Stuck

I seem to be stuck.

I haven't had much to say in several days.

I've been feeling scared, depressed, disoriented, and just wishing to be dead.

I also seem to have lost my focus on ... this process. Whatever it might be called.

I've gone back to the place where I'm scared of what will happen, feeling completely unaccepting of what is, and thinking I should do something.

Pretty distressing. It feels like I've gone back to the first step and nothing I worked through in the last several months matters in any way.

What the hell!!!! am I just walking around in circles?!!!

OK, back to step number one; what is true? Or more appropriately for this stage, what do I think is true? What the illusions that I'm treating as truths and are driving my behavior and my feelings?

I know I will die. But my fear of death is coming out in a lot of ways these days. I'm afraid of death because I don't want to die. That means I have not accepted death. I might even think I could cheat it indefinitely. Pure falsehood, of course. But there is a part of me that has not gotten the message. And it's afraid of death and trying to do something about it. And I identify with this part a lot lately. And I forget that death is truth.

Also, I totally forgot about releasing the tiller. I think I should be at the controls. I should get back to steering the ship. But when I think that, I feel the protest against it in my body. I would rather die than have to struggle to do anything. I've struggled and exerted myself all of my life. All I got out of it is struggle and exertion. That is no way to live. I'd rather die.

Doing what I had to do

I left my job.

I'm relieved. For the most part.

My mind thinks I should be scared. I feel a little scared. Not as much as the voice in my head says I should be.

I deliberately walked off the cliff edge.

On several fronts over the last several months.

Lucid as I plunge into free-fall.

Neither happy nor sad.

Just doing what I had to do.

Awaken to Death. EOM.

Why shouldn't I kill myself right now?

Why am I still alive?

Or as I asked myself many months ago; why do I keep on living?

I've been through this cycle enough times already. The cycle of fear and hope which both sum up to illusion/delusion. So, why am I still alive? I know how this movie ends. I'm tired of watching it. I'm tired of being a spectator too. In my own life.

I want to see what real life looks like. The only thing that seems real in life right now is death. So, I want to see death.

Death changed my life when my dad died. It became the thing that gave life meaning. Or showed me that it's meaningless. Same thing. Then I went back into my coma where I fooled myself into believing that life means family, career, money, sex, friends, fun, service, compassion, ... Blah, blah, blah.

I've been disabused of those notions pretty thoroughly in the last few years. Especially over the last few months. Now, life has lost most, if not all, illusions that gave it meaning. But I have not arrived at the core yet. I don't yet really know the meaninglessness of it. I still go into this narcotized state where I think this gain or that loss means something about life. And I still don't know death.

I want to know death.

Suicide

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer

The meaning of life

Death. That's what gives life meaning. And the meaning is nothing.

I arrived at this realization the hard way. When I was 28. When my dad died.

Then I stopped. I tried to give my life meaning. And all I ended up doing was create walls to imprison me. Somehow, my death returned to being a hypothetical event. Something that will happen in the distant future. And my life started to take on meaning all by itself. Not sure how it happened.

Meaning = fear.

Meaningless = freedom.

Food for worms. Kings and paupers alike. And me.

This question of what if I were to die tomorrow is bullshit. I could die this afternoon. Tonight. This minute. How does one forget that?

I will die. How is it that I can go through most of my life forgetting this basic fact? In fact, it's the only thing that I know to be true. Everything else is conjecture at best.

I will die. So what? So why am I living, worrying, doing as if I will live forever? Why is there so much disparity between what I know is true and my actions?

Not really sure how to answer that.

The point is go further. To move past any obstacles, not make a study of obstruction.

So, the real question is the same question. Knowing that I'm about to die, what should I be doing?

It's interesting that the only thing comes to mind is to make a will to leave my possessions to my mother. This is the only answer that has come up for me repeatedly. Nothing else comes up.

Beyond that, I just want my freedom. I want to be released from this life. From its hold me. From thinking that it's valuable or that I should make something of it, or ...

Nothing matters. The more I make peace with that, the more at peace I will be.

If you were to die tomorrow...

Simple question. Asked it of myself numerous times before. Don't know why I stopped asking. It's come back in a big way.

If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you be doing today? And why the hell aren't you doing it?!

Failure

I'm engaged in a pursuit with a nearly perfect failure record.

Fuck!

This is the fear that's got me today.

Not dying. Not losing an arm or a leg. But wasting my time.

If it's not one fear it's another. There is always something to be afraid of.

