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It has been nearly eight years since the big disaster of the sutures closing me back up from my spine surgery failing to melt. The buddhas had given me this much time to settle after my big Christmas awakening to get my bearings... well... nonbearings... before proceeding to smack me with every kind of test of it which might've been foreseeable if one were, say, sitting on a cloud overlooking my life and times... but... heh... that would not have been me... then... all of which I flunked. Spectacularly.
The good part is I realize I flunked them. I kept getting slammed with surprise Bengal tigers, freaking, falling back to my presets, and then smacking myself in the teeth for being such a twit, obsessing on that, smacking myself again before dropping each and pressing on. I think by now I absolutely must have as much experience being a totally malfunctioning machine as I did being a perfectly functioning one, so maybe I can stop being so bloody shocked by it that I lose my Zen so instantly and take more than an instant to get it back.
All of the tests have been lethally intense. I'm not happy to report I lived through them. But this apocalyptic drop in my general state of health has been the cake taker. It put the fear in me. After half a decade of being the champion overcomer of fear you ever even dreamt about, I got nailed. All my impatience with my grandmother for being so wussy about getting to the store without being mugged and robbed has been flashing in front of me on a despicably regular basis for these last eight years, because, because I have finally experienced the terror inhering enfeeblement to a deep enough degree to actually know it in my cells. Yes, yes, anyone who isn't a psychopath can understand it, but not know it, and having never before felt anything approximating what you would call a lack of vitality, and hating whiners so much, especially me, I so inevitably had to learn it the hard way.
I learn everything so easily I don't even pay attention, which is why I have had to learn everything the hard way.
I think even Alan Watts would be humiliated by the degree to which his speech has been dramatized on YouBube, but I have to thank him, and whoever uploaded it, and even Google for running it up on my feed when it did, even if it has only been due to a programming error, because I think I may finally have gotten my lights back on and have been casting about the general mindscape for, now, the way back into enough vitality to function up to spec. See, that vitality is vital to maintain the psychic punch to vaporize terror.
Not an hour before listening to this I caved in to the mandate to find myself some cookware that doesn't weigh a damn ton, and also is not toxic to cook in. I found a set that is on sale at 60% off and free delivery. The collapsed disks in my cervical spine have impaired my arm and hand strength. I still have rockin' strong legs, but, face it, nines, I'm a fuckin' feeb in the arms and hands. My not even very big cast iron pan has become too difficult to manage safely, and almost all the rest of the crap I have for cooking is toxic. A huge part of my infirmity is due to toxins... not even the surgery itself so much as the suture infection months later being the last straw for my already wonky thyroid gland... and the doctor told me he doubted I'd get much strength back from getting my head bolted back onto my body... just stop the spinal canal from closing all the way off. I don't care how fucking nuts anybody thinks I am to spend money on new cookware when what I have is perfectly serviceable. Fuck you! It isn't serviceable for me. I got over myself. I got over my conditioning. I ordered the new set.
And my enfeeblement terror? Pfeh. Useless. Better I use that energy to connect with the errant vitality. I don't even have to touch you to knock you flat, but if you're going to be a jerk about this while I'm down, I'll bonk you with my new frying pan.
Then I listened to this... a present... a teaching... a tiny rip in the fabric of helplessness.
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There was another hitch. Some malarkey about my address. I had to call them and straighten it out. I didn't lose my Zen, but this kind of spoiled my contemplation for a few moments. I can recover. Only, then I went to look at the damn Mail. Beside all kind of despicable, horrifying, propaganda pieces, there was this story, so notable for one comment in particular...
If we can only teach progressive, liberals about the great sacrifices made for the freedoms they so willingly give up....which I have to say is a vital point for liberals these days.
Unbearable as that is, unrelated as it appears, it's actually on point here.
Please. Let's this time be real heroes again and refuse to fight the wrong people. I'm doing so much more than merely hoping this, or even begging for it. It's very hard work. I've been at it for decades, inelegantly as fuck, but I'm doing it... hearing Dogen barking, Stop doing and perform! the live long way... which never fails to boil my kettle of stew down to cinders. It's been painful! And it can't only be me. So, please. At least try not to default to your programming. Intention is everything, but even the best intention is useless without effort. Don't do this to us. What option do you have? Please.
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Incredibly sooothing....
