The Bathtub

I have been spending a lot of time sitting in my bathtub. I do not fill the bathtub with water nor do I take off my clothes. Instead I climb into the bathtub fully clothed and sit down. Sometimes I will light a candle or a stick of incense to create ambience, however it is not often that I do this. Instead I just climb into the bathtub like a man retreating from the noise of the world. I shut the tub doors and burrow myself between the white walls of the tub. I stare at the silver waterspout covered with grime and at the ceiling that seems to be slightly water-logged. My tub is not a fancy one. It is a humble tub; a bathroom not fit for kings or even princes- instead it is a tub for a man who is not quite sure how he fits into this world.

Often times I will stay in the bathtub for hours. When my wife is not frustrated with me, she will bring me a snack, tea or a glass of water. She will sit down on the leaking toilet besides the tub and try and make conversation with me. She will ask me questions such as “What is wrong?” or “Why are you laying in the tub again?” When I am in the tub I am not in the mood for conversation. I do not feel like explaining myself to anyone and I will often try and evade my wife’s questions by denying that there is a problem. I tell her that I am just trying to relax. “I need to take it easy because my heart and stomach hurts,” I tell her. How can she argue with a man in distress? She cannot, so she just pouts out a quiet “okay” and tells me to let her know if I need anything before she leaves me alone in the bathroom.

The bathtub is a safe place for me. In the tub there is nothing that I have to get done, no one that I have to become and no place that I am needing to go. It is as if the tub freezes all time and space. I do not find myself worrying in the bathtub like I do in the outside world. Instead I think about my life, my past, present and future. I review my life with a microscopic attention to detail. I listen to the wind chimes outside the bathroom window and imagine what the clouds must look like as they float across the sky. I am never really able to fall asleep in tub- but sometimes I slip into a state of nirvana so wide and deep that I am no longer a resident of my physical body.

I got the idea to spend time sitting in my bathtub after I read the short novel “The Bathroom,” by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. In the novel, the main protagonist who is around my age spends the great majority of his time meditating in his bathtub. His girlfriend and friends, who all come and visit him in the bathroom, support his eccentric quest for immobility.  When reading the novel I was in a rather distressing place in my own life. I was unemployed, imbued with chronic anxiety, haunted by feelings of failure and depressed. The idea of a quest for immobility while sitting in a bathtub appealed to me so much so that I decided to give it a try. I would see if spending my time in a bathtub would be as helpful for me as it was for the protagonist in the novel. In many ways it has been. I have become calmer, more present, less ambitious and grounded. I have been drinking less and I feel much more excited about my life. Unfortunately my family has not been as supportive of my quest for immobility as I would like. My wife is worried about me and my mother calls almost every day. She leaves messages on my answering machine, telling me that I need to get off of my ass and find a job.

Sometimes I write while in the tub (like I am doing now) but it is not easy. My intellectual faculties are not as keen in the tub, my writing is not as sharp and my spelling is poor. Today I asked my wife if she would bring a radio for me into the bathroom. She did so against her will and I appreciate that she was willing to martyr herself for me. I have been listening to the classical music station on my radio all afternoon. There is something about the sounds of a violin or piano while lying in a bathtub, which makes it easier for me to write. The words seem to get along and all I have to do is conduct them into the right place on the page.

I do not know how much more time I am going to spend in the tub. As of now, I spend my afternoons and evenings in the bathtub. I may even start to sleep in the bathtub if my wife will not mind. It seems to me like the current world is a pretty mixed up place. With the recessions, wars, greed and environmental catastrophes that are raging out there– it seems to me like the bathtub is the safest and most sensible place to be. If the apocalypse is soon to come at least I am spending my time wisely, happily. I am a satisfied man in my bathtub and I think this is a grand accomplishment in our world that is so riddled with deadlines, desire, dis-satisfaction and dis-ease. It is windy today and outside the bathroom window the wind chime are playing my favorite song. My wife has just left the house and now I get to sit here all evening, quiet and alone in my bathtub.

