Holy shit! Holy shit! I just realized something. I stopped living a long time ago, gave in just like everyone else. It’s not like I stopped dreaming, I still do that. I more or less decided to subscribe to an existence that requires me to exert overwhelming attention to my greater sustenance. Does that make any sense? I’m strictly motivated by this fear of failure, no matter what I do I can’t and won’t put my well being in jeopardy. So what does this have to do with not living, well when I disconnect from the day, my mind doesn’t stop it continues processing the information it has collected over the past 24 hours. Then I begin to worry about the next day, next year, what will the future hold? Do I have enough money, time? Who did I upset today? Does anyone hate me? Did anyone anger me? How do I deal with all of this?
So eventually sleep comes to rescue me from the never ending cycle of thoughts that often leave me staring at a blank wall in the dark. And when I wake up I feel worn. So all this sounds like depression, right? Yes to some extent, but also no. What I mean is that I’m generally happy. Often times I love everything about my life. The people I’m lucky enough to know, the pleasure I get from accomplishing even the smallest of tasks. But there is this deep seated feeling that I want to give to some cause that is far greater than me and everyone I know. Here’s the catch though, I can’t do that because I have no way of measuring my accomplishments. Yeah that’s right I want to do something for the greater good of humanity, but I’m preventing myself because I don’t feel it something that I can measure. I know that’s seems extremely selfish and just down right wrong, but I think it’s actually more endemic than anything else.
Think back to your childhood. Everything is about measurement – what did you weigh at birth and how long were you? What percentile were you in? Did you walk before you were a year? When I swam it was about your time, how fast could you be and where would you place? Don’t even bring up education, which is purely about measurement. These are all inevitable outcomes of life, I would never place any weight in a society of no measurements; it’s just not possible, not ideal. If people asked how you felt what you would say, “Sorry I can’t tell”. I guess what we have to learn is how to navigate through everything that requires measurement and realize that in the grand scheme we won’t be measured by the failure of any one thing. So at the end of the day measurement is great at the task level, but once that’s gone you can’t bring it with you. You have to move beyond the test and on to the next stage whatever that may be. Still, the quandary I brought before still exists for me, because my feeling is that to truly do something great for society it shouldn’t be about the measurement. But the way I approach everything, I first consider how it will be measured.
So why is this all of sudden so important to me? Well, I think I finally realized some major inconsistencies on how I interacted with other people. I didn’t do it on my own terms; in fact I wish some people would have hit me in the head a long time ago. When I was young I learned two important teachings from Catholicism that I believe to this day. The first being give and thou shall receive and the second being turn the other cheek. I know these seem extremely clichéd and sort of tired in their importance, but I believed and practiced them faithfully. Something happened to me though, and it continues to happen to me. Some of the people I give to don’t give back to me, and some of the people I turn the other cheek for, continue to slap my face. But the most beautiful thing I realized is that when you close your eyes you are alone in this place that no one can invade. No matter how wrong or right things are you fall asleep and are alone.
So dreams come and help you visualize the inertia, the things you see from high above the silt. And all we see looks so peaceful from high above, but it stops. Next thing you know you’re trapped back in this place where fear dances in front of all those perfect images. The clock keeps thinking and the inner you is quiet and wondering what will come, can anything stop my beating heart? It’s this place, at the head of the stream, where all those nightmares release into a great big pool of open water. No one is there it’s just you floating on your back, resting, at peace with the day. Now we can talk, right?
Don’t you see? We’re all alike because we don’t know where we’re going. Some have faith in purity and greater peace that we find after this madness. They live believing and that works for them, but not for everyone and still we are the same. Because even though they have faith in a destiny, they really don’t know where the road leads. They have a sense that and some have painted pictures of pearly gates and fields of joy. But these are just images that helped other people describe what they longed for the end to be. Some new beginning, an open pasture that is full of life, yet devoid of it at the same time. Nothing is just full of life, just like nothing is just good. There is no perfection and that is nature and that is this planet. So we choose to position ourselves neatly next to those that think like we do, dream like we do. Maybe even people that were born like we were. What does that even me, to be born like we were?
You’ll have to deal with my ways; I’m a poet who is trying to tell a story. I’m used to writing in disguise and exposing my thoughts in streams of consciousness. But it’s time now for me to talk in plain speak as only I know how to speak. I’m done holding a drink in one hand professing some babble at the nearest pub table. I’m ready to show you what I see through these eyes that seem to pick up the smallest of movements form all sorts of angles. But I do this in a breath that I share with everyone, because I feel that I am as unique as you are and as special as everyone is. We are all the same, don’t you get it? Just manifestations and subversions that have different perspectives, yet we are molded from the same clay. And in the end what we see is the same clay the same dust the same cloud.
