A little essay

I am very happy with the experiment of this blog, and my reflections this morning on last night’s events are an example of why.

Last night I went out with the barbershop crew.  I drank a lot, ate a lot.  Patterns old and new influenced my actions.

This morning, when I think on these events, I don’t feel good or bad or judgemental in any way.  (Which doesn’t mean I feel both.)  I don’t feel that what I did was right or wrong.  (Which doesn’t mean I feel both.)  I’m neither disappointed nor pleased  —which doesn’t mean I feel both— ,  and I don’t regret my actions.  I don’t hear any inner dialogues like:  “Why did you do that, Jeremy?!” .   Et cetera.

The only thought in my head about last night is:  Shrug.  It was nice to see my friends and sing with them.  Part of that camaraderie involved drinking and eating, so I partook, but honestly I derived no great pleasure from it.  It’s not a road I fear I’m heading down, because that road isn’t very satisfying.  And so today, it’s back to  ‘normal’ ,  normal being the things I do derive great pleasure from!

There you have the success of this blog:  No Judgement Necessary.  A large part of me loves running around in the sun, buying and preparing fresh meals with lots of bright vegetables and tasty meats.  There’s also a part of me that likes to hang out with friends and eat bar food and drink, but this part of me is much smaller.  If the latter desires begin to dominate my actions while the former desires stay trapped inside  —which has happened for the better part of a few years now— ,  what can that possibly mean?  Could it mean that  “truly”  it’s more important to me to carouse and cavort?

I think not.  When we say we desire X, that means we have an emotional system set up around the behavioral pattern of X.  All patterns  —even undesirable ones—  have the potential to sit in the driver’s seat of our minds and take control.  Undesirable patterns shed away naturally, but if we desire those patterns  —at any level of desire!— ,  then our protective emotions step into the picture to lock in those patterns and keep others  —even desirable ones—  out.  This is where the narratives come from, the justification, the blindness that can even last years.  This is the potential of desire — this is what desire means!

If the emotional/instinctive core is responsible for the locking-in of behavioral patterns, surely there is something else with the capacity to unlock our minds, and let other patterns into the driver’s seat.  What can dissolve the narratives?  What can shed light on our blind spots?  Awareness.

“I’m eating well.”  Are you?  What exactly are you eating?  “I’m pretty active.”  Are you?  How many times did you exercise or play in the last two weeks?  When we can answer these questions honestly and openly, there is no story that can delude us.  When we pick up that piece of pie, we no longer justify it with,  “I’m eating really well generally, and this stops tomorrow, and I don’t want to do this.” .   That sort of justification and story-telling no longer arises, because our emotions have lost the power to lock anything in.

We still pick up the piece of pie, we still eat it.  The pattern still steps into the driver’s seat and turns the key.  But when it brings the car back from its joy ride, it steps out, and politely hands the keys over to the patterns who will be using that car the majority of the time.  This is the picture of how a mind operates when it is bathed in the light of reflection and awareness.

And that is what this blog has done for me.  A mirror doesn’t  “try”  to reflect your image back at you — it does no physical work to do so.  This blog has served as a mirror for me in just this way.  I haven’t had to work on my life at all in the past month!  I’ve just given myself over to myself, in the fullest possible way, allowing the passive reflection of my actions to naturally shape me.

I suppose someday there may be more  “work”  to do.  After all, I did a lot of  “work”  in my early twenties, figuring out the sort of life I wanted to live, how I wanted to see myself in the world, how I wanted to interact with others, and so forth.  I have no doubt that this sort of work is absolutely necessary, for it is how we come to understand our desires and their relative importance in our life.

But even though I’d done all that work, something was keeping it from influencing the unfolding of my life in any appreciable way.  There were still too many emotional narratives!  Now I have a good tool for inducing awareness and flushing those narratives away.  And that makes me happy!

+j