Global Warming Man

I realize that all life on earth is in rapid decline. Everything from the amoeba that swim at the bottom of the Antarctic ice caps to the hawks which soar above the redwood trees in back of my house- are facing the threat of inevitable extinction. Extinction was a term that I never considered until I read Thomas Bernhard’s classic autobiography entitled “Extinction.” There was a line in the book that has stayed with me until this day, “I am my own extinction, I do it to myself and everybody else as well,” he writes. I can’t help but think of this in relation to the epidemic of global warming that I am now faced with. I know that each and every one of my actions directly affects not only myself but also every other living organism on planet earth. I am connected to all things in ways that I can not fathom with my limited and usually fatigued mental faculties. For every action of mine I know there are equal and/or opposite reactions in space and time. Yet, I can’t seem to change my ways.

Recycling, composting, driving less, eating less red meat and using less electricity are all ways that each and every individual can directly combat and possibly reverse global warming. This is a known fact that many people, including my wife- are turning into a way of life. I envy these people who seek to be healers of the planet upon which we live and somehow are determined to save human beings from becoming extinct. I, on the other hand, seem to be incapable of joining them in their noble quest to turn back the hands of time. In my mind recycling is a futile act, composting is a pain in the ass, driving less is an inconvenience, eating less red meat is just not possible and using less electricity is out of the question.

Electricity– I am afraid of the dark and when I am at home (asleep or awake) I need all of the lights on.

Red Meat– Red meat is the most nutritious food on earth. My health suffers if I do not consume at least two servings of red meat a day- I grow tired, weak, and forlorn.

Driving– One of the few ways that I am able to relax and find some semblance of serenity in my life is to drive my car around the ghetto for hours listening to Coltrane, Monk and Mingus on the radio.

Composting– When I have left over food on my plate I do not want to go outside into the cold and throw it away into a composting bucket that is filled with flies which get into my eyes, mouth and nose- I’d rather just wash my scraps down the drain or put them in the garbage can.

Recycling– As long as there are millions of polluting cars on the road, bombs with depleted uranium being dropped, factories burning toxic fuels, airplanes burning oil in the skies and ships burning oil into the sea- I for the life of me can not perceive how recycling my paper or glass is going to make a slight dent upon saving the environment. As far as I am concerned recycling is a conspiracy- it is a futile act that allows individuals to feel empowered and feel as if they are doing something good to save the environment when in reality “the sky is falling.”

My relationship with my wife has suffered because I am not willing to make certain changes in my lifestyle. She is an adamant composter, recycler, bike rider (instead of driving), vegetarian and lover of the dark. On her car she has a large sticker of “Mother Earth” and everything she buys has to not only be sustainably made and organic- but also involved in free trade process so that no workers are being exploited as a result of her transaction. At times her “conscious” habits drive me to the brink of insanity. I find myself filled with a particular kind of rage that I can only compare to the rage a person must feel when they are being made a fool of. My perpetual frustration has made me less willing to participate in composting my food or recycling my waste and whenever my wife finds banana peels, orange peels, glass or plastic bottles in the garbage can- her fury can be felt from a mile away. Recently our environmental differences have become so extreme that she has said a few times that if I do not start composting my food waste and recycling my glass and plastic bottles that I will have to move out. In the meantime, she told me, that she had no choice but to report me to the local Global Warming Man.

The Global Warming Man is a city official that comes around to individual households and businesses and shows people ways that they can create a more sustainable environment. They teach people how to compost, recycle, use less electricity and water and engage in various other eco-friendly practices. There is also a short lecture on the topic of global warming and the ways in which every species is interconnected. My wife told me that reporting me to the Global Warming Man was her final attempt at salvaging our marriage. If I did not meet with him for the two hours that he is going to spend in our house this Friday, that I would have to look for another place to live. She can no longer handle my blatant disregard towards not only the environment but also for myself and my own survival on planet earth. I was infuriated by what I thought was an extreme measure to get me to conform to her ways. Why did she have to report her own husband to a city official? For me it was the ultimate betrayal until I slowly (after many conversations) began to realize that I was going to loose not only my wife and home if I did not meet with The Global Warming Man- but possibly also the earth upon which I live.

