Usually when I write a blog post, I am diligent in drafting it through an external word application, making edits or revisions as I go, and saving it to my hard drive before submitting it to the “Internets” (as my sister calls it), in the hopes of archiving it auspiciously for years – no, decades – to come (although the intention of storing is probably only to be revered by yours truly). Another reason for this multi-step process was due to realizations that even the seemingly vast, endless worldwideweb could have faults of its own. That things might get lost or deleted forever. That “www” may have such complications that affect its “seamless-ness,” in turn, possibly washing away all the proof of various sites, GIFs, videos, and millions of other images and thoughts that we upload and repost as a way to document our lives.
I know that this is not the case for each of us. The blogs, the podcasts, the photos, etc. Personally, I engage with a couple social media platforms – one more for personal content so that family living afar might encounter some nuggets of our daily living. The other one is used for (and I gently deem it) more “professional” images, quips, and experiences – all of which actually stems from a personal place anyways, so perhaps my justification cannot really be made…
My overworked point here (how ironic), is that despite all of the booming technology, advances, speed, and depth to which we subscribe a good amount of our time and energy, we seem to have made things messier. A memory of one such mess that I quipped over 7 years ago, was revealed to me recently, with the adage: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Now, I couldn’t tell you what I was referring to then, but it certainly remains a truth for me today. The immediate gratification complex we’ve gained, in part due to the exhaustive exposé of everything that we are or have at all times online, seems to have coincidentally stripped of us whatever matters most from a truly deeper, core self. I absolutely get caught up in the tumult of ‘liking’ or ‘commenting’ or ‘voyeuring’ my way through lapses of the day. E.g. while parked at a red light (guilty), snuggling with my family on the couch, cooking, studying, or in between clients. It’s a habit I acknowledge, but I won’t deem it all bad either. Labeling faults doesn’t seem to help – that would merely pathologize and perpetuate the notion that I’m not permissible to be human or falter while engaging concurrently in self-awareness.
Someone replied to the memory with, “Sometimes complicated finds us.” But does it? Do our complications or struggles or otherwise negative perceptions of daily living confront and challenge us purposefully? Or are these experiences genuinely neutral, approaching and awaiting our attached discriminations? What if it is like Yogi Bhajan stated, “If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior towards you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.” (WHOA.)
YES. Life is really quite simple; life is like a mirror. I’d argue that the reactions we have to daily hurdles are also a reflection of the state of our relationship to ourselves. Could we be creating chaos, so as to feel human? Do we make a negative out of nothing, to impose irrationally that we are invincible from an otherwise very natural state of suffering? I don’t know the answer to this question as it applies to you. But I know that I want to work on un-learning my way from this downward spiral. I want to value my time at home, including the space in which I can encounter both quiet and noise, laughter and tears, wake and sleep. I want to release the judgments of myself that I wear around my head and my heart, while simultaneously accusing others’ opinions of me to matter with similar weight. I strive for what EmBodyed Tides has talked about before: deliberate authenticity. And embracing real pauses of time during my day where I might plainly smell the flowers, or breathe deeply. To surrender most of the muck which ends up tight around my shoulder blades, to feel and be, rather than to desperately respond and do.
Loosen the grip of whatever you have tightly wound, and instead acknowledge the unfolding of your best self. Explore and play like children do. Know that your physical time here is fleeting, and thus, the strongest efforts in rooting into enriched experiences might just be by way of slowing everything else down. Give yourselves a break today. In whatever capacity that might be.