Jet Lag and Morning Thoughts
I woke up about an hour ago, 6 a.m. Mumbai time, 5:30 in the evening, yesterday in Seattle. It's fair to say that my body doesn't yet know where it is, but I feel more rested.
My mind turned on quickly and thought over my post from last night and instantly threw this at me: Think from the Heart? That's gonna be impossible, we are using our head here because once we start really using the heart, you are going to fall apart.
Don't you like it how my head gangs up on me?
But, my mind has a point.
I don't have a fear of wanting to go home, not really, only a fear that when I completely allow myself to feel, I will be overwhelmed by confusion and sadness and helplessness.
My mind threw me one little bone though. It keeps telling me that the use of the words "desperation" and "despair" don't seem quite right. The conditions I am witnessing would cause me despair were I to live like so many people here do. But I do not actually know if I correctly perceive "desperation" from the folks who are actually living here on the streets. It seems crazy to think that they would not be desperate to change their lot, but there is a different flavor, a different spice to their emotional quality that I cannot grasp yet; maybe I never will.
I am positioned, it seems to me, at the fulcrum of a see-saw and on one end is the task of trying to understand how people live in this culture that is so very very very foreign to me. On the other end is the job of understanding how to be myself and to hold myself peacefully and joyfully no matter how far from home I am. Somewhere between the two lies a perfect balance of experience. For now, though, I think I cannot hold both steady at the same time.
My mind turned on quickly and thought over my post from last night and instantly threw this at me: Think from the Heart? That's gonna be impossible, we are using our head here because once we start really using the heart, you are going to fall apart.
Don't you like it how my head gangs up on me?
But, my mind has a point.
I don't have a fear of wanting to go home, not really, only a fear that when I completely allow myself to feel, I will be overwhelmed by confusion and sadness and helplessness.
My mind threw me one little bone though. It keeps telling me that the use of the words "desperation" and "despair" don't seem quite right. The conditions I am witnessing would cause me despair were I to live like so many people here do. But I do not actually know if I correctly perceive "desperation" from the folks who are actually living here on the streets. It seems crazy to think that they would not be desperate to change their lot, but there is a different flavor, a different spice to their emotional quality that I cannot grasp yet; maybe I never will.
I am positioned, it seems to me, at the fulcrum of a see-saw and on one end is the task of trying to understand how people live in this culture that is so very very very foreign to me. On the other end is the job of understanding how to be myself and to hold myself peacefully and joyfully no matter how far from home I am. Somewhere between the two lies a perfect balance of experience. For now, though, I think I cannot hold both steady at the same time.