05/04/07

If we sit anywhere long enough, our life will come along and ask something of us. At that point, we get up and do what needs to be done. We are here to do what needs to be done. If we don’t know what that is, we only have to wait. It will become apparent over time.

Once it becomes clear what needs to be done, and we get up to do it, something will get in our way. Then we will have to do what needs to be done about the thing keeping us from doing what else needs to be done. And, something else will get in our way. Now, you begin to see what our lives consist of.

The primary realization is that we cannot do it all and have no business trying. We have to walk away from some things. We have to leave some things undone. We have to pass on some things. We have to draw lines. Say no. Move on.

We decide where to spend our energy, how to spend our time. We choose what we ought to do, must do, want to do, will do, and will not do. In light of what do we decide? On what basis do we choose? What governs our action? What determines what we care about and why? We serve unconscious processes, and do not understand our own motives.

Self-actualization, self-preservation, self-expression, self-determination are terms we use freely, but what is the “self” and what is the “self” up to, and are “we” just along for the ride? We use words like “soul,” and “heart,” and “spirit,” and “self,” and “mind,” and “psyche,” as though we know what we are talking about. But, what are we talking about? What’s the game? Who are the players? We don’t know.

What’s in our best interest? We don’t know. Is it better to win or to lose? We don’t know. Is it more dangerous to succeed or to fail? We don’t know. Where are we better off? We don’t know. What is optimal? We don’t know.

We know what we like and don’t like, but we don’t know why we like it or don’t like it, or whether we should like it, or should not like it, or whether it’s good for us or bad. We don’t know what governs our actions, or what should govern our actions, or how to know.

That being the case, I recommend that we live toward the best we can imagine, and let that be that. We may be wrong about the good being good, but we have to live in light of something, so we may as well live in light of, in service of, the good we call good until we see that it isn’t all that good, and then live in light of the good we call good then.

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We can only be as awake as we can be, as conscious as we are. We can only live toward the good we call good now.

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We will never get to the bottom of it. We will never know what we are doing.

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Thinking only gets you so far, then you have to experiment.

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If thinking were all it’s cracked up to be, we wouldn’t need laboratories and test tracks. Everything would be what it was supposed to be right out of the box.

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Thinking never takes everything into account. You have to live life, you can’t think it. But, if you aren’t thinking about what you are doing, you’re stupid. And, if you think you can think your way through life, you’re stupid. Trying to be smart is stupid, and trying to be stupid is stupid, and trying not to be either smart or stupid is stupid. What’s smart is knowing how easy it is to be stupid.