Musings on life and how I choose to interpret it…

I meditated for a few hours last night. I should do this more often. Especially so since there’s so many stuff that I need to clear away before the end of summer. The job, family, SFT and all the other extracurricular luggage that comes with them. Not that I’m complaining or anything. My job at Greenest City has been a truly wonderful revelation for me: both in terms of work experience, skills and the magnitude at which we are affecting the community around us. I can honestly say, in all my experience of working for a paycheque, I’ve never had people come up to me and just gush about the sheer positivity of our work. The people and the stories that they have to tell more than make up for the odd days of frustration and dead-ends.

Family is family. You miss them when they’re not around: the warmth of the kitchen, the convenience of just plopping on the sofa and not having to worry about groceries or phone bills… They start getting on your nerves for the littlest things the day after the 2nd week together. It’s a rickety ride that I still haven’t quite managed to steady past my adolescence, but I’ve been assured by more than a couple of people that it’s a completely normal occurrence, and that I shouldn’t be beating myself over about the miserable, ungrateful sod that I think I am.

And concerning my ever fluctuating dalliances with activism — a word I’ve sullied so often for the sad purpose of placating my dull inertia — I’ve started to get into the thick of it all again. I’ve been making a few calls and sending fancy emails around lately so it shouldn’t be too long before I find myself deluged with commitments even bigger than my head. Ahh … to be young and restless.

And all the extracurricular items? What of it, you ask. Oh what can I offer but, a feckless “the usual”, my dear reader. When I get around containing impulses, discerning moods, capturing hints and mastering the art of unrequited mirthfulness, then shall I have the means to fully enthrall you of tales tall and poppy. Perhaps you can offer a word of advice or two: maybe it’ll propel me forward to greener pastures or maybe it’ll just pass through my ears while circumnavigating my brain, as it is wont to do so in most cases. In any case, for now, you’ll have to settle for a measly “the usual”.

I undertook a yoga class for the first time a week ago and I must say that it left quite an impression on me. I’ve always viewed yoga as an overly mystified aerobics exercise buoyed into the mainstream by the excess media of west-coast lifestyle and shallow spirituality. I would imagine it to be another fickle, exotic fad that only the privileged can be bothered to bend over while the rest are left with some whimsical notion of eastern philosophy long ago gone with the flood. Which still holds true, in some ways. But it’s safe to say that I’ve gone over some of my initial squeamishness about the whole deal, and that learning to hold your breath while arching your back as far as you can is harder than it sounds. But my! Does it feel energizing or what?

Spirituality is another chapter of this maddeningly confusing manuscript of mine that I’m trying to reconcile with. Actually, “reconcile” would be an inappropriate choice of word here. Reconciling would imply that somewhere back then I had an affair or understanding with the nature of self that I somehow lost track of in the past. In fact, I have never even gotten anywhere near in terms of understanding the core concepts of Buddhism (my preferred “spiritual handle”, for now) and holding it in relation against my own existence and the existential conundrums of all the other beings in this universe. So, no — to learn, or rather, to commit would be more apropos. Humility has been a steady accrual in my personal ledger of wisdom and I ought to apply it in much more meaningful doses.

I’d like to think I know about Buddhism moreso than, say, the average Canadian. But I don’t think that’s true. I mean, indeed, I might know the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Paths and some other aspects of Buddhism, but really, can I honestly say with a straight face that I know Buddhism?

