Having reached the age that I have, I now see the benefits of having lived this long. I'm no longer confounded about living as long as I have, although I won't go so far as to say that if I had died earlier, I would have regretted it. Just that I appreciate having lived as long as I have. Which I guess I could say at any age.
But having lived this long, I was fortunate to come upon important teachings, which I think are the pinnacle of teachings for me. I'm fortunate to understand the need for cultivation and transformation. That what is most important is how we handle this exact moment, and that we live it according to our principles, and that our principles are mindful.
Ironically, the teachings are on death, and that what we might aim for in those teachings on death are no different on how we should be living our life. Life and death are not only a circular continuum, but the goals in each are the same, if not one and the same. Preparing for death is living mindfully, cultivating and transforming.
Not that I'm good at it. But being good at it is not the point of it.
I think I've reached a point of clarity with suicide that makes me think that I never was truly suicidal before. Something was always missing. Maybe in people who succeed, it's a point of nihilism, and I don't believe in nihilism. But that's just it. And that's just it.
I've never been able to accept nihilism, and that's why I've never been truly suicidal. Spiritually, I don't think nihilism is right. But I think I can get past it now. I don't have to accept nihilism, but I need to take on its attributes to get past this.
It's really so obvious. It's not not caring, it's just getting past that to move on. It's so obvious now that I never achieved being truly suicidal. I was still too attached, too many stupid things still mattered.
I have a job now. So one day I don't show up. It's not my issue, it's theirs. It's their being mired in the mechanics of mundane existence. I'm in a band, one week I don't show up. What can you do? Life is like that. I could have been just as easily hit by a bus. My stuff? Someone will deal with it, other lives will go on. Family? What did they ever know of me? I'm tired of not being known, and going on like this, I will never be known.
Suicide is becoming my last form of expression. It's the only thing I want to express. The only thing I want anyone else to know about me is that I committed suicide. I'm tired of not being known, but what would I want anyone to know?
It doesn't matter if anyone knows I'm a drummer. Or cyclist. Or runner. Or photographer. Or that I play guitar and shakuhachi, too. That I went to law school and have a master's. That I've been to Burmese refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border, and that I've given an intervention at the U.N.'s Sub-Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. That I played in a steel drum band on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House (those sound impressive, but they were no big deal). Both superficial and dear identifiers of who I am don't matter. Who are you?
Who was he?
He committed suicide.
That's all that I want anyone to know about me. If work hears that I committed suicide, they will know all I want them to know about me. Not that I give a crap about the band, but they, too, will know all I would want them to know about me. Same with family. It's the only thing I want to express about my identity. It doesn't matter if they don't understand it or don't take it as expression. From my point of view, it is expression. I'm tired of not being known.
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| TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 5:24 p.m - Civic Blvd. |
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| THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 3:49 p.m. - |