I can't stand it any more.

The irony is I can't think of anything to do that would not be wasting my time. It all leads to the same place. A lonely grave.

Releasing the tiller

I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I know how to do this.

All I know is I want to stop living in lies. Everything seems like a lie right now. I never had anything. I never did anything. I am not anything.

And I've spent most of my life convinced that I have things. That I've done things. That I am something.

But the impermanence of all of those things that I deceived myself with is very clear. And it is clear that whatever I am, I am not any of the things I thought I was at one point or another.

I don't know what I am. I'm not sure I can know. What bothers me is all the false things I thought I was.

That's what I want to stop. And what I don't know how to go about.

So, this is my prayer. And my desire. I want to let go. I want it to stop. I want to die. I don't know what else to do but pray to be released from this state. And pray to accept whatever comes.

Surrender

I just got a reminder that this war I'm waging is a war of surrender. My whole world is turned upside down. I feel like I'm waging a war. I'm going after myself. And victory in this war is to achieve surrender. Not win. Rather, lose everything.

I'm having one of those moments where I can't wrap my head around it.

What am I to surrender to? My fears more than anything else. There is no way to conquer this fear. None that I see that wouldn't involve adding on more layers of illusion and lies. Surrendering to it, collapsing into it seems to be the only thing that is true right now.

No Safety

My choice continues to be whether to come back to logic and reason and do what someone in my position should do or continue on this seemingly insane suicide spiral that I'm riding down into...where? hell? heaven? freedom? despair? I don't really know.

The problem is I can't. I just can't. I can't run back to the false safety of hiding under my my life blanket that created with beliefs and fears and attachments. The only thing that is going for it now is familiarity. Otherwise, it is clear that it offers no safety whatsoever. In fact, it probably makes me unsafe (to continue with the metaphor) by lulling me into thinking I'm protected while my armor is made of nothing but illusions.

But so are my fears. I get moments of clarity where I see that my fears are also made of nothing but illusion. However, those are just moments that come and go. The rest of the time, they seem more real than anything else in my life.

Death seems to be the only thing capable of changing that equation for me. The moments when I surrender into dying, most of those fears go away. Not completely which probably means that I'm not surrendering to death completely either. But I get a taste.

The real fear at the core of all of this is the price I have to pay to have these fears disappear and never come back. The price is everything. I don't think I can pick and choose. Everything else must go with the fears. Notions of love, friendship, community, family, Allah... you name it. All the things that I identify with and see as parts of me that I like will also have to go.

I don't know if I can let them go. Or how. they are such fundamental parts of me that if they were gone, there would be no me left. I'm pretty sure that's the answer. I just don't know it yet.

As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado

As I lay with my head in your lap camerado,
The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air
I resume,
I know I am restless and make others so,
I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to
unsettle them,
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have
been had all accepted me,
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,
majorities, nor ridicule,
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still
urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.

-- Walt Whitman

Barren Wasteland

That's my mind. A barren wasteland. I'm up here to clean house. Although, I suspect I will be the one cleaned up.

There is so much shit up here it's embarrassing. All of kinds of thoughts and beliefs and attachments. Most of it is crap that was put in here for me. By my parents, teachers, society, friends, ... And there is some shit that I brought in here myself.

It all has to go.

That seems overwhelming right now. There is so much garbage, it will take me lifetimes to clean it up. If that's even possible.

Then again, what the hell else to I have to do? I'm done with life as it was. I'd rather die than try to keep that leaky balloon inflated. Cleaning is as good a way to spend my remaining time as any.

What do I want?

It's been on my mind. I should declare my destination. And it's really scary. I might actually get it.

I'm tired of the lies. I wanna see life for what it is. I wanna see me for what I am.

The scary part is I think it means letting go of everything. EVERYTHING.

I already feel my attachments to life as it is. I think to myself "it's bad now but it's not always bad. It will get better. And I will get to enjoy it again". DO I wanna give that possibility up?

That thought itself is disgusting. I don't have any other way to describe it. I'm trying to talk myself into another cycle on this merry-go-round. Except it's not so merry right now. Which means it doesn't have it's usual hold on me. I'm as close as I'll ever be to letting go and I'll be damned if I let this opportunity slip away again.

I want out.

If there is a truth, I want to know it. If there is no truth, I want to know that too. I don't care. I just want out of this existence. I didn't create it. I didn't choose it.

I choose the truth. Whatever that might be.

