Tuesday, February 1, 2022
6:15 a.m. I feel like we still haven’t quite gotten to what you have been driving at, the past couple of days. If that’s so, would you care to continue?
Switches.
Focus. Receptivity. Clarity. Presence. Thanks for the reminder.
As usual, we are aiming at two birds at the same time: you as a specific; human 3D life as a generality. That is, your life may serve to represent the human condition, equally in the ways that you are not particularly representative as in the ways you are so. Our first allegiance is to you, but given that your values include helping others see better as your own vision clears, usually there is no conflict for us. And, when there is, you and we know full well that you can suppress whatever you are unwilling to share. In the absence of distortion, we have no objection, obviously, but even if we did, it would remain your decision to make.
Specifically at the moment we are addressing an issue appropriate to your age (though not inappropriate to any age!), namely, what does your life amount to? What has it amounted to, specifically? What does anyone’s life amount to, in general? Not really multiple questions, merely one.
At one level you will have been asking this question all your adult life, and perhaps earlier, for of course everyone has to decide where to put their effort. This true externally and also internally. You decide on a career and a partnership and a home. You choose this path or that, and each choice leads onward to new choices. This is so even if some of the choices are made by default. All this is external: How are you going to interact with the world?
You also choose your values and your aspirations, continuously and again often by default. These decisions are usually invisible or at best seen by indirection, but they are not negligible. Everyone’s internal world exists, and indeed exists prior to the world they forge in their external relations.
You can see that this separation into internal and external is artificial, and only somewhat true; it is for the purpose of analysis. In life as you must live it, moment by moment, there is no such distinction between internal and external.
Sure, I see that.
Still, the artificial distinction is worth making, for clarity. It may be considered a distinction between intent and execution, between conscious and unconscious motivation. It is artificial in that the two aspects are being considered as separate, but it is real nonetheless.
Real enough to repay its use as a guide.
Yes. Useful even if misleading if taken too literally.
So, your life matters to the bundle that was constructed and inserted to function as a team in your time and place. That is, to you yourself as a soul.
It matters to those who interact with you throughout your life, knowingly or unknowingly on your part or theirs.
It matters to those whose lives are different because of the ripples you sent out by your presence, even if they never know you lived. (As George Bailey discovered.)
It matters in that your life is going to alter the unfinished business of the shared subjectivity, whether or not you know it.
Now, listen! And this is meant for everybody: We are not saying “Life can be beautiful.” We are not saying, “Precious, irreplaceable you are the center of the universe.” We are not saying “You are a gift to life and life is a gift to you.”
That is, we aren’t saying these things in the way you might expect. In fact, they are true sayings, only you must keep in mind that they are true of one and all. And that is harder to keep in mind effectively than you may think.
Hard perhaps to keep in mind either end, that it is true for us as individuals, or that it is true for one and all.
But surely it is plain that it could not be true for only some (let alone only any one person) and not for all? And surely it is equally plain that the entire scheme of things cannot be a failure?
No, I don’t think that is plain at all, not the second part. I know at least two friends who can’t wait to get out of this life, who regard it as a continuing penance, being here. I used to think that way myself. It is not at all obvious to everybody that life is a gift, or is beautiful, or that it centers on each of us.
Naturally we are glad that you have worked your way out of that phase, and it is to help others see life this way that we have been working with you this long time. What else does it mean, “life more abundantly,” if life itself is without savor?
However, it does no one any good to pretend not to see that sometimes life is tedious, or painful, or seemingly pointless. Those are psychic facts, and can’t be wished away.
Certainly true. Even in this twenties, even at Walden, Thoreau said that sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, the world creaked a little.
A passing mood, seen as such, is one thing. A continuing oppressive sense of meaninglessness or even of active or passive malice or indifference of “the world” to one’s existence can be devastating.
You don’t need to tell me! I’ve been there, for more years than I could count, and during the years that should have been the sunniest. You don’t get out of such an enveloping depression by hearing somebody tell you to snap out of it, and you don’t do it by deciding to do it, though that’s probably an essential step. Like any mood, it makes you think that what you are feeling is an accurate reflection of reality. Your mind and reasoning may tell you one thing, but your feelings are telling you another, and your feelings seem realer than your reasoning.
Sure. So how did you get out of it?
Well, that stopped me. How did I? We move from one state to another, and we don’t necessarily remember the milestones along the way. I don’t really know. I’d have to say it probably wasn’t any one decision, or I’d remember it.
That’s exactly right, and there you are.
Meaning?
The only “one decision” likely to be unforgettable would be suicide, and you wouldn’t be likely to remember it long – not in 3D, that is! No, life is almost never a matter of “one decision and that’s it.” That would raise the stakes, wouldn’t it? Get it wrong and you’ve ruined your life. Get it right and the rest is anticlimax.
When you put it that way, it’s clear enough.
Life is a continuing series of decisions, and you can decide today, right this moment, to change course. It needn’t be an external change, it can be internal. Indeed, internal changes are the most effective and the most likely to actually change something. But if you can change at any moment, where is the excuse for giving up on life (which of course amounts to giving up on yourself)?
You won’t get any argument from me, though you might have, some years ago.
No, because you learned by experience, and because our help in readjusting your vision showed you that practice and theory coincided.
That’s very true, and I’m very grateful. Anyone who has lived for years in a state of depression knows what a balanced emotional life is worth, just as someone with asthma knows the value of unimpaired breathing.
So title this, perhaps, “Is life worth living?” Add a little suspense.
Very funny. Our thanks as always, for all of this.