Fighting Against Gravity

Standing up and sitting down is not supposed to be this difficult. When I stand the pressure against my head makes me feel like falling to the ground. My legs are taut and there is a strange vibration in my shoulders. When I sit down there is a similar pressure exerted upon the bulb of my head. It is as if a divine hand is trying to press me deep into the ground beneath my feet. When I do stand up and the dizziness has passed I am able to walk quite normally however I am often weary that I will trip or fall. In public I am often mistaken as being drunk and or demented because I find it difficult to walk in a straight line and I often trip. When I get to dizzy- I push myself into a corner where I lean my shoulders against a wall for stability. Sometimes standing on my head is helpful- but when I do this in public I notice that I scare people.

I have battled against gravity most of my life. Ever since I was a teenager I have been aware of an impossible weight that has burdened not only my soul but also my physical body. When I was seventeen I lost a beloved girlfriend because she decided that I was a freak. I would stay in bed for weeks afraid of this pressure that was always causing me to dissociate from my environments. When I walked around I would often have to use the stolidity of walls to garner the equilibrium that I needed to carry on. I was much younger then and I did not realize that gravity was the cause of my ennui. I thought that it was some kind of brain tumor that was causing my physiological disturbances and I was certain that death was just around the corner.

For years I have practiced counting each step. I am hypervigilant about each step I take- noticing every degree and angle that I place my feet in. Fighting against gravity involves the utilization of certain mental capabilities that most of us take for granted. I can not walk and talk on a cell phone or listen to an ipod. Instead I have to be alert and exert effort against the gravitational forces that seek to destroy me. For the past few months the pressure of gravity hanging itself upon me has caused me multiple sleepless nights in which I spend the majority of the night doing laps around my refrigerator. When I have the mental acumen I will lean my head against the kitchen wall and while standing, I will read a book. I will spend hours reading in this position until the ringing in my ears grows to loud or the pain in my neck becomes intolerable.

There is a Gravitational Equilibrium Center a few hour drive from my home that my wife wants me to visit. You stay at the facility for a week and spend eight hours a day in a Gravitational Flow Device that is supposed to balance out the bodies electromagnetic field and reverse the negative symptoms of gravitational pull. I had a brief email exchange with a middle aged woman who suffered from a similar ailment as I. Nausea, dizziness, palpitations, tremendous pressure and chest constriction were a daily part of her life. She told me that the Gravitational Flow Device changed her life. Now she lives on earth rather than feeling like she is battling to stay above the earth. I have thought about going but I have become so used to fighting against gravity that I am afraid of what I would become if I did not have to fight this battle. I mean, what would I do with myself if I did not have to count every footstep? How would I remember that I was alive if every time I sat up or sat down I did not have to feel tremendous pressure? In a way fighting against gravity is a blessing- without the struggle I might be normal.

Last night my wife found me at three in the morning standing on my head while reading Tolstoy’s short story “The Death Of Ivan lliych.” She looked at me like the freak that I am and said “I don’t understand how you can live like this?” before she went back to sleep. All day today while I was suffering through various fits of dizziness and dissociation I thought about her rhetorical question. Why do I want to continually struggle against gravity? Why not go and spend a week in the gravitational Flow device and become normal? The only answer that I have been able to come up with that I can fully accept as legitimate is- I have become attached to my “dis-ease.” Fighting against gravity gives me meaning, it defines who I am and it gives me a reason to get up in the morning. I have taken on the weight if the world- and this makes me feel like I have a purpose.

The Bank Teller

Let me tell you somethings. Did you know that every time we inhale, we absorb oxygen expelled into the atmosphere as a waste product by the earths plant life? Every time we exhale, we expel carbon dioxide as a waste product into the atmosphere where it can eventually be absorbed by the same plant life? Did you know this? Let me also tell you that no matter where you live upon our beautiful earth you are breathing in trace amounts of depleted uranium from the bombs that the U.S are using in Iraq. Did you know that over twenty thousand children die a day from starvation? How about the fact that a plane never went into the Pentagon? Did you know that 9-11 and the war in Iraq (which has terminated the lives of over one million Iraqis) are a result of what is called War Games? Let me also tell you that Lao Tzu, the Chinese mystic believed that if we can somehow expand our narrow image of ourselves and live from our wholeness, then many of our problems will simply disappear on their own.

