Cause For Alarm
There is cause for alarm at nearly every moment. The universe is tremendous, violent and all encompassing, while we are tiny, soft and mostly irrational.
This is what is bugging you. This is the cause for that horrid sense of groundlessness that attacks you just when you think you've put everything in order. This is the sudden, momentary dread that grabs you between the sugar packet and the spoon as you fix morning coffee.
If you bang your head in the shower at six am, you could be dead before noon. This is the way it works.
We are tiny drops of water mixed with tinier bits of clay and rock, glued together with specks of sunshine…
If only we were less distinct. I know, I've thought of it. If we, as individuals, were less solid and more fluid in both space and time – less individual really – then we really wouldn't be as concerned about things that might grab us off the planet: a sudden aneurism caused by a bump on the head in the shower, spontaneous human combustion, or something like that.
If we were somehow able to believe that we were less “this” as opposed to “that” - a belief system itself based only on convention if you take a minute to mull it over – we might just see that we are a lot less “this” than we thought, being comprised of almost entirely of “that”.
This is the truth behind that panic attack; this is the truth underlying the fear of radical insurgents, botulism, or nuclear attack. This is the homunculus within us responsible for racism, hate, aggression, and despair.
We cannot allow ourselves to recognize that we are not nearly as sold as we have been led to believe by conventional wisdom - which is just another name for thousands upon thousands of years of fairly lazy thinking.
I know that I would gladly entertain possible death by a blow to the head against the shower-head, suffer the anxiety of impending doom by recalling how I haven't update my will, never got to fix the garage door, still haven't done the laundry…. the thick, fast chain of neurotic thoughts that will take me so far away from one singular realization as I stand in the shower with my head in my hands:
“Dear sweet heavens, I am barely here….”
Followed by,
“and the little of me here, just bits of this and that that come and go…”
And given enough time, will result in,
“so my thoughts, this thinking right here – in essence an illusion, but also responsible for everything I understand…”
Better, so much better to make some noise: rattle sabers, look for Bigfoot, get a divorce, complain about something to someone about how you have been wronged, how we have been wronged, how something or another is absolutely a disaster, and there is definitely, positively, without a shadow of doubt, cause for alarm.
This is what is bugging you. This is the cause for that horrid sense of groundlessness that attacks you just when you think you've put everything in order. This is the sudden, momentary dread that grabs you between the sugar packet and the spoon as you fix morning coffee.
If you bang your head in the shower at six am, you could be dead before noon. This is the way it works.
We are tiny drops of water mixed with tinier bits of clay and rock, glued together with specks of sunshine…
If only we were less distinct. I know, I've thought of it. If we, as individuals, were less solid and more fluid in both space and time – less individual really – then we really wouldn't be as concerned about things that might grab us off the planet: a sudden aneurism caused by a bump on the head in the shower, spontaneous human combustion, or something like that.
If we were somehow able to believe that we were less “this” as opposed to “that” - a belief system itself based only on convention if you take a minute to mull it over – we might just see that we are a lot less “this” than we thought, being comprised of almost entirely of “that”.
This is the truth behind that panic attack; this is the truth underlying the fear of radical insurgents, botulism, or nuclear attack. This is the homunculus within us responsible for racism, hate, aggression, and despair.
We cannot allow ourselves to recognize that we are not nearly as sold as we have been led to believe by conventional wisdom - which is just another name for thousands upon thousands of years of fairly lazy thinking.
I know that I would gladly entertain possible death by a blow to the head against the shower-head, suffer the anxiety of impending doom by recalling how I haven't update my will, never got to fix the garage door, still haven't done the laundry…. the thick, fast chain of neurotic thoughts that will take me so far away from one singular realization as I stand in the shower with my head in my hands:
“Dear sweet heavens, I am barely here….”
Followed by,
“and the little of me here, just bits of this and that that come and go…”
And given enough time, will result in,
“so my thoughts, this thinking right here – in essence an illusion, but also responsible for everything I understand…”
Better, so much better to make some noise: rattle sabers, look for Bigfoot, get a divorce, complain about something to someone about how you have been wronged, how we have been wronged, how something or another is absolutely a disaster, and there is definitely, positively, without a shadow of doubt, cause for alarm.
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