Superman At Macys

     I have been interested in writing about identity for quite some time, but have not been really sure about how to approach the topic, and so I’ve been hesitant to explore it here.  But, it’s niggling, constantly nagging me, like a scab you just can’t keep from picking.  And since, if we really look closely, identity (or the mistake therein) seems to be perhaps the catalyst to the wonderful seeking and glorious suffering that we all continually share, I’ve decided to write about it in my usual fashion, which is to randomly type a bunch of meaninglessness and wait and see if anything that remotely resembles a point happens to emerge.

     When I first began this blog and decided on the name, I envisioned “The Edge of the Infinite” as a metaphor for that cliff we teeter on, the unstable and scary periphery between our intellectual understanding of Truth, and our being Truth.  That place where we peer over the edge, perhaps still, for whatever reason, not ready to let loose our own fragile footing, desperately afraid of the inevitable hang time that will occur when we finally just allow the fall.  But also I see it as the sharp edge of honesty- that the opposite of Truth is a Lie, and how can we not be carrying around our lies?  How can I not be a person?  Blame it on the damn Greeks.

     You see, I have lived an inauthentic life.

     I have misrepresented myself; personified a constant living distortion.  I am guilty of misconception, misinformation, gross libel.  I’m the jester of jive, an expert at exaggeration. 

     Who I have portrayed myself to be, is a fraud.

     And, now looking back as I take a casual stroll down amnesia lane, I see that my dishonesty has always been true, the one thread of my entire experience of life has been the constant companion of inauthenticity.

     Remember a thousand years ago, back in high school?  There were really just two types of people in high school, right? There were beautiful people, and invisible people.  Myself, I wasn’t necessarily interested in the people who wore the labels, but rather how to transcend the labels themselves.  How to be beautifully invisible?  So I wore my hair long, dressed in ratty grunge clothing, shared perpetual red eyes with the Stoners, but made straight A’s, and had metaphysical conversations with the Nerds.  I made it a point to sit with the “prep” boys in assembly, yet I spent every lunch hour in the library with my face buried in Plato, alone.  Seemingly socially awkward, I was not at all against participating in class discussions, arguing vehemently with the history teachers about Custer’s engagement strategy during the Battle of Little Big Horn.  I smiled, not intimidated, at the cheerleaders.  

     But I was only bluffing.

     And then on to the world of adulthood- a perpetual shopping trip in a world of too small clothes.  Trying them on, and convinced they fit, wearing them with pride despite the constant discomfort. 

     There is giant rolled up white glove of humbug which smacks me in the face, on a continual loop. 

     I’m a starving artist, a wanna-be writer, transgressional poet, dutiful employee, a corporate whore. 

     I’m a spiritual person, an intellectual person, an honest person, a not-so-honest person.

     I am a historical revisionist, conscientious conservationist, a nature lover of inner landscape. 

     I’m a teacher, a student, a greasy pitchman of viewpoints, none of them True.

      I am an okay husband, a pretty good father, and a bad son.

     Oh, don’t forget.  I’m a seeker of Truth.

     Look at me, still roaming the halls with my backpack of masks.

     Then what am I?

    To know yourself, be yourself.

    To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that.*

     Such good news!

     It is not the wearing of the mask, the assuming of the identity, that creates my suffering, it is my forgetting that it is simply a mask.  When I forget, then I must continually convince YOU of the validity of the assumed ME. 

     I must perpetually defend the viewpoints and actions of this assumed me, less it will be seen through.  It will be discovered for what it truly is. 

    

     What do you imagine yourself to be?  

     Anything that can be imagined cannot be True.

What if Superman somehow forgot that he was Superman, and really believed that he WAS Clark Kent?

* Nisargadatta Maharaj

My Name is Michael, And I Am an Addict

My name is Michael, and I am an addict. 

I’m not addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or sex (although there might be some debate about that one), food, or even to watching corny TV shows like American Idol or Glee.  Okay, maybe Glee.  No, I am not addicted to Glee!  Okay, maybe I am.

No, no…my addiction is much more insidious, much more devastating. 

See, I am addicted to experience.