This is why I took the job as a Bank Teller. It allows me the opportunity to tell strangers things that they would otherwise never know. Costumers come into the bank where I work and think that they are only coming in to deposit or withdraw money. They are usually impatient and in a hurry- stuck in what Lao Tzu would call “Narrowness.” Rather than just taking their money or giving them their money I like to tell them things- expand their consciousness. It is one way that I can make an active contribution to my community and to the human race as a whole. Did you know that writing poetry and reading poetry helps you maintain dignity, it will help you to be better suited to defend yourself in the world? I said this to a middle aged women the other day who seemed aggravated and in a hurry. I could tell that her life had become a collection of material pursuits and failed dreams and I could see the frustration in her eyes. “I have always wanted to read poetry but I never have the time,” she said to me with a glimmer of hope between her eyes. “Well, you might want to make time.” Today she returned to the bank with a book of T.S Elliot poems in her hands and she seemed refreshed. “I am making the time,” she said to me with a smile as I withdrew cash for her.

Often times people come into my bank to find out about bank balances, interests rates, mortgage payments, and fees. I give them the information they want but I usually prefice it with information that I want to tell. I have a sense of urgency within me that drives me to say something. Did you know that Spirulina, dried prunes, beef liver and beer are excellent sources of copper? I said to one man who looked to me to be suffering from a copper deficiency. Because of global warming and soil erosion, human beings are no longer getting a proper amount of this valuable mineral in their diets. The lack of copper in our diets may be responsible for the majority of contemporary diseases. The next day this man came back to the bank to show me the bottle of copper supplements he bought. It is by demanding dignity and respect that you gain it, I told another costumer who was being passive aggressive with me and refused to tell me how she was really feeling. Something was triggered in her when I said this and she straightened up her posture and left my bank looking more confident.

The managers at my bank are on my back. They have accused me of spending to much time with my costumers and not moving the line at a quick enough speed. Did you know that capitalism is used to exploit workers by making them maximize profits in the quickest amount of time? “I did not,” one of the managers said to me with a look of stupefaction upon his white collard face. Yes, capitalism exhausts the worker for the betterment of the organization that they work for. This is what drives capitalism. Use the worker to maximize profits for the company. When the worker gets worn out or dies- just fill the vacancy with another worker. There will always be workers because in capitalistic societies only the very few get to enjoy the wealth of other peoples labor, I explained. “Look, you are one of our best Bank Tellers but you need to stop spending so much time chatting with your costumers so that we can maintain our banks reputation for giving expedient service.” Then he walked away without waiting for my reply.

Did you know that I am going to get fired from my position as a Bank Teller? I am expecting it any day now. At the staff meeting yesterday the bank handed out a list of strategies for normalizing behavior in bank employees. One of these strategies was to replace words with a smile to speed up the line. “Smile more and speak less.” I am not a very good employee because I do not like bosses. I don’t like being subjected to their expectations. Did you know that a real culture functions to limit greed. Our culture functions to increase it , because we are repeatedly told, it’s profitable to do so, though the majority of profits go only to a few people, I said to every one present at the meeting. People who go to work for corporations essentially abandon their integrity as individuals in order to serve the corporation, I added to the consternation of the managers. “Okay that is enough just keep smiling and maximizing profits and that is all,” the head manager said and then ended our staff meeting. If you have lost the capacity to be outraged by what is outrageous, you’re dead. Somebody ought to come and haul you off, I said on our way out from the meeting. Like I said, I have a sense of urgency- I have to say something.

Did you know that we pity Muslim women for wearing veils, yet almost every face in this country is veiled by suspicion and fear? You can’t walk down a city street an get anybody to look at you. People’s countenances are undercover operations in America. Oh, and let me also tell you the most important thing I tell costumers at my bank. That love is not abstract and cannot lead to abstract action. Love is the catalyst for concrete action, which is taking responsibility for what we do here and now. Love is not just a feeling. It’s an instruction: love one another. That’s hard to do. It does not mean to sit at home and have fond feelings. You’ve got to treat people as if you love them , whether you do or not. I know that I am holding up the line, and that I am going to loose my job as a Bank Teller- but I have to tell these things……….

