Survival work requires your entire life.
But in the gaps, perhaps over a freshly corked bottle, while the game is on silent on a late Friday afternoon, I begin to over cherish the earlier minutes of life.
Then, a primal urge rushes forward and the need to recreate the good ol’ days dominates my thinking.
When this romantic delusion causes me to slip, it is a sign that I am over-leveraged trying to live at a pace that I can’t keep up with.
While there are many methods to remedy this situation, there is one old-fashioned move that seems to be the most potent:
Light a candle,
and wait for that
fugitive soul to
crawl back into its seat.
We
Cannot
Stop
at
Suffering.
We
Must
Aim
at
Loving
Life
Again.
At almost four A.M. the windows are ice to the touch
and it feels like everything I’ve been taught is enormously inaccurate
except for the buried poems I had to find for myself.
The tired offered paths paved by misguided passion
dissolve in the ancient womb of darkness.
What lies ahead is uncertainty. At first, fear.
Then, the first fingers of light crawl through the shutters
and with them, a message:
“The blessings you look for
are often no louder than
the breath that falls from your mouth.”
During this time of year, if I pay attention, there is a cold wind that blows through my heart. It sweeps away the debris that has accumulated over the ambitious months over spring and summer.
After a shave, I wipe my face and look in the mirror only to find all of my unlived lives staining everything I touch.
I cannot run from this, only hold it and attempt to transform it. For if I flee, I am continuing the trance of arriving somewhere other than where I am.
I drove through Skid Row the other day
and my mental incontinence is still leaking everywhere.
While I was mopping up my thoughts,
I noticed that the fire to build a cosmopolitan life began to cool
and the focal point of my craving floated into a distant echo.
Later that night, while laying next to my son,
right before we both slipped into sleep
the words of Solomon appeared onto the screen of my mind:
“Man’s complex problems are of his own devising.”
The fatigue always catches me off guard. I rarely see it coming. When my soul is tired, I am pulled down into a deep valley where all I can see is one long journey without rest.
On manageable days, I can reach into my library and rediscover Sono’s wisdom; the Zen master who gave all her students one mantra as the main medicine:
“Thank you for everything,
I have no complaints.”
But right now, my flame is out. Maybe tomorrow.
The absence of your will leaves you open to many disturbances. When your will is lost, you slide under the boot of external circumstances and lose much of your personal power.
In order to recapture the will and thus your autonomy, you must first take responsibility for what falls under…
Brian McFadden
Made in 85. I write about self-discovery & personal effectiveness using both sides of my brain. My work: https://linktr.ee/itsbrianmcfadden
