Thursday, May 24, 2018

Samsara


Appropriately caffeinated and mid-way through the morning the effects of gravity weigh heavily on my eyelids. Without relying on selfie mode, I imagine their doleful droop and sense bags nestling into the sockets beneath my eyes. The tension running from my shoulders climbs the right side of my neck both aching and biting for attention. I am slow, both in brain and body, battling through a sludge as real as it is imaginary.

I woke up in my cave this morning, familiar to all my senses but especially in atmosphere.  Okay, cave might be too kind—let’s say hole. A well? Whatever it is—it is, I am, so low. I must have burrowed for weeks or months to get here—and planned ahead. There are reels of my failures already playing on repeat, slide shows of missed opportunities, and a sprawling gallery of my worst moments. I am their single captive audience, Alex Malcolm McDowell style— and believe me, the eye drops are a life-saver. There’s a lot to take in.

It’s not so bad, I’m fully myself here. Fully on display and fully ugly, but luckily I’ve turned inward. My building anxiety, my sense of dread, my social self, my compassion, my fear, my righteous anger, my desire for intimacy—all dulled and lulled to sleep by the warm blanket of nihilism I’ve snuggled into, deep, deep in my cave. Hole. Well. Whatever. The blanket is warm and inviting, in fact I slept all day yesterday, and could sleep all day today, tomorrow, and always.

We praise resiliency as strength, ingenuity, or an incomprehensible love that keeps us going despite all odds. From the view down here it looks like a weakness. It looks like participating in a broken system to just keep living, and for what? Why do we place so much value on just making it through? How many times will I climb out of this pit, (That’s it! A pit!) only to wake up or fall back down into it? This cycle of rising and falling, loving and losing is what many claim to make the sweetness of life that much sweeter. Sure, but that bitterness also intensifies. I’m often overwhelmed by the state of human suffering and upon closer inspection, my irrefutable role in perpetuating it. When I’m standing back in the sun after dwelling down here for ages, will I be any different? Will the radical love, hospitality, kindness, and understanding within me grow—and more importantly will I act on it?
Hasn’t happened yet.

When I’m given the opportunity to open my hand or close my fist, how many times will I do the former? How many times have I already done the latter? I shudder to think one day when I die I might be privy to the calculations, and recount every shameful incident. I’m sure my reels and slideshows aren’t comprehensive. My narcissism, idealism and act of self-shame is also self-serving. How can I better myself to feed my desires more fully?  

With every blink I feel the weight of this Cycle Of Suffering. I am undeniably as intertwined with the “self,” myself, the ego just as the “self” doesn’t really exist. It’s just lens with which we process the existence. With every deepening purple millimeter, the bags under my eyes remind me that being awake is more than going through the motions, watching popular television, reading articles, or coming into the office every day. It’s more than investing in my romantic relationship, my family, or friends. That despite being “awake,” I’m still asleep. While sleep is comforting, it’s purely self-serving. My aches and pains in my neck, my feet, my lower back are my internal screams of anxiety and distress. They are my physical signals that I’m doing this wrong, because internally, it’s bottled up and buried down. Anxiety always finds its way out.

The thing about the COD is that there isn’t a way out. Momentarily, I’ll forget and fall back into the warm embrace of happiness or love—but I always know in the back of my mind that the pit is waiting for me and like a diligent daughter, I’ll return to it again one day.