Meditation Is For Loosers.

I used to meditate every day. In fact now that I do not meditate every day- a certain guilt lingers in my gut. I feel like I am missing something. But I find it difficult to assume the lotus posture from day to day. Instead I get caught up in the silent fury of the day and try to spend as little time as I can erasing my thoughts. The other day a millionaire friend of mine said to me “don’t worry, meditation is for loosers.” I thought about what he said with intense consideration. I wondered if I was looser. “If you need to sit in silence and get all the thoughts out of your head….then you should live with cats and dogs,” he said to me when we were discussing meditation. “We are living in tough times, maybe the end of time as we know it…and as far as I am concerned when the plane is falling out of the sky I want to be around people who are going to work hard, brilliantly to bring the plane back into flight rather than people who are just going to sit there with their backs straight, clear their minds and focus on breathing. Meditation is for people who can’t handle the heat or the stress of their own mind…as far as I am concerned they are loosers,” he said before excusing himself from the room to make a gin and tonic.

Maybe meditation is for loosers. The minds of men and women, which become so compounded by unruly thoughts, needs to be controlled. But do we really need to assume some Asain posture and focus on our breath until the mind stops jabbering back and forth. Can’t we just find some activity that we love doing, some book that we love reading, or some worth while form of activism and pre-occupy ourselves with doing these things rather than turning off and going into a state of vegetation. A meditation teacher of mine once said that in a time of crisis meditation was one of the more pro-active things a human could do. I always thought that this was a nice way to rationalize away his inactivity….his looserness.

The world is in a state of degeneration. Every species is in decline. The human animal is destroying itself quickly. The sea is turning black. It makes sense to think “why not slow down and meditate. If everyone in the world did this we could avoid global warming, wars would end and things would return to a state of balance.” Maybe so, but like my millionaire friend said, “when the plane is going down I want to be around people who are doing something.”

Yesterday I saw a sign that said “Meditate For Global Warming Inside.” I went into the room which was filled with all different kinds of people meditating. Hundreds of human beings sitting silently together sharing the same silent air. Incense was burning and there was a Tibetan man in Buddhist garb sitting on a throne in the front of the room directing the meditation. A women waved me over towards an empty cushion upon which I sat and assumed the lotus position. After a few moments of settling my restless mind I focused on my breath and began to relax. As I shut my eyes the woman besides me whispered into my ears, “imagine the possibilities.”

After twenty minutes of sitting silently in meditation I could take it no more. I kept hearing my millionaire friends voice saying “meditation is for loosers.” I kept thinking about all the things I could be doing with this time. I could be finishing the book that has taken me weeks to read. I could be making art work, I could be walking in the woods, I could be paying bills, I could be doing all the things I am constantly putting off- but instead I am sitting here doing nothing. The Tibetan in the front of the room said “be mindful of our restless minds. Don’t allow our thoughts to carry us away. Stay here now and be nobody. Emptiness. A vessel of the divine.” I did not want to be a vessel of the divine. I wanted to be a vessel of myself- so with rage in my gut I stood up and said much louder that I expected to “meditation is for loosers.” The whole room of silent, peace loving meditator’s turned around. Some looked shocked others looked enraged. As I turned around and walked out I had heard someone yell at me “you are the looser!”

Maybe I am a looser. I am almost forty years of age and I am yet to have any idea what I am going to do with my life. I still take money from my parents and my credit is horrible. Depression often sneaks up on me like an entity that wants to steal my soul. I spend a lot of time staring and blank walls mystified by the fact that I am in the prime of my life yet I have little ambition. The desire to make money and succeed is as strong in me as it is in a slug. I’d rather spend my days playing my trumpet than working away my life. It is possible that I am a looser. My millionaire friend is always impressed by my ability to do nothing. When I tell him that my strategy to prevent global warming from destroying humanity is to make as little money as possible and to stay at home as much as I can, he sneers at me in disbelief. He like most people does not understand my form of activism. “You should just spend your days in meditation,” he says to me. I know what he really means. He is saying to me, “you are a lost cause, a looser who can not save the world and this is why you should meditate.” We are at the edge of the roof, maybe it is not such a bad idea to just sit down and be still.

