It’s 1:30 in the morning, 77-degrees Fahrenheit and 79% humidity.
After a few days with afternoons near 100-degrees, it's the first
time in maybe three days I've ventured outside for more than a minute
or two at a time… and at this hour ~ in this season ~ the songs of
the toads and crickets and the quiet itself are overwhelming.
With the family
asleep, I thought I'd enjoy some mint tea on the patio and maybe
write a little. Settling into my chair, I relax and ask a quiet mind
for topics to consider. Somehow, though, circumstances such as they
are, the only visions appearing from just inside the fog are dark and
bitter. I don't want to feel like that right now, nor do I want to
post that poison for others. So I don't.
Instead, I pause for
a breath... and then maybe another… and habitually return to my tea
and consider what this all may mean and what I should do.
Acting on instinct
at a time like this may well collapse all of what is possible into a
much smaller universe of negative outcomes. What do I mean by this?
Well, first is a practical matter, and that is that I may be
noticed. If the universe is on the fence about what to do with you
and you start playing the fool, your action pending an outcome may
affect that outcome. The second is not such an obvious matter of
cause and effect, but it may be more important: If your mind is
poisoned with a negative view and you dwell on assuming ill intent or
the worst case scenarios, you may be blind to any positive options
offered or works in progress. Either way, the end is the same: You
may only have whatever solace comes with an "I was right"
or an "I told you so” after the fact.
So what about all of
this thinking itself? All thinking is “wishful thinking,” isn’t
it? If I’m on the lookout for a positive outcome or a negative
outcome, I may well find it – after all, I do like being right,
even if it’s about something terrible… and if I’m focused
specifically on this outcome
or that outcome, I may
well be blind to others.
I conclude that I
might as well focus on who I’d like to be
should a positive reality happen to come along.
… either that or I
limit myself to outcomes that can only be compatible with a worldview
that is not compatible with me. For instance, if I have to force
or to trick an outcome
that feels positive to me, do I want to live with the reinforced
notion that I am separate from all of this and somehow above all of
that, and that to
succeed or to maintain the
result means more
force or more
trickery? Certainly
that would mean expecting
that everyone else is
treating me in that same way.
Would people really enjoy a lifetime living
in that world?
The
temperature of the psyche is
visible everywhere, even in the quiet in the middle of the night ~
even against the croaking and chirping of invisible toads and
crickets. Half of my thoughts are true while the other half are lies
while the truth itself ~ if it exists at all ~ is far from where
my attention lies. So instead
of examining the details of this conversation with myself, maybe it’s
enough to realize what it’s saying about me.
So let that be my
writing for tonight ~ the most positive thing I can say given my
circumstances and given my experience, presented from the perspective
of the person I will become.
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