11. Human being or becoming myself?

I am unfinished.  I am unfinished.  I am an unfinished sentence.  An unfinished story, an unfinished work of art.

The illusion is the idea of stasis: the idea of status quo.  The universe is defined by vectors and to understand this is to see our lives dramatically different - as big a difference as the difference between classical physics and relativity.  Yesterday I didn't do any exercise.  I didn't stay the same.  I changed. I got weaker.  Today I did 10 leg lifts.  And I will change again.  Tomorrow I'll be stronger.

There is a mountain top out there for all of us.  A vision of ourselves that we have in our heads.  We work at jobs we don't like and it's like an itch in your head that you can't scratch.  You know that you were meant to be more and we try to define 'more' by our salary, by things we buy.  But 'more' is that person in our heads: the vision of ourselves, a person who is unafraid and made real through pursuing what actually moves them.  We call this 'following our heart' but that expression reduces it to something emotional and irrational.

Living life this way is the most rational process a conscious, mortal being can make.  Living any other way is irrationality driven by an overvaluation of what we have and an undervaluation of what might be - of possibility.

We think that we are ourselves that we are beings and complete and definitive.  But the definitive version of ourselves is up on that mountain top.  And we know inside that we aren't there.  It is very important for us not to be okay with this.  Because once we become okay with it - with not being as good as we could be - we have decided on a direction.  We aren't standing pat, we've chosen a direction.

The direction is down.

Just because mortality has a 100% win record does mean that we should stop fighting it.  If we aren't going to fight it, why not just hasten it's victory?  Why equivocate?  I have a great deal of respect for people who smoke and drink and live themselves into an early death.  It's the difference between doing something and simply saying that you're doing something.  Why exist between those two decisions, those two positions?

Why do I do that?  After all, I think I know better - I always think I know better.  But do I really know better if knowing doesn't make me better?

Prove that you know.

10. Surprise…Counting to 52 will take longer than I thought

It wasn’t an unexpected turn.  Things just get away from us.  I’m disappointed that I let it get to my head.  I surrendered.  I told myself that I’d catch up after the fact but I surrendered.  And now I’m on the road again.

Ideally, I won’t worry so much about falling off the path.  I’ll worry a lot more about how fast I can get back on it.  Suki – suki is the appreciation of small things.  Small things can make a big difference.  I have always taken small things – like a step, or a day for granted.  I’m still working on it.  Human becoming and all that.

One kata.  One push-up.  One walk.  One sentence.  Even for a master calligrapher, the number one is the hardest to write.  One is the hardest part of counting to 52.  It’s just that when you count to one for a while it gets less hard.  I can’t see how it ever gets easier.  Just less difficult.

That's a big difference there.

The Stillpoint calls to me again.  I sprained my ankle and I thought that I was 26 instead of 36.  It still hurts and I have no excuse.  I used my recovering ankle as an excuse to postpone my counting.  When I know full well that being hurt is the most important time to count of all.   It is my hope that knowing this I’ll do better next time that I forget to count.

But for now, I’ll take pride in being able to finally count to…

…10.