I love experiences.  Love  ‘em.  I love the experience of the warmth of this cup of coffee I’m having right now, the explosion of flavor as I take a drink.  I love the experience of the sunshine on my arms and the wind against my skin as I ride my bike south on 56^th street; right where the pavement turns to dirt, with the Mcdowells standing guard over the Eastern horizon and Ben Harper’s magnificent Weissenborn tickling my ears.  I love the energy of movement as 10 beautiful people dive headfirst into their own experience at the insistence of my voice, their breath mingling with my breath, their bodies a wave of integrated Shakti illuminating the room.  I love the sweetness of the mornings, listening to Mozart’s symphony #1 in E-flat on my way to work, and even the way this keyboard is responding to my fingers right now, how the photographs on my screensaver remind me of other past experiences. I love how my body opens when my muscles are warm, when there is perfection in form, my being lovingly held by sinuous fingers and bursting forth with boundless expression. I love the sound of a drum, and the openness of my friends.  I love the warmth of my wife’s touch, the music of her voice, and especially the tinkling wonder of her laughter, even when it is directed at me, as it usually is. 

I even love the “bad” experiences.  I love when I am sick and I think it is the end of the world simply because I have an overabundance of mucus and Emma won’t give me a kiss because I have cooties and my voice sounds like a Peanut’s cartoon teacher in my own ears.  I love when I have a shitty yoga class, and my body won’t respond the way that I want it to, and my back hurts, and there are sudden elaborate fantasies in my mind of beating people over the head with pieces of prosthetic equipment.  I love thinking of my grandfather, his brutal honesty, his meeting and leaving life with the same conviction and dedication. I love when my wife is angry at me, and the blinding spotlight of attention is turned inward, toward my every beautiful failing, my every wondrous fault.  I love the tremble of her lip and the lash of her tongue. 

I love standing at the side of the road with a flat tire on my bike, alone in the world, with no one to call and no one to help, the traffic whizzing by, faces in the car windows blank with memories, the sun a bright white hot scar, the sky open and inviting but offering nothing.  Alone at the bottom of West Clear Creek Canyon, with the monsoon thundering, swimming naked in the rushing creek, the last man on earth:

I won't be the last
I won't be the first
Find a way to where the sky meets the earth
It's all right and all wrong
For me it begins at the end of the road
We come and go...

My name is Michael, and I am an addict

What is it about experience then that I am so addicted to? 

Feel this.  Do that. 

Perhaps, just perhaps, experience provides me with a sense of something…like…say...relief?

Relief from what?

I want the experience of love; because I feel…I don’t have love.  So then I seek the experience of love- in family, in relationship, even within myself.

I want the experience of security, because I feel...insecure.  Vulnerable.  So I seek the experience of security, in money, in work, in a good 401K, shore up my health, take precautions against the surety of my eventual and inevitable demise.

I want the experience of virtue; because I feel...I am not virtuous.  So I try to live according to tenets, be a good person, whether that entails being kind, being selfless, helping grandmas across the street, not hurting animals, or saving the whales.  Or saving you, because I want the experience of showing you virtue.  Because I feel…that you are also not virtuous.

I want the experience of happiness, because I feel...I am not happy.  So I look for happiness in every experience.

I want the experience of Freedom.  Because I feel…I am not free.  And that is when it hits me!

There is no experience of freedom.  Freedom is the absence of the addiction to experience. 

Feel this.  Do that.

And the questioning now leads me, not to the answer, but to the purpose of the question:  All questioning, all spirituality, all religion, all seeking, all experience itself has only one essential purpose.  Everything I do, everything I am has only one quintessential purpose:

Exhaustion.

Experience is so fickle, so fleeting.  Experience comes and goes, leaving no real lasting impression, save perhaps memories, which are really nothing more than bundles of emotionally charged thoughts.

Experience doesn’t last. 

My addiction to experience leads me to only to death.  All the experiences, from the blazing awakenings and tear jerkingly beautiful to the devastatingly tragic – come and go.  The only constant is Me, yet I’m banking on what is Other than me, to provide relief, comfort, peace, fulfillment, happiness.  My addiction to experience leads me only to the death of the addiction to experience.

I am addicted to experience so that I can exhaust myself of experience; wear myself out, give up, finally stop running, towards experience, or away from experience.  Always seeking something that continually changes and is never permanent.

I am so in love with the experience of being addicted to experience. 

When running, desperately looking for rest, you have a choice:

Stop running.

Run faster.

My name is Michael, and I am an addict.

Yes, this is hard to watch, but watch it all.  Watch it move from tragic to heart wrenchingly beautiful.  But most of all, listen.  Listen to Rocky’s poem at the very end, where he sums up the finality of experience in one final, illuminating breath.

No Tradebacks

When I was born, I WAS GOD.

I was God, and in those moments when I struggled

through sweat and screams and slipped into the cold hard hands

of this reality, I held EVERYTHING

everything

in

my tiny

clenched fists.

