Elysian Fields

No Future?

What if you had no future?  I don’t mean that you were going to die, (which is exactly what this phrase usually suggests) just no more future.  What would you lose?  Your living would continue, but without any forward-looking expectations or future fantasies.  There would be no thinking about what you might be doing tomorrow, next week or even an hour from now.  No fantasies of a new car or girlfriend, or even going out for a pizza later and how good it would taste.  None of that, period.  And, what are you going to be when you grow up?  What a silly question!  I am going to be me, of course!  It’s pretty remarkable to consider how completely illusory this whole process of conjuring the future is, but we all do it, and somehow believe that the ‘future’ is really real and important.  If someone took away your future, would you die?  Would life be horrible and not worth living?  Maybe it would become so liberating that you might start living like that five-year-old you once were who dimly resides within vague memories.  The experience could be even better than last time.  Should this possibility happen to you, please don’t let the secret out. Remember, someone still has to run the world.  (We’ll talk about the past tomorrow).

Mature Adults?

When humans are young, life is new, fresh and filled with much learning and exploration.  Living in the creative moment is relatively easy, immersed within the naturalness of discovery and investigation.  Then, at some point, the living cycle begins to slow as a form of protective petrifaction sets in.  Usually without an awakening into a new awareness, it can become a creeping closure to one’s life.  Because this form of maturity is seen as normal, desirable and happens to “the best of us,” it becomes the societal standard, and therefore extremely resistant to undoing.  Do you think you’ve made it to this level of “mature adulthood”?  Probably not, or you wouldn’t be reading this now.

Dissillusionment

Learn to celebrate “dis-illusionment.”  This is the moment when our illusions become visible.  As such, we become clear and cleaned of conditioning.  It is a parting of the veils – Hallelujah!  Unfortunately for most, disillusionment has come to mean betrayal, abandonment, disappointment, or broken trust.  Too bad we can’t all celebrate disillusionment together.

Moment to Moment

Life really lives only for a moment – then we die. We believe that we live scores of years but actually it’s really just for “a moment”, then maybe another and so on. All that really supports our supposed “life” and its continuity are memory traces or audio tracks and photo images of past dead moments. Moment to moment – is really all there is. Everything else is just a mélange of thin and faded memory traces supporting the “reality” of a life within this daydream. Moment-to-moment. It’s all we really have.

Everything Animate

Everything animate within our realm is a variant carbon-based life form.  We’re all made of the same stuff; just reworked and informed a little differently.  Every place on this planet is essentially the same with just slight cosmetic and climatic variations, so diversity is really an illusion.  Therefore, if you wish, you can remain at home and learn almost everything you need to know – it’s all laid out at your feet, if you’re able to just “see” it!

Enlightenment

Enlightenment won’t make you a better person, or even improve your sex life.  It will, however, definitely take the fun and excitement out of living.  The whole idea of seeking “enlightenment” is absurd.  What’s the point?  An enlightened being can’t tell you, because he or she is no longer there.  So, you think you’ve finally become a fairly ‘enlightened’ individual?  SURPRISE!  Watch the dance when you hear the IRS wants to audit you for the last seven years.

Wonder & Magic

Bad magicians are we, trying so hard but feebly to orchestrate and create wonder and magic in our lives instead of allowing it to arise spontaneously and surprise us.  Instead we continue trying to “make” it happen, which it rarely does – just a facsimile or pretentious substitute.  Especially pathetic are attempts to replay or “re-capture” early experiences of magic through repetitious rituals like Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries.  All we can do with any event is to launch it with preparation and then let it unfurl.  The more we try to chase life the more it runs and hides from us.

Blinder of Age

When the blinders of age appear, narrowing and reducing our outlook and rational perspective, we continue to fade and are increasingly less able to hold to the larger reality containing the outside world. As our life continues shrinking, we must focus closer and tighter, reacting to our dissipation by clinging to each shred and remnant. Yet it’s ultimatly in vain. The mind begins leaving, and as it shutters and dims, fear and confusion pervade with the daily scramble to adjust constantly to the shifting terrain of this waking nightmare. The rotting of who we are has begun, and it is not pretty. We simply, and quite predictably, are becoming less and less of ourselves. It is a slow, gradual, creeping dissolve until finally there is a total system collapse and a merciful release. That is, unless you can get out early…