01
Being where we are, doing what is ours to do, is enough. We don't want to be where we are. We don't know what is ours to do. And we cannot be still and quiet long enough to know what we know about what is ours to do. The old Taois"t question, "What was the face that was yours before your grandparents were born?" puts us on the right path. Carl Jung's observation that "We are who we always have been, and who we will be," is another clue for the journey to who we are and what is ours to do. That is the quest. The business about "Finding ourselves," is the search for who we are and what is ours to do. The face that was ours before our grandparents were born is our original nature. Is who we always have been and who we will be. And what is ours to do is whatever it takes to express/exhibit/incarnate who we are. What we do is who we are. Who we are is what we do. Has nothing to do with making money and having it made. Has only to do with being and doing who we are. Integrity and sincerity, Kid. Integrity and sincerity.
02
It (Our life) only becomes clear in hindsight. It is when we look back that we see the patterns, and the connections, and the flow. The future is dark and the present is a mess. The thread is only apparent in the past. We live forward looking backward, trusting ourselves to the now because it has always worked out that way. The now is trustworthy because here we are. Now. And we got here/now by the magic/miracle of each now weaving us into the trail our life was leaving behind us until we arrived right here right now. Trust the now. It knows what it is doing.
03
Bear the Pain! That's all there is to it. Carl Jung said that all of our problems are caused by our refusing to bear the legitimate pain of life. He also said "We meet our fate on the road we take to escape it." If you substitute "pain" for "fate" the story is the same one. All alcoholics are drunks because they took a drink to numb the pain of their life. Their pain was saying, "You can bear me now, or you can bear me later." We do not avoid the burden of bearing our pain by hiding out in some escape pod. Step into it. Dance with it. Face up to it. Let it show you what it has to teach you. It is the threshold to every good and worthy future. And don't run from it and hide. As if.
04
We all need a sounding board. A sounding board is all we need. We have to hear what we have to say. All of our "institutions" are designed to keep us from hearing what we have to say. They all tell us what we need to hear. Churches head the list. Schools. Hospitals. Government... Everything whose job is to keep society going is killing society by preventing its access to the source of life: The individual's own, personal, psyche. Carl Jung wrote extensively about the corporate tendency to replace/destroy the individual's capacity to find their own way in the world. Get a group larger than five members and no one is thinking for themselves. No one is listening to each other. Which means no one is hearing what they have to say. "Group Think" prevails. And people who do not think like they do are not allowed into the group. Divisions do not exist because differences of opinion are not permitted. Sound like the dear old GOP to you? The world the GOP wants-- and would create instantaneously with a sweep in the 2024 elections-- would be precisely the world the GOP is and wants everywhere to be. It is the fascist way: "People like you make people like me hate (kill) people like you!" That is the future the GOP will impose upon the world, and the entire universe with time. Dismiss the danger to your own demise.
05
In "Living an Examined Life," James Hollis said, “Life’s two biggest threats we carry within: fear and lethargy… Those perverse twins munch on our souls every day. No matter what we do today, they will turn up again tomorrow. Over time, they usurp more days of our lives than those to which we may lay fair claim.”
We are afraid and we are lazy. Which means we are killing ourselves in the search for someone to take care of us like we desire to be taken care of. The church fills that need for many of us, fascism fills it for many more of us. Any group that tells us what we want to hear can tell us what to do, and we bear no responsibility for our actions because we are blissfully at peace following orders. In "Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life," Hollis has more to say: "each morning twin gremlins – fear and lethargy – sit at the foot of our bed and smirk. Fear of further departure, fear of the unknown, fear of the challenge of largeness intimidates us back into our convenient rituals, conventional thinking, and familiar surroundings. To be recurrently intimidated by the task of life is spiritual annihilation. Lethargy seduces us with ' kick back, chill out, numb out, take it easy'." And the Alcoholic's fantasy kicks in here: "All we ever wanted was smooth and easy!"
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