I was GOD and I held every question to every answer

every answer that has ever been questioned

eternal questions

internal answers

I whispered external

in sweet placental speech

                                             delivered into a world of pinky fingers.

I was GOD

born reciting bibles

proverbs texts and tablets

sermons and psalms

translating truth

speaking cosmology

in every dialect known to man

and some unknown

                                             And they taught me language

                                             with chin tickling fingers and funny faces

                                             goo goo ga ga  coochie coochie coo.

I was solving problems

converting mathematics to bone

physics to muscle

biology to blood

I was building intricate networks of

microfillament tinker toy neuro-electrical synapses

and they said

                                             oh isn't that cute!

I was red and yellow and black and white

and all shades of earth

and they held me in front of a mirror

pointed to my soft shallow shell

over and over

                         Thats you!

                                             Thats you!

until I could no longer recognize myself.

I defied gravity because I breathed magic

They grounded me

holding my hands, cooing

take a step

               take a step

when I was already leaping off the planet

leaving them all behind

I sat in the sun

feeling grass and dirt pulse

intimately conversing with trees and sky

discussing the developing universe

and the existential qualities of man

drinking rain and feasting on clouds

and they came along

scooped me up

brushed me off

scolded me

                                             Now look! 

You peed your pants!

                                            

You pooped your diaper!

I played with angels unicorns and dragons

made faces at gargoyles

My imaginary friends were ancestors

I danced with elves and faires through

fields of non-fiction BECAUSE THERE WAS

NO FICTION ONLY THE

TEXTURE

COLOR

SHAPE

FORMING

BEFORE MY NEWLY OPENED EYES

I was GOD!

and I TRADED IT ALL IN.

I traded it all in

I offered them every key to every past and every future

to every lock and chain

every shackle of every heart and  mind

incarcerated in this prison:

                                             

time

and they said

Now honey, don't play with those, you might lose them

taking them away

pressing into my hand a plastic reproduction

they believed opened all doors.

I gave them the mystery of immortality

they gave me superheroes and Scooby-Doo underwear.

I gave them future personified

they gave me a Big Wheel and a Brady Bunch lunchbox.

I gave them hope

they gave me history, I repeat

history, I repeat

this-story.

I gave them eternity

they gave me bedtime.

I traded it all in

                                            

No tradebacks.

I learned to see with my eyes

and all my imaginery friends disappeared     

(poof)

left me

became cold   

sculptured   

stone.

I was god

No tradebacks

But you know, I don't blame them.

don't hold it against them

don't judge them

I love them even more

because I KNOW THEY WERE GOD ONCE TOO

We are all

still

God.

and it is so easy learning to forget

so difficult this journey through life

grasping to remember

The Miraculous Free Fall Into Unknowing

We are, you could say, a species of know-it-alls.  Not just know-it-alls, but the worst kind of know-it-alls.

We are the know-it-alls that are sometimes right. 

How annoying.

Even when we don’t know, we think we know.  We just plain hate to not know. In fact, there is such a stigma attached to not knowing that it permeates every facet of our lives.  Think about it:

In school, the teacher asks a difficult question, and no one raises their hand.  Remember this?  Remember being the student sweating in fear that you will be called upon.  Even if you thought you knew the answer, being called upon was still overwhelmingly frightening.  What if I am not right?  What if the terrible horrible devastatingly embarrassing truth that I DON’T KNOW is revealed for all to see!

How does it feel to be called “ignorant”?   Feels kinda nasty.  Like there is something in this word that is insulting to your character.  Most people equate “ignorant” with “stupid” and the words are used interchangeably. Yet, the definition of “ignorant” is simply:

Ignorant.  (adj): Lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact.

It simply means not knowing.

We have such a deep dysfunctional relationship with not knowing that we do everything in our power to avoid admitting it, even to ourselves.

We simply do not know what the next moment will bring, and this is unacceptable to our conditioned mind, which then creates a scenario and imagines that it knows, and the result of this is expectation.  

Expectation is a symptom of our internal avoidance of the reality of not knowing, and creates what could be called the root of suffering:  the gap between what we think should be happening (could happen, should happen, will happen) and what actually is happening.

How does this work out for us?

Things simply happen, despite what we expect.  We cannot know. No matter how much we rely on our conceptual learning, our thoughts, to shield us from the dangerous territory of the unknown, we end up in that dreaded landscape.

Yet, the unknown is the ground of all knowing! 

There can never be anything known without there first being not-knowing!

See how ridiculous this is?  How delusional?  We have a negative perspective, a dysfunctional relationship, with the natural, inevitable, completely necessary fundamental building block of all knowing! 

