Saturday, February 17, 2007
Control, or Lack Thereof
One interesting side-effect, if you will, about going through the grieving process and interacting with others who have been through something similar is how absolutely tragic most people’s lives are. I mean, there are thousands of people who have experienced such fucked up bad luck that its amazing that they haven’t jumped off a bridge. I mean, if anyone is a candidate for that it’s me, but I don’t hold a candle to some of these people; entire families killed in car accidents except for one parent, that sort of thing. What is even more amazing is how everyone else thinks they’re somehow immune from it. We run around thinking how we control our lives and really any sense of control we have is completely illusory. We can perhaps control the little things, what sort of toothpaste we buy or what flavor of muffin we choose in the morning, but the big shit, the really big shit, is so beyond our ability to influence that to cede the point is almost incomprehensible. We expect to be able to mange our world; it’s our legacy as Americans for heaven's sake. It’s our birthright as New Yorkers. Despite my apparent laid back hippie persona (ahem), I actually have a bit of the control freak in me and the fact that this was something I couldn’t predict, manage or fix is making me a little crazy. The last time I felt this way was on 9/11 when I was running away from Tower 2. Remember my friends, life is not something we can put into little boxes and the Gods laugh at our plans.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
"The last time I felt this way was on 9/11 when I was running away from Tower 2.."
You are done running. Stay in the fire my good friend.
"Follow my ways and I will lead you
To golden-haired suns,
Logos and music, blameless joys,
Innocent of questions
And beyond answers.
For I, Solitude, am thine own Self:
I, Nothingness, am thy All.
I, Silence, am thy Amen.
Thomas Merton
------------------
The Buddha's Last Instruction
"Make of yourself a light "
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal - a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I'm not needed
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Mary Oliver
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/maryoliver.html#last
Marcus,
The two lessons I learned from death are that we have no control and to not be afraid of dying. The loss of control hits hard because it shakes your security to the core. But, it also lets you see how ridiculous everything is that we tend to care about, especially material goods. The Stoics teach us that there is, in fact, very little we have control over. Acceptance of this can actually be liberating because you begin to see in the big scheme of things how all these things you seemingly care about, don't matter at all. Life boils down to relationships.
The stoics were Buddhists of a sort I suppose. Suffering is caused by attachment (desire) which includes the desire to exist as well as the desire to control situations people and things. Control is a complete illusion, of course, since it is attachment to a certain way which is impermanent and ever changing. Intellectually knowing and accepting this paradigm is one thing. Experiencing it is quite another.
Post a Comment