The Fragile Man

I have shopped my writing around to the publications closest to my subject matter and have found that they aren't interested in my opinion. They publish the editorial works of experts and I'm no expert and all I really have is my perspective. So, I've decided to write about the only subject I'm an expert in, myself.

I'm going to post the beginning of a book I'm writing and I'd like your feedback. Here is what I propose: Read the beginning few paragraphs with the understanding that this will be the telling of a six year journey through fibromyalgia and my other ailments. So read and let me know if you'd keep reading this book, or if it's best kept for myself.

Thank you in advance :-)

Namaste,

Ryan

I awoke on my couch, facing eviction, the power being cut off and working a job which was entirely too physical for my body. My wife and children were gone, left to Texas because I had been a violent man. I had curbed my physical outbursts, but was still difficult to live with. I was full of delusion and victimization and all the pain medication and muscle relaxants I had left. I didn't want to live another day, not without my family. I had the two dogs for company, and they loved me but it was hard to love them back when they reminded me so much of what I had lost. I looked into the empty room my sons had shared; toys still lain on the floor. I laid back on my couch, which had became my bed, since I wasn't sleeping in our bed. I lived a life of busting tires all day, six days a week, 70+ hours a week and staying awake all night. As I laid there a thought bubbled up from the center of my mind like the message from an old '8 ball"; all I had was myself for company and I hated myself. I was an ass-hole and a bully. As I realized this the room began to fade into so much black nothingness and I was there floating by myself.; outside of time and space with no beginning and no end. As I realized that  this was the fabric of reality, I knew myself completely and my body faded. I was simply the energy of me, this observer. I looked back and saw the fabric of my negative energy threaded through the lives of my family causing so much of our distress and problems. I saw it changing the beautiful nature of my children. I saw it causing my lovely wife to bend and change. I could feel her pain and fear in my deepest heart and I awoke.

I sat there staring into the room, blinking at the vivid clarity of it all just as I had done so many years ago when I received my first pair of glasses. Trees weren't just green cotton balls; life wasn't the fabric of my dreams. I understood into the center of a deep placed I had long ago suppressed,  that we are all connected and I had been so very irresponsible with my part in it all. I had been irresponsible in my role as a father, as a husband, as a friend and as a human being. I was selfish, judgmental, and so egocentric my victim mentality was like a suit of armor. I saw it so clearly of myself and I stripped myself naked unto the light of truth. I had fought against the worst of myself for so long. I was tired of shirking, tired of being ashamed of my true self. I turned and fought, finally. I closed my eyes, I grit my teeth, clenched my fists and faced it. When I opened my eyes I expected to be facing demons, shadows, enemies of some sort and what hit my like a blade to my heart was the sight of myself, pale face in my hands weeping at what I had done. I saw this man, who couldn't stand tall; who had faced his whole life as though visited by the ghost of Christmas past.  His shoulders were slumped and his heart was wallowed in sorrow and despair. I became aware of the energy, call it atmosphere, esp or however you can understand it, but I became aware of a looming choice. I felt it with every fiber of my physical being. Like my own spidey-sense; my karmasense was tingling like crazy. The fight or flight reaction was pulling like the riptide of the oncoming of a tremendous wave. I didn't care, I had made my choice and as the wave crashed I covered that man with my body. In the churning destruction I was washed away, split into so many layers of facade as the cinema of my life was shown before me. Each scene; a layer of delusion ripped away, exposing me, skinning me alive. I didn't falter, I didn't shirk. Layer after layer I watched as karma; my energetic responsibility for the threads of delusion, hate and judgement I had woven into reality were heaped upon my shoulders. I used those scenes flashed before me as bubbles of truth to follow to the surface if I were to survive. As I pressed into these scenes, no longer a witness; neutral, I became. Without knowing or noticing perhaps I became that figure I had seen. My face in my hands weeping as the pain I had wrought on others only to disguise myself, to cast my view from who I was. Their pain was to alleviate my own... the source of my shame shown before me as the last load of karmic weight. I stood and assumed it all unto my being. I was one again, like I had been so many years ago as a child. I was washed clean while not removing my past. This wasn't a fragmentation, it was a reunification. I could stand tall because I am a good person. I have done bad things, but I was no longer running from them. Stripped to near spartan living I walked my talk every day.

