Dear Ones,
The issue of now, the urgency of now is always a thorn in my side. It just keeps on pricking. I have some time-based tasks today; and I did three of the things, and then, you know, as a reward I went to do the thing I wanted to do; to read through the letter T in The Alphabetical Diaries, and then, at "The fear...." I was struck by the obviousness of my thought patterns- I saw beyond task management to some notion that all my problems would be solved if I could only (fill in the blank)... and I knew I wanted to tell you this, and right away! So that you might save yourself the entrapment of this kind of thinking. Which is a long way of telling you that I interrupted myself, spurred on by the self-doubts of the narrator, to doubt myself in the same fashion, and to see, to have it dawn that this is how we are.
(Another interruption: a bird just came to the door, to eat insects from the spider web covered door frame).
(The elder cat is also miaowing).
The following of the thread through my discomfiture leads always to the oldest (and dearest?) of my ineptitudes- the one that I must have taken on as a 3 or 4 year old. It proceeds like this: I think why didn't I do that task already? And the answer is because you are foolish, lazy, etc. Why am I foolish lazy, etc.? Because I lack ambition, because I lack care, because, because, and why the lack of ambition? Because, because, and it goes like this, all leading back towards the Ur failure, the Ur flaw. Like a Greek tragedy. It is because you (I, one, we) thought you did not fit in a way, we perceived a lack; criticized for a little something that you didn't or did have, and you think, in total sincerity and absolute mistakenness, that if you could just fix that thing, that Ur thing, all these other failings would cease to be. All the problems of your inner world- relationships, contentedness, productiveness, self-worth- would evaporate in your sobriety, your eating discipline, your productive routine, your independence from sugar, caffeine, any manner of drugs or medications, your willful self-control, your optimism, your commitment to wellness, your non-smokingness, your fitness regime. And here we are, trying as always, most abjectly & self-injuriously, to think of the whole generative life force of nature as being a thing to win at, to master.
Yes, tears are appropriate here, because it is sad. But, I hope, not hopeless. May we see that our lives do not revolve around some ancient mistake or lack, may we feel that there is time enough to do some things; this or that, either or both, or neither, too.