And herein lies the paradox, at least when it comes to spirituality:

This extreme discomfort with not-knowing fuels our motivation to learn and experience. 

We turn our learned ideas and concepts into a cocktail of belief and faith.  This conceptual cocktail becomes who we think we are and how we see the world and our place in it, and we then must expend enormous amounts of energy defending, reinforcing it, and holding onto it. 

We take stories told to us and things we have read to have meaning, and assign that meaning to our own experience, diluting what is happening in the present moment, to our interpretation of what is happening.   

We mistake what we think we know for who we are. 

And of course, what we think we know is different than what someone else thinks they know,  and there must be a right and a wrong, and usually it is them that are wrong.  And if our concepts that we have mistaken for “ourselves” are questioned, or spoken against, we must defend them, as we are engaged here in the literal act of self-survival.

Even if it is “right for me” or “wrong  for me”, it is still a duality.

Separation.

So we think the more we learn, the more we memorize, the more we understand, the closer and closer we will get to the Truth, to God, Peace, Oneness, in whatever name or form you chose to call it. 

Yet the fact is, the Truth cannot be known. 

Can you consider that everything you have learned must be questioned relentlessly and discarded?  Can you consider that the point of questions is not answers, but instead, more questions, leading to more questions, until the questioning is exhausted.   Until it is seen that all questions and all answers are meaningless?

What is it like to let go of all conceptualizations, all viewpoints, all ideas?  Is it possible to relax into the miraculous free fall of not-knowing?

In this classic clip, Lou isn’t pissed because Bud is fucking with him.  Bud is serious.  Lou is agonizingly frustrated because he doesn’t know no matter how much he learns! 

Seem familiar?  Kinda like stumbling around, looking for your own eyeballs.

The Implacable Idea

We are all seekers.  I think this is fairly obvious to most of us, even if we don’t want to admit it.  We are all looking for something, and the strange thing is- we are all looking for the same thing, just in different, and of course, all the wrong, places. 

We could call it happiness, or peace, or satisfaction, or fulfillment, doesn’t really matter. 

What matters is that we must realize that it can never, ever be found.

Yes, that’s right.  Give it up- the search is over.  It ain’t happening.  We can go on and on about all the wrong places where we have conducted our search- in relationships, or in money, in our jobs, in material possessions.  And we could mention all the “hidden” places that we never think about, but are even more convinced that elusive “something” is hiding- like our opinions, our beliefs, our viewpoints, our lifestyles. 

Even our most cherished spiritual beliefs, no matter how comforting, or how much we believe they make us good people, do not seem to hold the slippery truth that we so desperately seek. 

We may even come to the conclusion that it is possible to find what we are looking for, in just letting go of all the rest of it, and resting in “stillness”. 

And then we give “Stillness” it’s myriad of names:  Space, Presence, Source, Awareness, Consciousness.  God.

Sounds logical.  We just need to realize that we can never find true happiness, peace, fulfillment in any ‘thing”, any object, and instead, if we can just “be” with what is happening now, and find stillness, we will discover the true happiness that is available to us all. 

But this, this is the biggest trap of them all.  We effectively turn “stillness” into just another object to attain.  If we practice hard enough, understand enough, somehow “let it all go”. 

How well has that worked for us?

We think we can find happiness in relationships, so we seek the perfect person.  We discover that to not be true.  We think we can find it in our jobs, money, material possessions, and we discover the sad truth of this. And, we think we can find it in spirituality, in religion, in belief.  

Yet, somehow true, lasting fulfillment continues to elude us. 

So maybe we hear about “stillness” and “connection”.  Maybe we hear about letting go, allowing, “being in the moment”. 

Still, where is that true, encompassing, wonderful sense of peace, ease, fulfillment in our lives?  We may find moments of peace, but it never lasts.

See, seeking is seeking, no matter how you are seeking, or what you are looking for, even if it is God or Stillness.  The person you think you are does not seek; the person you think you are is intimately constructed of seeking.  Seeking is inherent in the most fundamental mistake you are making, and have been making all your life.

You are seeking happiness, fulfillment, peace, God, in whatever name or form you give it, because you are convinced that you do not already have it.  

You can never have it. 

You cannot have it, because you ARE it.

See that there is only one thing, one simple thing that limits us, that keeps us from being free, and that is the unshakable, learned and constantly reinforced IDEA that we are not.

An idea.

An idea that is intricately woven into the fabric of your existence, and which is so fundamental that it has never even been questioned.

So, what is this idea made of?

Mis-Management

There is the View

And within the view, are viewpoints.