Here is what I delved on yesterday as I achieved an entirely minuscule and transient state of relaxation and contemplation:

My mind is a monkey. I’ll have to thank my dear father for having pointed that out numerous times. I’ve always cringed at his liberal use of clichéd (in my haughty state of mind, yes) metaphors, but now that I’ve deliberated upon it, it’s quite true. My mind is a restless, mischievous, cautious, over-zealous, wild, uninhibited, and insecure monkey. A thoughtless, aimless ape driven by the base instinct of just…living. A monkey that strays from one tree to another, swaying on branches, nitpicking with other monkeys, howling, screeching, biting, scratching, clawing. Always moving but never keeping still in one spot for however little time it can manage. I think about this monkey nature of mine and look back upon all my experiences and how I’ve dealt with people: how I’ve jumped to conclusions; been infatuated; disgusted; repulsed; benign; weirded; judged; welcoming; friend, brother and son. It strikes me as completely incredulous that never in one second of my being have I stopped to even consider taming this fickle self of mine. How, in moments of joy and despair, in grief and elation, have I had a chance to look back on my thought processes and examine it in an objective manner. How everything that I’ve taken for granted as my personality has been tainted by an omnipresent shade of guilt, greed, second-guessing, doubt and desperation. Insecurity has been gnawing away at my heels ever since I can remember but only rarely have I had the chance to look down and see how badly deformed my roots have become.

I realize that this may all sound pretentious to the nth level and you must have distended your optic nerve from all that excess eye-rolling. I also realize that the previous paragraph may prove to be offensive to primatologists or people who identify with our distant cousins as being beyond just academic subject matters. Be that as it may, I hope my attempt here at conveying my present state of mind is at least a little more clairvoyant than some other run-of-the-mill blog post or what-have-you. I can provide no satisfying conclusion to this rather meandering post, so you, dear reader, will have to make do with a cliffhanger of an ending — a term applied very generously out of context here.

I hope you enjoy this peculiarly mild summer that mother nature has bestowed upon us this year in thanks for all the burgeoning amounts of GHGs we so generously provide her with everyday. Lather up that sunscreen, baby! And mind your toes!

-Part I-

After a couple of ciders, three shots of vodka and ginger ale, followed by two tequila shooters, all in quick succession — and the inevitable chorus of “oh yeahs” and the falsetto howling — the mosh-pit doesn’t look as intimidating as previously thought of. Instead, the distant humming in the back of the head numbs your taste in music and the weirdly bobbing and swaying motions of equally or exceedingly inebriated strangers invites you to spit out your distaste for ruefully inconsiderate invaders of the comfort zone, and just “let’s just dance, man”.

And so he followed, uncertainty slipping away from his grip with every tap from another summered-out girl and her sun-burned skin exposing every bit of the coquettish harlequin carefully wrapped up in deadlines, schedules and shifts before. Bangs were whipping everywhere, sweat pouring freely and colourful shoes that were going to be searched for in a maddeningly confusing state of recovery in the days that were to follow.

They stopped somewhere on the edge of the core of the mosh-pit. She leaned her back on him, guiding his hands towards her navel, and closed her eyes as she rested the back of her head on his general facial area. The music began to gain tempo again, and people around them were getting restless, as if instructed by some intrinsic sound wave to pick their pace and gyrate their bodies accordingly: to release their budding energy of being young, to celebrate the unbecoming of.

She was tall — only about an inch or so shorter than him — so it was impossible to see what was going on in front of him without leaning his head. The band was now playing at a fevered pitch, possessed by the urgency of trying to establish themselves as legitimately in-touch with what they just used to be. Her body started to move in waves of calm and restlessness, every movement punctuated by the vibe of the air around her.

He stroked the side of her legs, admiring the supple crease of her jeans, and rested his chin on her shoulder.

“How are we doing today?” she whispered. Her knotted bun now came undone and the intoxicating smell of sweat and shampoo briefly enveloped his face.

“I think we’re doing good. Are we doing good?” he asked rhetorically.

“You’re awesome, you know that?” she replied non sequitur. Somehow the fact that her alcoholically tainted comment had no bearing whatsoever on her actual feelings cracked him up and he chuckled. She grinned and proceeded to writhe her shoulder and spine slowly: brushing and tempting.

