments - filled with love.  I just don't know how those can possibly coexist. 

But that is my search.  To find my middle way.  And this must be my life's work.

It's Time

Three and a half years since my last blog.  I don't even know if this is still active, and if it is, why.  But I'm going to start writing again.  Honest, pure, alive.  May not be as many pictures.  But it's time I stop waiting for inspiration, and start writing as life is.  Today is my restart.  Tomorrow I'll find something to actually say.