This is my intention. My desire. And my prayer. That I know the truth once and for all.

My deal with the universe

I've talked about this but I think I should include it here. Basically, the last few months have been hard to put it mildly. I lost and still I'm losing some major structures in my life. And they are dissolving with a lot of light and sound. Very dramatic.

As all of this started to happen, I began to see or hear a message from the universe;"you don't need these things and I'm taking them away to show you that".

I heard loud enough and often enough to take a hard a look at my life. It began to seem clear to me that a lot, perhaps all, of the things and structures in my life are impediments and obstacles not assets. I worked hard all of my life to create these structures because I believed that's what's best for me. Perhaps I don't know what's best for me. I'm losing so much yet I feel lighter and happier. And scared out of my mind at times.

Either way, it became clear to me that I'm not in control of things. Things don't go one way or another because I willed them this or that way.

The universe seems to have a flow to it. And the best I can do is go with it. Get out of the way and allow it to flow. I can feel it very strongly now when I get in the way and impede the flow.

So, with all this in mind, I made a deal with the universe:

"Whatever you think is best for me, you bring it to me and put it in front of me, and make it easy. And I will pay attention and choose it. And I won't choose what is not in front of me which will take work and effort to go after. I will choose what you out in front of me".

I'm cheating a little bit here. I call it a deal but it's not. The universe has always worked this way. I'm just now learning to pay attention and choose what the universe puts n front of me. It feels easy and flowing when I do that. So that has become my signpost. I can feel when it's easy and flowing and when it's not. And I choose accordingly.

Is it all good?

I'm beginning to see the way out of this scary question; "what are you afraid of?". I think the source of my fear is the fact I have a preference. I prefer to keep all of my limbs and body parts. That preference, in turn, comes from my fear that without all of my body parts, I'm a lesser person, or might not exist at all.

The whole question feels gruesome to me. Like something terrible might happen by me just talking or thinking about it. This is how scared I am of this.

I feel a little stuck now. I see the question with a little more clarity but I'm not done with it. I'm a little less scared but I'm still scared.

I feel myself wanting to think my way out of this corner. And I also feel the effort and work it takes to think. It's not the easy flowing way out. So, I won't take it.

I'll set this aside for the moment.

About the "all good" thing; I think the core of it this question is "it's all good". That little phrase I used to hate. I used to think that everyone who said is just numbed out or not paying attention.

Now, I don't know what to think. The more I surrender to what comes, to what the universe brings, the more I see how it could all be good. There is no difference between a whole or a maimed body. No virtue of one over the other. Food for worms at the end for both of them.

This body is a rented vehicle. And this world is a motel. And we're just passing through. We will leave the motel and discard the rented vehicle as soon as they are not useful to us.

But when is that? I used to think I needed them for the whole ride. Now I'm not sure any more. I feel how confining it is to think the car and the motel is all there is. They have become home. But they're not. They are things I'm supposed to use and leave behind.

Maybe I'd rather walk than drive, and sleep in the sun or under a tree than in a motel room. Not sure where this metaphor is going any more.

What are you scared of?

The question morphed for me yesterday. Out of the blue, "what is true?" became "what are you scared of?". And the answer is scary. So scary, in fact, I was not sure I could write it down. The scary thing of the moment is being maimed. Like having an accident or something and losing and a hand or a foot or an eye. That scares the crap out of me. I have not had a chance to go deeper into it.

I think it's scary because I would feel less than a complete person then. In other words, I still think of my body as me. When I look at it that way it begins to seem false. I am not my body. But that's just a thought. Internally, I still think I'm my body.

Wow! I'm beginning to see massive ego structures that are propped up by my body. By being a man, being masculine, attractive, healthy, young, ...etc. I may be getting over I'm not my job, but it looks like I'm still pretty entrenched in my body is me. That's probably why thinking about losing a body part feels so scary to me.

Here is the kicker, though; this body will vanish. I will lose to the earth sooner or later. Why does it matter if I lose it part by part or all at once? I think it has to do with my fear of having to depend on others if I'm handicapped somehow. It's that deeply-engrained 8 fear of being dominated by others.

I guess I still think I dictate what happens. What I get and don't get. Like it all depends on my actions and ability to take action.

The more I write about this, the more absurd it seems. I don't do anything. The universe just flows. And things and people flow toward me and away from me. None of it is under my control or influence in any way. The best thing I can do is get out of the way, pay attention to what comes, and choose it.