The sun had now settled at a comfortable angle, the elongated shadows of the band members mesmerized the young hedonists on the side of the stage. A particularly boozed up person wearing a black t-shirt imprinted with white lightning and the letters “AC/DC” managed to scramble up the stage and attempted to test the buoyancy prowess of the crowd before him. Unfortunately for him — and fortunately for the people on the ground, for he was a rather heavy-set person with drops of what appeared to be beer dripping from his morass of a goatee — the security team quickly descended on him and escorted him away amid scattered shouts of derision and applause.

It was now nearly three hours since they’d first met at the grounds and delved into a progressively downward spiral of youthful debauchery. He let his hands feel the curve of her back, her firm belly, the soft mounds and the delicate neck. She continued to move contently, glowing in the unabashed appreciation of those around them. He didn’t mind. Let them gawk, he thought.

Yesterday, he mused, I was wallowing on weed and pils. Today, I feel like a fucking rock star.

“Listen: bound to the realms of this existence, I can only look as far as my eyes can see. And I can only hold for as long as my lungs can take. But take the plunge with me and you’ll sense the impermanence.”

We breathe in staccatos, afraid to let go of the last…bits and swallow abruptly. We cling. Do we not? We tug at futility, raging at the constant ebb and flow of impulses — some involuntarily, while others concocted from the myriad lapses of logic and perspective.

Slowly, and gently, a mother falcon nudges her chick away from the precipice, beckoning with shrill laughter at the seemingly hapless indecisiveness of the young one who has never felt a thermal updraft or the shimmering mist beside a waterfall. Does she plunge, will she follow? You were there. And you mocked at your reflection then, taunting it with words that didn’t break any bones nor any mirror. You broke a lot then, didn’t you? All that swelled inside you burst forth, but all that ulcerated inside have yet to cleanse.

Would you rather pick up the broken bits, or step on them? I have questions from many and answers for few, and I have feathers from afar, but songs that never travel far. Interpretations give way to irreverence, and all the traveller has in the end to show for his trip is a bag of rustic postcards. They are all filled with words of intent, but they lack intentions.

Here’s a bus ride with only one passenger: you. You choose to sit at the very back, on the left, because you’ve always favoured your left shoulder when leaning on the window. You choose to sit behind because then you can stretch your feet without having to position yourself sideways. You choose to sit at the back because you like the way the streets play out before you in front of all those empty seats. And the driver that you never met? Is he wearing a hat? Does she call out every stop in a singsong way? Is he wearing shorts, or is she gaining at all the wrong places?

Outside, it is just past twilight and the streets are dim with lights that are slowly coming aglow. It is pouring today. Or tonight. Can you tell? The fogged up windows and the trickling drops outside cloud your orientation. And now you’re unsure about which stop you passed by, which curve and what slope you descended into. The bus travels along at a brisk speed, the whipping rain now completely blinding the windshield, and yet the driver ignores the wipers. Do you slowly panic now? Or are you beyond reprieve?

You rub your eyes and wipe the windows, but it doesn’t help. Nausea creeps in from some absurd corner of your gut. Your hands feel distant, aloof and almost independent of your thoughts. You’ve forgotten your backpack, stereo headphones emitting tiny crackles of choruses that you never bothered to uncover. Do you stand up, or do you sit? Transfixed. A feeble attempt at opening the overhead window is met with a blunt noncompliance. You’re moving at an average speed of 66 kph, but you’re paralyzed inside.

You’re hurtling through space at a blistering pace of thirty kilometers per second, but you’re stuck. You’re barely hanging on, it seems. Clinging seems more appropriate. Do you chuckle at your inane thoughts now? Are you “reflecting”?

When the woods have cleared and you’ve brushed aside the sweat on your forehead, take a look behind the seemingly wayward journey of yours and you’ll discover an uneven path. A path strewn with broken branches and carelessly tossed tissue papers. A path, nonetheless. The falcon cries in the distant — of wonders that have yet to be beset upon, and pitfalls that lie beneath every bed of flowers.

Follow or plunge. Pack heartily in any case.