I had been shown the subtle luring nature of that inner space I came to call the cave. I walked every day being as present as I could be. I had seen the shields of delusion and their consequences and I rejected my reality and stood for truth come what may, how ever I may be judged or scrutinized I will walk in the light of truth. My first tool was to openly call bullshit on myself. When I was being weak and letting others do more work than I on the job I would call bullshit on myself. At first it took stepping into the restroom to actually face my reflection and call it out. "you're being an asshole, you're using and manipulating them and it IS NOT RIGHT" I had to affirm it in reality, not the vacuum of my mind because I can change the facts as I see fit in there. Out here in reality, if I spoke it aloud, I couldn't take it back. I foiled my sneaky and underhanded ego-self this way. It was what it was, I could not change it. Those moments were my foot holds, my anchor points for when I fell, and I fell a lot in the beginning. I began to see again, as I did in that moment of clarity, the sun warmed me, the coffee was richer and I was real, and I was ok. I began to rebuild myself in this way. I was raising two boys into manhood and I couldn't define it and the shame of my example to them thus far was like a burning  coal for the engine of my purpose. To be a good person.

Come on People now, smile on your brother

Yesterday my wife, my eleven year old son and I were almost in a head-on collision. A heavy duty truck, which looked like a cement mixer, belonging to an environmental service company was straddling the double yellow center line around a blind corner.  The look of shock on his face as we came around in our lane truly frightened me. His truck was too large, too heavy and moving too fast for him to maneuver at all. I swung my car to the curb on my side and came to a stop. He missed us by inches and …. just kept going. He just drove off. I took the next block and backtracked. I was extremely upset. I wanted this jackass to know what he almost did. I found him two blocks up about to make a right on the street I was on and as I passed him I yelled, cursed and told him to pull into the nearest parking lot. I know. It was a stupid thing to do. I was caught up in moment. The problem was my initial approach.

When he didn’t pull into the lot but instead taunted and goaded me with his passenger as he kept driving I decided to take this to his boss. I knew where their office was, we used to work in the same office park. I hope he received a written reprimand. I plan on following up in a few days, but that isn’t the point of this, it’s about how we treat each other, about our initial approach; our combined consciousness.

You see all of us enter our isolation booths and maneuver through our city avoiding all the jackasses on the road without ever realizing that those jackasses are approaching it the exact same way. Where did this sense of entitlement come from? When did all of us decide that our city, government, country, the world, all of existence was there to witness the “me show”? How do we figure we are the only important one?

Well with that attitude fell our cooperation, our compassion, our willingness to do what is right. What we adopted was the willingness to do what is right… for me. We disconnected from each other and started to take care of only ourselves. We drew lines, like we always have throughout history, in order to set ourselves against them to make it easier to excuse our behavior to ourselves. It’s competition; on the roads, in the office, in the community in the home. I’m all for doing the best you can and felling good about your accomplishments but when are we taking care of the most important aspect? I mean sure, we can be the best on the road, the best in the office, and the best in the community but if we’re not tending to our initial approach then all we end up with is a trophy shelf we admire alone. No one, I mean no one, wants to be taken advantage of; not on the road, in the office, in the community or in the home. So when did we flip and change to this me only approach? More importantly, why haven’t we noticed and done something about it?

We treat each other like enemies on the road, we have “road rage” which doesn’t come from congestion, it comes from our mindset. If they’re enemies then there are no holds barred. We drop polite society and “handle our business”. I call bullshit. I don’t want every other motorist on the road to treat me this way, then without being a massive hypocrite, so I cannot take advantage. I must follow the rules we have all agreed to.

We approach all of life in this same way. It’s been going for so long. I grew up in this mindset. I was a child in the 80’s during the “me generation” and boy isn’t that the truth. We were taught to take care of “No.1” and a bunch of other catchy slogans we would repeat to desensitize us from the usury we were being bred into. We did as every generation does, we improved upon the existing system. The improvement? “The Game”! It’s where I can act like a complete asshole and then excuse my behavior with the slogan “don’t hate the player, hate the game” which is tantamount to saying “don’t blame me, I’m no worse than everyone else”. That’s just great, lowest common denominator societal norms! How did we not notice we were circling the drain? How did we all adopt this philosophy so quickly? So easily? I mean it started in a subculture, as all things do, and went mainstream so quickly. Then came the “haters” and how we don’t have to listen to anyone, because haters are going to hate. What a giant system of self-delusion. That means I can be however I like because I only have to be better than those I judge to be less; which is to say I can do what I want because I can always judge people in such a way as to allow my bad behavior. Then, when I piss people off I don’t have to listen to them because I can just label them “haters” and dismiss them. It’s the recipe to complete deluded pseudo-happiness.  All of that outward manipulation causes us to live within ourselves and use our bodies like a robot. All the hate from the haters just hits the robot and doesn’t get through…. and neither does the love, neither does the happiness… nothing does.