©2006 Sean Muzzy
So eventually sleep comes to rescue me from the never ending cycle of thoughts that often leave me staring at a blank wall in the dark. And when I wake up I feel worn. So all this sounds like depression, right? Yes to some extent, but also no. What I mean is that I’m generally happy. Often times I love everything about my life. The people I’m lucky enough to know, the pleasure I get from accomplishing even the smallest of tasks. But there is this deep seated feeling that I want to give to some cause that is far greater than me and everyone I know. Here’s the catch though, I can’t do that because I have no way of measuring my accomplishments. Yeah that’s right I want to do something for the greater good of humanity, but I’m preventing myself because I don’t feel it something that I can measure. I know that’s seems extremely selfish and just down right wrong, but I think it’s actually more endemic than anything else.
Think back to your childhood. Everything is about measurement – what did you weigh at birth and how long were you? What percentile were you in? Did you walk before you were a year? When I swam it was about your time, how fast could you be and where would you place? Don’t even bring up education, which is purely about measurement. These are all inevitable outcomes of life, I would never place any weight in a society of no measurements; it’s just not possible, not ideal. If people asked how you felt what you would say, “Sorry I can’t tell”. I guess what we have to learn is how to navigate through everything that requires measurement and realize that in the grand scheme we won’t be measured by the failure of any one thing. So at the end of the day measurement is great at the task level, but once that’s gone you can’t bring it with you. You have to move beyond the test and on to the next stage whatever that may be. Still, the quandary I brought before still exists for me, because my feeling is that to truly do something great for society it shouldn’t be about the measurement. But the way I approach everything, I first consider how it will be measured.
So why is this all of sudden so important to me? Well, I think I finally realized some major inconsistencies on how I interacted with other people. I didn’t do it on my own terms; in fact I wish some people would have hit me in the head a long time ago. When I was young I learned two important teachings from Catholicism that I believe to this day. The first being give and thou shall receive and the second being turn the other cheek. I know these seem extremely clichéd and sort of tired in their importance, but I believed and practiced them faithfully. Something happened to me though, and it continues to happen to me. Some of the people I give to don’t give back to me, and some of the people I turn the other cheek for, continue to slap my face. But the most beautiful thing I realized is that when you close your eyes you are alone in this place that no one can invade. No matter how wrong or right things are you fall asleep and are alone.
So dreams come and help you visualize the inertia, the things you see from high above the silt. And all we see looks so peaceful from high above, but it stops. Next thing you know you’re trapped back in this place where fear dances in front of all those perfect images. The clock keeps thinking and the inner you is quiet and wondering what will come, can anything stop my beating heart? It’s this place, at the head of the stream, where all those nightmares release into a great big pool of open water. No one is there it’s just you floating on your back, resting, at peace with the day. Now we can talk, right?
Don’t you see? We’re all alike because we don’t know where we’re going. Some have faith in purity and greater peace that we find after this madness. They live believing and that works for them, but not for everyone and still we are the same. Because even though they have faith in a destiny, they really don’t know where the road leads. They have a sense that and some have painted pictures of pearly gates and fields of joy. But these are just images that helped other people describe what they longed for the end to be. Some new beginning, an open pasture that is full of life, yet devoid of it at the same time. Nothing is just full of life, just like nothing is just good. There is no perfection and that is nature and that is this planet. So we choose to position ourselves neatly next to those that think like we do, dream like we do. Maybe even people that were born like we were. What does that even me, to be born like we were?
You’ll have to deal with my ways; I’m a poet who is trying to tell a story. I’m used to writing in disguise and exposing my thoughts in streams of consciousness. But it’s time now for me to talk in plain speak as only I know how to speak. I’m done holding a drink in one hand professing some babble at the nearest pub table. I’m ready to show you what I see through these eyes that seem to pick up the smallest of movements form all sorts of angles. But I do this in a breath that I share with everyone, because I feel that I am as unique as you are and as special as everyone is. We are all the same, don’t you get it? Just manifestations and subversions that have different perspectives, yet we are molded from the same clay. And in the end what we see is the same clay the same dust the same cloud.
©2006 Sean Muzzy
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