Childhood, high school, college, and San Francisco Bay Area; my past in chunks, monolithic eras. Perusing the record, it's hard to find what was meaningful in any of it. And by meaningful, I mean lasting. Meaningful "moments" abounded, but not a whole lot has lasted; not a whole lot has been strong enough to last.
As for the future, I won't go back to the status quo. If the future treads out the same meaninglessness, it's really not worth it. The only thing that has lasted throughout my past has been my ideals, my personal search for the kind of person I want to be; my search for just a scratch of clarity; being true to my nature . . . and yeeks, what a seriously crap job I've been doing.
So I don't know what to say about the "future". I really, really, really don't know what I'm going to do and I'm not going to think about it. It's not worth getting wound up about it or getting people wound up about it. I'm vaguely thinking that I'm waiting to hear from the monastics, but I'm really not thinking about that concretely or seriously.
Truth to tell, these past few weeks I've been keeping disciplined, reading a lot, studying, sitting regularly, trying to keep my mind still and as singularly focused in the moment as possible. But I'm split on the monastery thing. On one hand, maybe this is simply the right time and I haven't been ready until now, and I'm ready now. Living a material life has nothing left to offer, and I needed to exhaust the options before getting to this point. And at this point, a structured environment is the next step.
On the other hand, what I've been concentrating on these past weeks, why haven't I been concentrating on it for the past ten years?! How sincere can I be when I only buckle down when I'm at my wit's end, story's end; only when I've exhausted my distractions and plot twists? If I can buckle down like this so quickly and easily, it means I could have done so for quite some time. A lot of what I'm reading and encountering isn't new, it's just been neglected, I've been lazy; I've had the key, just too lazy to put it to use. So part of me feels I don't deserve it.
But then there's Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, who had his moment when he acquired his burden and had to pursue the spiritual path from that moment on. He acquired his burden when he read that book (the Bible) and felt compelled right away. Is that immediacy the measure of sincerity for recognizing the burden? I don't think so. I think a person can be exposed to the path long before you recognize the burden of life and existence that compels you to follow the path. Like the birds in The Conference of the Birds, each bird is an excuse for not following the path, needing to be shed before embarking on the journey.
I need to keep putting another foot forward.
San Francisco Mime Troupe in Dolores Park on a particularly warm day (for San Francisco, that is).