So here we are; a world of people hiding within themselves and all of them missing out on life. It’s messy, you will cry, you will love and you will lose and all of it is the experience you were meant to have. There is no hiding from it, there is no broadcast delay in which you have a moment to factor your next move, nope. You act, you live, you learn, you grow, you give of yourself and you pass on. If you’re one of those lucky beautiful souls you touch the world with your honesty.

I am saddened by how many beautiful souls I meet who insist on remaining caterpillars.

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now

The Yougbloods

When Life was Sesame Street

I was thinking the other day about love, compassionate love and the state of the world. I was thinking about our politics, our business, our government and our society. It seems so involved, deluded, convoluted and manufactured with an agenda. I think that is what bothers me most, the agenda. When you know that the way you want it doesn’t serve everyone and selfishly subvert it to your own gain. I think that describes the actions of those three groups I just mentioned, don’t you? I remember a different time, as all generations do; we all have our “good ol’ days”. Mine were Sesame Street and it was beautiful.

To me the world was made up of people who were loving and tolerant. There were people from different races coexisting, different religions, folks who were hearing impaired and visitors with all sorts of challenges and triumphs. It was a beautiful world to live in and I remember it well.

What happened? We grew up, but more specifically we became jaded. We became aware of ourselves and our focus shifted from the outside world to the inner world of our fears and delusions. We became obsessed with not being exposed, no one can see the real me. We heaped on layers of personae of the characters we so desperately wished to be. We grew and popularized them in their stereotypes and placed them, like the marionettes they are, against each other to run out the endless scenarios of our interactions through our stories in books and movies, in our art, in our poems in our culture. We understood what evil is only when we gave ourselves the example first. When some exaggeration of a thing which we knew existed within us pinged us for the first time. When the outside world reflected the ways in which we let ourselves down, when we could see our own bad possibilities in the actions of others we began to build out walls. Brick by self deluded brick we build the walls of “they’re worse than me” to excuse our failings to ourselves. That first selfish deed where the fabric of us was torn into two; when we knew what was right but decided to do what we wanted, to get what we desired; in that moment we sold out our Sesame Street.

Is it lost forever? Must it be exiled to nostalgia? I don’t believe so. I believe we can retrace our steps and stand against that slithery part of ourselves which made the weak or selfish choices. We can go back in our minds and realign with right. We can learn those lessons of sharing, compassion, tolerance, of love and of the ways of life. We can live honestly, wholly authentic in our body, speech and mind. We can participate, and become personally invested and active in every moment of our lives. We can kill the autopilot. We can be mindful. We can be gentle. We can recognize that subversive part of ourselves; that part which clings to things and work against it. We can meditate until we realize that while it is who we are and needs to be accepted and loved it is also not who we are. By that I mean if you were to erase time and space and remove everyone who isn’t supposed to see the real you, only then would the real you be left exposed. That is who you are and if you don’t like it, do something about it. Understand your Dzogchen; understand you’re Dzogchen.

There is a Native American story “An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."”

Those are not solid physical parts of your body are they? They are energies and I believe it is true, the one you feed wins or as the Buddha said "The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings."

From Sesame Street to Wall Street we don’t have to change, we give in to the fear that others are and they will somehow have an advantage. It’s weakness on our parts that we aren’t strong enough to live our morals, our ideals actually, literally. When I say we, I mean each individual should regardless of those around them. I certainly don’t mean to be saying that we should wait for all of us to, because we already know that drill. It’s in practice as we speak. No, I mean that each one of us should take a deep trip within, figure out who we are and bring that genuine person back into the world. We should be open to express ourselves and open to the expressions of others. If you don’t agree with it, walk away.

Above all we should understand this: We should never be abusive in pointing out the abuse of others.

I believe in a world where we can be gentle to each other without limiting passion. I believe in a world where we can have tolerance and still make the strides which come from deep belief. I believe we can all get along and love each other unconditionally. I believe we could live in Sesame Street if only we were committed to it rather than chasing profit.