Back up
I thought it was absurd that I was having breakfast at 12:00 midnight, having had drank and slept by 6:00 PM. But in hindsight I'm glad I did, because had I not done that I would not have had one beautiful moment in the intersection when I was in a cab on my way to a co-working space at 2:00 AM.
Let me back up.
I wanted to remember that moment this morning where I truly was calm in letting things be, where a rose is a rose is a rose. I want to remember it. I want to remember it. I want to remember it. It was a moment with no hope or agenda, no ideation nor devaluation, no frenetic attempt to declare detachment or avoid abandonment, nothing but a moment that is.
Let me back up further.
There's a wise and incisive article about detaching, and as I was reading I was half agreeing with it and half poised to offer a counter. The counter would involve a lot of explaining as to what my issues are, and I'm too lazy to do that, but go ahead and read the article. It's a good read, I recommend it. Heck, read it twice.
See, for people who have conditions the symptomatology of which include being passionless, overanalytic, depressed, manic, suffering from derealization, god complexes, and/or have sledgehammers for brains, i.e., those who absolutely do not put the B in "subtle," detachment is always already a problem. By default we occupy a space that is the world, but we feel not of the world. By the same stroke and mechanism, however, we get fixated on the littlest of things, and have tendencies of imposing control on our surroundings if only to make sense of the chaos that we go through every single day within our brains. Sometimes the only reason why we function is, like in Mr. Burns, all our dysfunctionalities get stuck in the doorway trying to outrun one another.
So we tend to suck at simple life skills, like dealing with other people. We overanalyze or glaze over things. We seem to have a nebulous idea of the creature called "middle ground," but have never caught glimpse of it because it seems we vacillate between something being everything and nothing. We have difficulty in forgiving ourselves for being ourselves. We seem to be always cursed with wrong timing or too little or too much when it comes to things we do or say. We cannot answer "how are you?" without bringing the universe to bear. We cannot let a conversation be a conversation without bringing the universe to bear. We cannot even decide what to bring to bear when deciding to bring the entire universe to bear.
The article talked about the oxymoronic character of detaching as the way to achieve greater heights. It's not oxymoronic; it's paradoxical in the true sense of the word. You don't do detachment; you let it happen. So at that moment I was talking about, there was no universe to bear nor a universe to detach from, instead, a rose was a rose was a rose. I wish I could tell you how it was, but I can't.
I could only tell you that it will come when you do not think about it. Don't try to not think about it, you know that's useless, pink elephants and everything. Similar to healing after a broken heart, you do not heal as long as you try. Similar to forgetting, you do not actively forget something. Furthermore, for you to truly forget something you would have to have forgotten that you have forgotten. That is what we call "forgiveness."
It will come when you don't even know you've let go. The subtle art of detachment is that you don't even know you're detaching. There is no activity involved in it, it is a passive thing that comes at you like intersections at 2:00 AM in a cab going through an intersection.
But, like all advice that relies on passivity, this needs to be in active voice.
Back up.
Image credit: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/22/10/327342FF00000578-3504133-image-a-6_1458643466275.jpg
Let me back up.
I wanted to remember that moment this morning where I truly was calm in letting things be, where a rose is a rose is a rose. I want to remember it. I want to remember it. I want to remember it. It was a moment with no hope or agenda, no ideation nor devaluation, no frenetic attempt to declare detachment or avoid abandonment, nothing but a moment that is.
Let me back up further.
There's a wise and incisive article about detaching, and as I was reading I was half agreeing with it and half poised to offer a counter. The counter would involve a lot of explaining as to what my issues are, and I'm too lazy to do that, but go ahead and read the article. It's a good read, I recommend it. Heck, read it twice.
See, for people who have conditions the symptomatology of which include being passionless, overanalytic, depressed, manic, suffering from derealization, god complexes, and/or have sledgehammers for brains, i.e., those who absolutely do not put the B in "subtle," detachment is always already a problem. By default we occupy a space that is the world, but we feel not of the world. By the same stroke and mechanism, however, we get fixated on the littlest of things, and have tendencies of imposing control on our surroundings if only to make sense of the chaos that we go through every single day within our brains. Sometimes the only reason why we function is, like in Mr. Burns, all our dysfunctionalities get stuck in the doorway trying to outrun one another.
So we tend to suck at simple life skills, like dealing with other people. We overanalyze or glaze over things. We seem to have a nebulous idea of the creature called "middle ground," but have never caught glimpse of it because it seems we vacillate between something being everything and nothing. We have difficulty in forgiving ourselves for being ourselves. We seem to be always cursed with wrong timing or too little or too much when it comes to things we do or say. We cannot answer "how are you?" without bringing the universe to bear. We cannot let a conversation be a conversation without bringing the universe to bear. We cannot even decide what to bring to bear when deciding to bring the entire universe to bear.
The article talked about the oxymoronic character of detaching as the way to achieve greater heights. It's not oxymoronic; it's paradoxical in the true sense of the word. You don't do detachment; you let it happen. So at that moment I was talking about, there was no universe to bear nor a universe to detach from, instead, a rose was a rose was a rose. I wish I could tell you how it was, but I can't.
I could only tell you that it will come when you do not think about it. Don't try to not think about it, you know that's useless, pink elephants and everything. Similar to healing after a broken heart, you do not heal as long as you try. Similar to forgetting, you do not actively forget something. Furthermore, for you to truly forget something you would have to have forgotten that you have forgotten. That is what we call "forgiveness."
It will come when you don't even know you've let go. The subtle art of detachment is that you don't even know you're detaching. There is no activity involved in it, it is a passive thing that comes at you like intersections at 2:00 AM in a cab going through an intersection.
But, like all advice that relies on passivity, this needs to be in active voice.
Back up.
Image credit: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/22/10/327342FF00000578-3504133-image-a-6_1458643466275.jpg
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