dig

I think the last thing I need is to doubt myself. Well, the last thing I need is to go to the grocery store again on the night before Easter. That may have been a mistake, although it felt REAL NICE gifting my mama with some chocolate ice cream and a yellow rose, both of which were purchased in hell Smith's. But yes, back to self-doubt. At this point I need to trust myself more than ever. But it's hard. It's hard to do so when one day I am euphoric and the next day I am the old chewed up gum stuck to the bottom of an old discarded sneaker. Or boot. Or house slipper. Why were you wearing your house slippers outside? They are called house slippers for a reason. You were your outside slippers AKA your Crocs when you go outside. Just a reminder.

So I've established (probably multiple times) that I cannot trust my emotions. My emotions and my Self seem to be inseparable. SEEM. I know they are not. I know that I still have yet to define, for myself, what "Self" actually means. I know I have a lot of thinking to do. At the same time, I have a lot of unthinking to do. My brain is a beach and my thoughts are the grains of sand. I dig a hole in order to go deeper and maybe make it to China, but the sand collapses and buries me. Over and over again. I have started wearing a scuba mask while digging. At least I haven't stopped digging, although I may look ridiculous wearing a mask while essentially digging my own grave. You dig?

I fill up my head when it might be wiser to empty it. "Is there a book I can read about this or that?" I ask. Constantly. "Can I research it more before I do this or that?" "Give me a huge heads up before you make absolutely any changes to my strict schedule! K THANX!" I think I think I think. I prepare I prepare I prepare. I fear. I stay back and watch. I fear even more. I see too much and let it stop me. I don't dive in because I have been looking at my warped reflection in the murky water for too long. I back out. I don't recognize myself. I feel more comfortable suffocating in the sand.

I have to empty my mind before I run out of fuel. It is one of those delightful paradoxes where I have to be empty in order to be full. Ah, the nature of emptiness. Ah, present moment shit. Ah, the Self. Ah, illusions and suffering and death and disease and compassion and sutras. Mandalas and mantras and Mahayana. Ah, the golden sunflower. Ah, the Great Eastern Sun. Ah, the moon the moon the moon. Burn down the barn, kill the buddha, don't look to the finger. Look to the moon. See it. Sit with it. Listen.

I delight and thrive in the abstract. I hope I don't forget this.