And So, I've Disclosed Nothing

Listening to: Al Green, Greatest Hits

Tonight's group got a little bit of the fallout from last night's crisis, my crisis of consciousness. My doubts of authenticity, my doubts of if I indeed walk my talk.

What happened last night was True effects of Da Kine, the Truth Effects, the ripping open of the Doors of Prceptiom and inviting a breeze to blow through to stir dust and spin the shreds of my mistakes to eye level. I went with it and let it slap me around, beat up on my self.

My Self. Having sought to jettison ego, I have found myself swimming in illusion. Internet stud, stud therapist, writer stud, loving father & got his shit together stud, a facade constructed out of rhinestone, baseless and without foundation. A lie told to myself so many times, I've begun to believe it. Despite my Knowing I've persisted in giving it currency.

In my bed last night, I rolled myself into a ball, trembling, a convulsive confrontation with the truth. Blankets were wrapped around me like the embrace of an indifferent and unabiding stranger, I needed something to hold me, whatever it was, corporeal or material.

For the past few weeks I've been edging this Thursday group towards the destruction of 'belief' under the weight of 'truth'. What we believe, we believe is true. Although a belief can be true, beliefs are really just our preconceptions of the world regardless how the world actually exists. All perceptions are subjective; there is no such thing as a purely objective perception or obsevation. Everything we perceive is filtered through who we are. Take away our beliefs of "we" or "me" or "them" or "us" and we're still tainted by the residue of those beliefs, me, the 'I'.

After check-in, I reintroduced concepts from previous weeks: ego is an illusion, a construct built on the foundations of beliefs we hold about the 'I' that, if you really think about, doesn't exist; Fear binds us to those beliefs; Acts of compassion are really all we have to break free of those bonds.

Oh yeah, and we can't think out the ego. We must act it out. If you're a Christian, you call that 'grace'; if you're a Buddhist, you call it 'Karma'; if you're an atheist, you call it 'cooperation'. Whatever, you only exist as far as you are at any given moment.

A new member of the group hadn't heard any of this and (rightfully) pointed out that she knew she sat in her chair and she was postive it would still be her an hour later (a swipe at the length of the session, I'm sure.

Sure, I told her, there's a 'me' that takes up space and sucks up oxygen. But the 'me' that I perceive and think about (far too often) tends to be, in my mind, a discrete element, apart form the world, special, beyond everything else, primary...

Well, it just ain't so. It's a story. A story invented by 'me' to explain, as best I can, all of this.

That's OK, it's part of our programming; fear is essential, it's survival. It marks me as vulnerable as meat, cannon fodder, an easy mark. Feed into that enough though and fear is also a drug, like coke or booze or sex - addictive.

Actually, fear is the most common drug by far, common in both accessibility and popularity, popular beacause it is so simple. Fear is, after all, nothing more than being afraid of losing what I already have or not getting what I think I deserve.

When I remembered that fear from the midst of my twisting in the blankets and the liberation I felt when I recalled it was all a dream, I remembered peace. Peace and peace I made, willed, peace bagained by the knowledge that it's not really me that's fucked up, the universe is fucked up. Oh well.

Standing at the dry-erase board, marker frozen in my hand, lost, I considered the 'I' and I let it go. I had to. As 'I' passed off, so did my fears, like the black and pink dust on my eraser. No one pays me to stand around addlepated and slack-jawed.

I don't usually disclose much to clients (I've had more than my share of Borderlines) but I shared what happened last night. The blanket and the kine bud and the doubts. And then I shared that I remembered it was all a dream, my perceptions, whatever was an obstacle to my happiness was only an obstacle chose it to be that, made those choices because of my fucked up programming and, if I really put my mind to it, I could rewrite that programming.

Who I was then is not who I am now. Who you were last night is not who you are now. Little bits of me are becoming little bits of you and little bits of everything else, right now, and now, and whenever else, wave and particle at the same time. Everything rushes on and I can enjoy the ride or make it nauseating, my choice.