From which do you see the world?

The View

Or the viewpoints.

Notice how much energy it takes to maintain the story of you.



Freedom Is Just Another Word For...

  

Freedom.  It’s pretty important.  It must be. 

In the final climatic scene of Braveheart, when William Wallace is displayed on the executioner’s stone and about to have his insides roughly delegated to his outsides, his final resounding exclamation isn’t “Ouchh!  Or “WTF!  Call a freakin’ ambulance!” 

Nope, instead it is simply, “Freedom!”

So, seems like there is something to this. 

Yet, for all it’s importance, it also seems like many, if not most people, rarely investigate what exactly freedom is.  What is freedom? 

If we look at it, perhaps with the lens zoomed in, we could say that freedom is very simply the ability to do what I want, say what I want, think what I want, and be what I want.  Wouldn’t you say?  As a working definition, this about sums it up?

Yet it seems like our perspective of freedom here has some strings attached, doesn’t it?  It has a rider in the fine print, which perhaps we don’t notice at first when we view freedom through this lens. 

George Bernard Shaw once wrote that there are two great tragedies in life: not getting what you want, and getting what you want.  See, it’s the wanting that screws up our definition of freedom. Even though we could say this is freedom, it is bound by our desire, and I don’t know about you, but my desires are anything but reliable.  I just can’t trust ‘em.  Either can you.. 

Maybe it is just me, but hell, most of the time, I don’t even know what I want.  Wants are constantly changing.  They are fickle.  One minute I want the “Gotta Have It”  size double mint chocolate rocky road ice cream from Cold Stone, and at the same time I don’t want ice cream at all; I want a salad with balsamic dressing.  When I want a promotion at work, the next moment I’m thinking about getting a new job.  All the single ladies want a ring on it, and then ten minutes later are lovin’ being single and wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I’m driving an old Jeep, and I want a new car, yet at the same time, I love my old Jeep (and my lack of a car payment) and the desire fizzles.  Now I just want my old Jeep to keep running.

This is the dilemma of desire.  Even if you get want you want, you end up wanting the opposite.  Crazy, huh?  And definitely not freedom.

But why do you suppose this is?  Do we have some faulty wiring in the brain? 

Or is it possible that on some visceral level, some very deep space within our being, we know that our wants can never satisfy.  We know we can find no fulfillment in them, no solutions.  Because they constantly change, we cannot rely on them to bring us freedom.

If we zoom the lens out, and expand our view, we will begin to notice how useless desire is – indeed, not just useless. 

Desire is a lie. 

An outright lie. 

Every single desire is based on the idea that things can be different, or should be different, than how they are, and that is simply not true.  This moment can never be any different than the way it is.  It cannot be better, nor can it be worse. Things are always the way they are.

Don’t take my word for it.  Check it out.  Can this moment right now, be any different than it is?

When this is understood, something really wonderful happens: we begin to see through the lie, and begin to allow for what is to simply be.  It’s going to be anyway, no matter how much you desire it otherwise, so why not simply allow it? 

But do not fall into the trap.  You cannot stop wanting.  You cannot end desire. As a matter of fact, desire is necessary.  The desire for freedom is the ultimate desire, and must be burning, unending, implacable and wholehearted.  Just see it for what it is: a necessary lie.

But beyond a resigning acceptance of what is, is it possible to actually turn the desire, and begin wanting what is? 

Instant happiness!  When you bring all the energy and drama of your desire and place it on what is happening right now, boom!  Your desire is instantly fulfilled.  How could it not be?  If you desire what is happening, and it is happening, then you are getting what you want. Always! 

Cool, huh?

You can do this. You can actually want what is happening right now, whatever it might be, with the same enthusiasm that you bring to any other of your unreliable desires. However, this freedom does come with a price.  For this desire to be reliable, you have to give something up, because in wholeheartedly wanting what is, instead of the lie that what is could be different, there is nothing for you to do.  You have to give up the idea that you can change what is. 

And so true freedom then, in our expanded view, could be defined as the absence of the desire for things to be any different.  Or said the opposite way: the wholehearted desire for things to be exactly as they are.  To have continual gratitude for each moment as it arises.  There will still be desires, for they are also what is happening, but it will no longer matter whether they are fulfilled our not.  Our satisfaction, our contentment, is in the appearance of whatever is in the moment itself.

By saying “yes” to each unfolding moment, even when that moment contains desire, is to invite an open playful curiosity about what is happening, no matter what the results or outcome of that moment is.  This is true freedom.

Saying yes, is playing the wildcard: