Busy Busy Busy!
7/28/2005
I hope the lack of posts this week haven't discouraged you, dear reader. I'm still eager to write in my journal, but I've been spending much of my time away from the house and the computer. And it feels wonderful!
To be quite honest, I've been terribly busy enjoying myself. I've spent so much time at home in the past few years - mainly composing music - that I've distanced myself from people. I've also become a news junky, but I'm working on that. This is all fairly routine, as my default setting seems to be 'isolation,' but that feeling can be quite overwhelming. What I need to do now is find a healthy balance between my obsession for creating music and my yearning for friendship and connections to other people. And one way of doing that, I think, is to learn how to share my thoughts with greater clarity and 'unguardedness'- without having to depend on a keyboard all the time.
I was never this guarded before. I was never this careful with words. I used to actually believe that I was a kind of zen-like 'roadside prophet,' a madman, a fool, but with some intrinsic quality that made me worth listening to without constraint. But really I'm fairly boring unless I go back and sprinkle some afterthoughts in. Nothing special, as the Buddhists would say. And I never quite resonate to my creations when I let my 'bloated nothing' stand in the way of me and the object of my musing.
And that's comfortable. Because as long as I am the observer - not getting in the way of my own observations - I feel more in tune with things. Sure, I have my drives, my passions. But the point, I think, is simply to notice the world around me, acknowledge it, and maintain a state of consciousness that isn't so kneejerk and hard-headed. Having no reservations. Living in the present, for a lack of better words. And if that implies any sort of divine perfection, then I wholeheartedly apologize. Because I still don't think any of us knows diddlysquat about what's really going on in the 'mind of God.'
I've had an awakening of sorts. Something that said "Oh, you think you know something about what's going on, do you?" And that's what the universe is all about. Keeping people from maintaining a comfortable shape. Because ignorant, stubborn complacency is a quick way to a slow death.
Speaking of death, I saw a fellow die about a month ago in a car accident. I think I wrote about it, but I can't be sure. My wife and I were driving home from Dean's house after enjoying the season finale of Doctor Who, when we stumbled upon a horrible accident that JUST happened. A few people were already at the scene, and one of the passengers was still alive, but barely.
My world changed in an instant. One minute I was bopping along, enjoying the buzz of Doctor Who fandom and cranking up the music. The next minute I was witness to the death of a man, blood dripping from his skull and gasping for a few final breaths. It shook me. Changed me. Affected me. Later on, I started feeling foolish for wasting so much of my life watching television, being disinterested in people, not sharing enough of myself to the world. And I couldn't be with people for a couple of weeks without the idea that anyone of us may drop dead in an instant. I'm sure everyone has felt this way.
I've seen death before. But watching old people fade away is not the same. Working at a nursing home/hospice ward is a humbling experience, but I had no real preparation with stumbling across the scene of a horrific accident. It was unsettling.
I'm sure the extreme shift in my world view will settle down after awhile. I'll go back into some of my comfortable isolation, if only to bring into it what I've learned and experienced 'on the outside.' But now when I'm around people, when I'm truly spending time with other beings, I notice a big change in me. Because suddenly I listen more. Probably not enough for my wife to notice, and I probably still don't listen enough, to be quite honest, but I know the difference. Because suddenly I'm seeing more and experiencing more levels of existence. And when was I ever this sappy before?
posted by Edward Svengali @ Thursday, July 28, 2005,
