Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Limitless


It is nearly 3 am,
I just returned from roasting coffee. 
Was going to strip my clothes off and jump into bed, 
but I thought about all that smoke from all that coffee just
permeating my pores,
the smell of the burned off sugars, oils,
the deli and its deep fryer—  
Sleep would be restless
if I dove into my brushed cotton sheets, 
covered in fleece and feathers;
And when I stepped into the shower, 
it felt so good, 
melting away the harshness of life 
like marshmallows dissolving in hot chocolate;
thankful for the water running over my body,  
breathing
long, deep exhales with audible 
Ohhh and Ahhh;
Adequately wet, 
I picked up the patchouli soap, gliding it all over 
rinsing as I went— 
turning to let the spray reach my left side, 
standing in that one position for about
30 seconds;
And I thought, “I always do this, stand like this,
but do I ever switch sides and let the right side of 
my body feel the long, 
penetrating heat?”
No, never.
I say that in full confidence, for
when the water hit me,
there was an awakening—
Sensations I had never felt before
and I wondered in an instant
"how many other ways do I limit myself
without conscious decision;"
how much of life had I missed?
A profound sadness swept over— 
tears, feeling sorry for my lack of 
flexibility;
or like a child 
who cannot sleep for fear she will 
miss-out on fun 
(God, what have I missed?)
until I realized
that there was vision in the 1st place,
an openness of spirit, 
a love and thirst for life;
having the ability to tell myself that there was something more
in my human experience,
trusting myself,
to turn the other way without
fear 
to know true
Freedom.








2 comments :

  1. Really appreciated your insight. William James talks about "The effortless custody of habit"
    and how it locks you into patterns that are hard to bust out of.

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  2. "how many other ways do I limit myself
    without conscious decision;"
    how much of life had I missed?"

    I really don't think you can limit yourself based on who you are and the
    environment that impacted you at the time. You will always act on the direction
    your subconscious provides; i.e., your innate character, and how that inherent process affects the situation which you may find on a conscious level. In other words, you missed nothing of life that you had any control over. The hypothetically different lives you could have lived, had you been able to respond differently to different situations, are almost infinite. Every decision, other than the one you made, would have started a snowball effect of new possibilities creating new lives. Who is to say that the end effect would have been better most of the time? Who knows how many bullets you would not have dodged had your life been less limited? My advice would be to be grateful for who you are and the life you lived, and realize that you are, most likely, in the top 1% of people on this planet who have a reason to be grateful.

    "trusting myself,
    to turn the other way without
    fear
    to know true
    Freedom."

    I don't know what true freedom means since it implies that there is a freedom that is not true. Our individual freedom is always limited by the innate self our genes produced -- not something of our choosing -- and how that genetic predisposition interacts with an environment, also not of our choosing, at birth. All so-called free choices we subsequently make are nothing more than reactions to where we were born and with what genes.
    Trust yourself based on your experiences in different areas and your demonstrated abilities to understand and adapt to new situations. This is where the illusion of true freedom can be satisfied. Fear of the unknown is a rational process that was necessary for our species to survive. The answer is, don't blindly follow a path unknown just because it holds promises your present life can't fulfill, unless you truly can say things can't get worse and even that would be presuming.
    Reno

    ReplyDelete