Friday, April 28, 2023
4:40 a.m. All right, guys, let’s talk. I gather that you’re okay with my ceasing to post, ceasing to talk to you this way, ceasing to do anything at all. The major variable seems to be, does it satisfy me. And, I appreciate that. Nobody would like being whipped to work. But is this variation on retirement really what I want? I don’t think so. I think I would actually prefer the kind of advance i was hoping would follow taking the program earlier this month. That was the point of spending the $2k, after all.
And your question is — ?
I don’t know what my question is. I’m getting a feeling again of the vultures circling, not as a sense of being preyed on, but of them being an indicator of the end approaching. Financially I’m starting to feel pinched, in a way I haven’t for quite a while – a couple of decades now. Socially I am more aware than ever of my day to day isolation, and it doesn’t hurt but is tiresome, only in that I am not turning that isolation to effect in production of art or letters or careful teaching. I keep thinking of the woman who worked at Hemingway’s in Cuba, who killed herself leaving a note that said she was bored with life.
None of this really touches your complaint, though all of it is true. Really, you are asking, “Why can’t I work, happily and productively?”
I suppose I am, yes.
You have long had a sense of being self-divided, and even almost of being sabotaged.
It is as if there was some restraining mechanism at work. I’ve never understood it, and I’ve never found a way of disabling or removing it. When I’m not bound up by it, I work happily for hours and I produce another book, or whatever I am setting my mind to. But I can’t seem to govern the timing of when I am free of that binding cord.
It isn’t merely lack of willingness.
No, it seems environmental. But if the shared subjectivity – the external world – is a representation of our own internal world, can there really be “external” obstacles?
You are to some extent disregarding what you have absorbed in recent years about the intractability of external factors because you are not the center of the world. You are, and you aren’t, as we spelled out at some length.
Yes, I see. The shared subjectivity is maintained by everybody together, and not merely by everybody in 3D at any present moment, so of course we are each an inconsiderable dot in a huge picture. This, even though at the same time the entire “external” world is a mirror for us, and is, in a sense, background against which we do the only real work there is, work on ourselves.
So, should it surprise you that you cannot by sheer willpower overcome what you begin with and remold it to heart’s desire? That is one purpose of 3D, after all, to provide resistance against which you can exercise your muscles. Without the world as canvas, how could you paint? Without intractable limitation, how could you productively struggle?
So, grin and bear it, then.
Well, you always have alternative strategies, and some moments favor one, other moments others.
- Go along. Coast. Flow with the energy of the moment.
- Struggle. Determine to do what you want, not what the times make easy or even what the times make possible.
- Flow, steering. That is, move toward what you want, skillfully making use of even adverse currents or contrary winds.
Probably every possible attitude is a variant of these three approaches. Which you prefer will depend upon who you are and what the times are (as you experience them) at any given moment.
Well, how about some helpful hints about how to employ these strategies? Flow seems obvious, but Resist and Steering, less so.
Reflect upon your situation – which in context means, reflect upon your life. Look, for greater clarity, less upon what you might do, and more upon what you have done. The data is clearer. You have a track record.
You mean, what we have preferred, and how we have executed it? Sort of like a Myers-Briggs, showing our natural bent?
More or less.
- How often have you flowed with the stream, merely keeping off the rocks on either shore? When you have done so, what has your internal life looked like? Were you serene? Contented? Bored? Restless?
- When you have resisted, attempting to impose your will on your life circumstances, again, how did it feel? Was the struggle invigorating? Fascinating? Exhausting? Satisfying?
- When you have attempted to skillfully steer among the rapids, or in contrary winds, was it, again, a positive or a negative or a mixed experience? Was it a matter of avoiding the negative aspects of drift or struggle? Was it the quiet exhilaration that comes with exercising skill?
The helpful hint that I asked for is, I suppose, that by examining our feelings in past circumstances we can somewhat triangulate our inclinations now.
You can predict results psychologically, put it that way. You can get a better feel for the way that is right for you.
Only, don’t expect easy. Don’t expect satisfying, or productive, or anything at all. What you experience may be anything; there is no predicting (from 3D-you) what is most fitting nor most likely to occur.
When I heard the little orienting mantra, I thought, “May I be safe” is a given. “May I be happy” is a choice of attitude. “May I be healthy” is a sort of choice that follows from other choices, and “May I live with ease” also follows from what we have decided to live. Someone like my friend Joe, under a sentence of leukemia, has just as much choice of living with ease as someone in good health – depending upon his attitude, which ultimately is within his control.
Then why aren’t you living with ease?
Am I not?
We would say so. But, if you recognize that, what is it you are feeling?
Hmm. Thoreau’s “divine discontent”?
Is that part of you?
It is.
So, anything wrong with it?
Only if I let it discourage me, I suppose.
And if you were to get discouraged? Is that the end of the world?
Just “the kind of thing that happens in 3D,” I’d say.
So where is the problem? That is, is there a problem? Doesn’t it depend upon how you look at it?
Everything you’re saying strikes me as true, but it seems to leave something out. It doesn’t seem to factor in the something that makes life hard.
Your brother told you years ago that expectations could be a problem. One’s expectations of oneself, of the world – in short, of life – could easily lead a person to conclude somewhat hastily that something is wrong, because the reality experienced is not living up to the reality expected. But is it reasonable to expect that life will conform to your expectations? What possible good could that do you? It is precisely to provide you with contrary or unexpected or undesired situations that 3D is designed to do. If there were nothing to constrain you, how could you create and grow and live in exultation?
That sounds almost like, “Stop whining.”
That would be good advice, if you were whining. Let’s say, instead, “Stop second-guessing yourself, stop second-guessing life.” Try living as if you knew what you were doing. Or, to put it more bluntly, “Try trusting yourself more, and life more.” Doubt, difficulty, pain, failure, illness, name it – they’re all part of life. Do you imagine that they somehow invalidate life? Just because you’d rather not have to experience something doesn’t mean it’s bad for you. Everything in your life can be used for your betterment. That’s why it’s there.
I can imagine contrary voices, offering objections rooted in their personal history or in history at large.
And there will be no persuading them of what they are determined not to believe. Still it remains true that happiness and health are a choice, not an accident.
Thanks for this, as always. Good to be in touch again.
Notice that you are now asking more personal questions. Don’t draw conclusions, but notice.
Okay. Till next time, if there is a next time.