Day 61: the real us, in there somewhere

What we want vs. Who we Are

It’s a big and sweet and amazing world out there. People want us to smile at them or laugh at their jokes or pay attention to them, or listen while they complain on and on.

And guess what? We want other people to call back, to listen when we talk and/ or complain, to “take our side,” to give us “support,” to “be friendly.” All sorts of things.

Sometimes, people give us what we want.

Sometimes they don’t.

Make a study today of what we want from the various people we either interact with or have “thoughts” about.

See what life would be like if we wanted what we want a little less, or were more curious about whether we’d get it than concerned/ convinced that we “should” get it.

Play a little with the almost always false concept of what we “need.” (Although I do “need” a pair of Channel Locks to change my shower head just now.)

Needing this or that from others is often code for wanting this or that, and today’s game: see if the wanting can be seen as a puff of an ephemeral cloud passing through us.

We want a happy day. Good. That can be within our doing. If we keep the responsibility (how we respond) inside us.

But when we want so and so to call back, or this one to agree, or that one to change more to our liking, our life seems to slip away into waiting around for other people to be different than they are, something people often have no interest in doing.

So, this is today’s game: find our wants. See how we imagine them to be “needs.”

And make an exploration: What happens when these wants / needs soften and we don’t take them so seriously?

"Love," "Being In Love," Woody Allen, mindfulness, stupidity

i know you aren't supposed to say
Woody Allen is stupid
and he does make halfway
intelligent movies

ah,
yes,
and one,
if one is me,
wishes so much for the other half of intelligence

Vicki Christina Barcelona
goes on and on,
has some hot sex,
even a trio that has the dark woman
and the "blond" (bottle blond)
and the dark handsome scruffy artist
huggy huggy kiss, kiss

and somehow "being in love"
is the goal
of life
and no one in the movie
betrays an ounce of awareness of either
what love
is
or what
being in love is

oh, well

so,
let's make a little stab at it:

"love" is wanting, wishing and acting
such that the one
you "love"
will have a good, happy, and wonderful life

"being in love"
is that sort of romantic opening,
when people come out of their little
me/ me/ me shell and realize:
ohmygod, there is another person
in the world,
and they are fascinated and thrilled
by that person
and obsess about that person
and want to be around that person
and if luck has it
get to do wet goey wild sex with that person
which makes the myth:
this person is the one who makes it all
happy, happy, happy for me
seem to be true

so:
"being in love"
is sweet:
a realization of the wonder of another being
and nuts:
a story that the other person is
making the happiness that is firing off
inside

what's really happening is
that
when we "fall in love"
we shut down our "staying out of love"
mechanism,
through which most of our life operates

and how does the
"staying out of love" mechanism work?

I am worse than
you
I am better than
you
I am different than
you
You scare me, worry me, annoy me

We are separate
and what I see is how you will impact my
me/ me/ me world

the world of business
that world of war
the world of politics
the world of popularity and celebrity
and manipulation

most of the world

and then we take a walk
and
if lucky:
"fall in love"
with the sky, or a rose,
or a passing smiling person
or a cloud
or being alive

anything's possible
and being alive
is the miracle

being in love
could be
being in love
with possibility
life
the Universe
the miracle of Now

something like that

and so
mindfulness brings us
to loving the whole world
and stupidity
keeps us searching
for just the Right One
for Being in Love

sounds harsh,
and it's stupidity to believe
in any words
over the experience of now,
even these

---

la,
la

such sweet stuff,
and do I have to drag up gunk over at
108 days?

no.
don't have to,
no requirement
to dig in and do the work every
day

and I will:
the work isn't over until I've cleaned up
all the residual gripes and complaints
and worries and fears and angers:

it's a lot
and it's the gold mine of compost
for the heart and soul:

today:
Marlie should want to form an amazing combination
of yoga and Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel thinking with me:
Is that true?

Nothing to Say

Is that true?

Well, once I ask that question,
I recall how wonderful it has been
to have the Work of Byron Katie
as the system I find most human
and useful
for those troubled moments in life
when something doesn't go my way.

Funny about life,
how it hasn't woken up
to it's job
of making everything just so
comfie, comfie,
flattering to my image
for me.

Alas,
of course,
then there's the turn around:
I haven't woken up
to realizing that it's my job
to make this life what i want it
to be.

And what is that?
Happy.
Aware.
Useful to others.
Creative.
Learning.
Useful to nature.
Happy when the yap yap mouth starts yapping.
Aware and awake when the yao yap mouth starts yapping.

ah,
the tongue
organ of taste
organ of speech
organ of conditioning

our mother tongue,
the lie:
these words are reality,
the miracle:
these words can makes sense to other
people
the drag:
these words can tell us what to do
and who we are
and shame and twist us
the glory:
these words
can sometimes be sprung loose
and be used to remind us
of the glory
when we are
quiet
and not in words
but in Reality

what is reality?
who we are without the story,
which brings us back to katie
and to the end of this little entry.

a bit to say
after all.

la,
la

The Meaning of Life

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
Is it true life has a meaning?

I don't know.

Can I absolutely know life has a meaning?

No.

How do I react when I rigidly attach to the thought: "life should have a meaning?"

Worried, annoyed with those who don't get "the" (= my) meaning, rating myself as to living up the "the" (=my) meaning, anxious.

Who would I be without the story: "life should have a meaning?"

Curious.

Alive.

Wondering.

Grateful.

Meaning to discover the meaning for myself, in each moment.


The turn around: Life has no meaning.

Better: thoughts about the meaning of life lead to no meaning, or less under standing of the real meaning.

Life is.

What a gift, eh?

(If this seems a "strange" line of questioning, please enjoy TheWork.com for a brilliant pathway out of emotional bondage and suffering.

Ciao,
Chris

---

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Slow Sonoma, Slow Food, Slow Glow

SLOW FOOD
Sometimes people ask me if I'm in the Slow Food movement because the main blog site I put on my business cards is slowsonoma.com.

Well, yes and no, that's the answer.

Yes, in the sense that slow Sonoma started as my campaign slogan when I ran for City Council 2 years ago. This town, this small and wonderful and very asleep to the inner life town of Sonoma, is full of people who imagine they are living a life that is high quality. A big campaign issue is always Quality of Life. With caps.

And then, people rush around through their lives as if they have to get so much done that there is no time to stop and smell the roses, no time to stop and look at the sky, no time to walk down the block and see who's home and how their neighbor's gardens are doing, no time even to cultivate their own gardens, instead leaving the job to some mow and blow and go guys ( the lawn janitors, I call them.)

So my campaign was: slow down. Build less houses. Drive slower, slow down the speed limit. Walk and bicycle more, slow down the rushing around. Turn off the televisions and talk to each other and your family.

Slow down and know this great wonderful truth: this is our life, right now, and only right now.

All else is a dream.

And so food, slow down when you are preparing a meal, slow down while you are eating a meal, talk to the others, look at them, look at the food, be quiet and taste more deeply, take a breath between bites, stretch out the meal and the companionship.

And how do I differ? Eating raw food, the cooking isn't slow, because it isn't. A salad can be easily and sweetly made, a dressing smoothie can be easily made, food can be fresh and natural. Fruit as fruit is heaven, no need to ruin it in a pie. Go for the real thing.

Slow down and touch and taste the food. If you want to cook, cook as little as possible and slowly and with love. If you don't want to cook, savor the richness and the flavors and all those enzymes and the sun kissed water in your food.

Life is good. Food is good. Now is good.

Yes.