Monday, July 25, 2011

Nothing to Offer But My Own Confusion

Nothing to offer but my own confusion.  Thanks for looking at my first post.  I will not pretend you are even reading it or will continue to read it. That would be presumptuous.
Some of the confusing events I will blab about include writing, running down roads, recovery from addiction, parenting, and the behavioral health field. Fortunately I have a couple of  novels, a dozen marathons, 19 years sober, 2 children, and 17 years working as a clinician to provide some material. Read what you want, please skip whatever bores you, and know that I wish you well as you move on.

Nothing to offer but my own confusion. Its a Jack Kerouac quote, before I get accused of being a plagiarist, I will call myself out.  But I love the quote, so there you go. It is hard to take life too seriously, because its all we have. Whatever we do today should be important enough that we would trade away a day of our life for it.  But to take yourself too seriously is a terrible sin, so I will try not to do so.  I'm just a stooge looking for a couple of partners to connect with to make a comedy team, and to discover if I am a Larry, Curly, or Moe (or even a Shemp) is my existential crisis.

I am just now reminded of a Buddhist meditation. Take a deep breath and hold it.  Hold it, hold it, hold it... good. Now imagine as you hold your breath that for all that moment you are dead.  Watch around you as the world goes on. See how it moves without you. Notice how insignificant you are.  People walk and talk and sleep and move and function. Even those tasks you had to do at work won't keep you from dying.
Now, when the time comes you want to rejoin them, go ahead and exhale and start moving amongst them again.  But see, you died for a minute, that wasn't so bad, life went on.

(The tragedy of your loved ones and all your possible pasts and futures notwithstanding.)

Sorry if that all sounds odd. Like I said, skip what you want. Yes, the only ones for me are "the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time."

That's quoting Jack again.   It's too late in time to have a new thought, I suppose, all of us just standing on the shoulders of giants and thinking we are tall or standing on third base and thinking we hit a triple.

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