A Constipation of Wisdom

…living systems need shocks to stir up stagnant equilibria and stimulate development.
–Jonathan Zap

The idea is not to confront bad ideas but to come up with good ideas.  Otherwise, your enemies define the game and you are the loyal opposition.
-Terence McKenna

Turns out it was just a giant, toddler arm-sized turd. A Moby Dick of a thing that I felt like I was having a stroke while pushing out. I tried last night but I thought maybe I was just tired. And this morning I thought I was just blue. Then I went out, into the America, and caught every red light in Austin’s antiquated downtown district. Got to the CVS, parked. Waited in line and wondered, is this it for me, just when things were starting to get good?  Would I only succumb to failing health-shortness of breath, enlarged prostate, constipation and failing eyesight? I’m 41 and the thought of it horrifies me.

In allot of ways I’m just getting started. Certainly past and over allot of stupid shit that was weighing me down.  When you’re done putting out fires you can get some real work done.  If you take away the cycles of vulnerability and isolation I’d been riding for the last twenty-six years, I’ll be wide open.

I know I’ll have to face the America because it’s everywhere.  I’m starting to grasp what my heart always knew.  The path to sobriety is only the beginning.  Next are the emotional intoxicants.  Anger (my favorite) and apathy, anger’s comedown. There is a world that needs me, and, truth be told, that I need.  I need to make it mine, really bleed and put my heart into it.  Not caring just isn’t cool anymore.

Back on the can and feeling even closer to death, I thought about the dramatic and self-serving people in my life. I saw that I should start thinking about serving the world but that I would need to start with me.  The pendulum swung right back but I wasn’t just being a prick.   Whatever pearls of mine the swine were holding onto would have to be the price.  I wasn’t wrong to try with them, but I’d be wrong to keep trying.  I would have to clean house.  I was needed elsewhere.  Then I flushed it down.

Today, after the 2016 elections in the U.S., we are living out the example of what happens when what goes unacknowledged surfaces and it feels like a new reality but you know in your heart it is not. To suffer based on expectations is to live haunted and hunted. But we are fortunate. There could be no other answer to our meditation and prayers in dissolving hatred than to be placed front and center with it and be exposed. When a shift in a system has occurred, especially one that causes fear and discomfort, it allows for something strikingly different to appear, furthering our evolution as people. We can only know where we are going when we get there. Many of us have been practicing Buddha’s teachings or walking a spiritual journey forever and preparing for every moment of our existence. We are ready and have been waiting for this time. Our rage, pain, and anger are to be exposed if only for us to transform and mature with it. In Buddhist practice we say congratulations because now is the time we have been practicing for. No more just practicing the dance. We must now dance. And this is not a dress rehearsal.
-Zenju Earthlyn Manuel