The Prophet

I have been down so long that it looks like up for me. In fact, I have decided only to look up from here on out. I am in no way deciding to become an optimist but I am making the choice to focus upon the salmon rather than the bones. After all- looking down only cultivates a feeling of impending doom that will nag at your bones until they are broken.

The myth about looking up is that all things become filled with sun and shine. This is untrue. The sun and shine are there but so is the universe and the darkness beyond. You see, this is the job of the prophet- to see beyond the sun and sky and into the depths of eternity. This is not an easy undertaking for a man such as myself who is easily blinded by the sun and preoccupied with a fear of the dark. But it is within this darkness, which sits just beyond the sun, that I look into every day with a full commitment towards revealing a truth that most ordinary mortals are to blind to see.

You may not need a prophet to inform you that these are troubling times in which we now exist. So troubling in fact that Therapists and Psychiatrists are being trained on how to deal with a very new form of anxiety called “eco-anxiety.” This is a form of anxiety that has become more chronic in the past few years with the rising information about global warming, toxins in food, toxins in the home and toxins in the air. I admit that I to may be suffering from this avant-garde form of anxiety. My life has been made more nervous by all the daily decisions that I have had to make in order to remain healthy. Even though I am a prophet I still have to be careful that my meat does not contain antibiotics and hormones, that the water I drink has been filtered, that I eat only organic food so as to reduce my exposure to pesticides and that the environment in which I live does not contain toxic materials. Granted, I am rarely able to do these things consistently so I end up with chronic anxiety because I know that the world in which I am living is making myself and everyone else sick.

Maybe this is the most difficult aspect of being a prophet- “the knowing.” Knowing so much that you always have to be on-guard about what you eat, drink, wear and breathe. In prophet circles this is referred to the as the curse of “knowing too much.” Many wonderfully gifted prophets that I have associated with have lost their mystical/metaphysical talents because they have “known to much” and as a result developed panic attacks. In order to cope with the oppressive burden of panic disorder they have elected to go onto medication and I believe it is common knowledge that all modern day psycho pharmaceutical drugs destroy the prophet’s ability to prophesize. The prophecy is enough to burden any ordinary prophet and the immense amount of personal spiritual work that I have to do in order to bare the weight of prophecy swallows up most of my time.

There was a time when I was a social creature. I spent a lot of time hanging out in bars and spending my entire days sitting in cafes. I had several girlfriends at a time and I enjoyed several sexual rendezvous a day. Now that I am older and a little less confused I rarely leave the house during the evening and during the day I am preoccupied with the work of prophecy. I have very few friends, because when I get around them I only feel aggravated by their inability to “see past the sun.” Or maybe it would be more correct to say that I am jealous of them, envious because they have no idea what is going on. They just don’t know.

I, on the other hand, know all to well. I connect the dots between earthquakes in China, floods in Burma, tsunamis in Indonesia, floods in New Orleans, rising food, living and gas prices, widening gaps between rich and poor, toxic air and food, wars, genocides and chronic battles for domination and power all happening in different parts of the world at the same time. This knowledge makes me wonder if I may not be a prime candidate to be diagnosed as suffering from “eco-anxiety.” After all I do wear a respirator when I ride my bike (to protect against gas fumes), I take two-dozen supplements a day and drink green algae drinks all through out the afternoon so as to stimulate detoxification of my vessel (body). Some think that I am over reacting and some call me paranoid- but because I am a prophet I know that they think this because “they just don’t know.” Some day soon I think I will let the whole world know what I see when I look up. Then we will all be able to be anxious together and I wont have to feel so alone.

How To Stop The Mind From Having Thoughts Of Impending Doom.

Maybe I am alone in this one, but does anyone ever feel as if their mind is playing tricks upon them? Do thoughts: negative thoughts, bleak thoughts, horrifying thoughts, terrorizing thoughts- ever enter your mind without your permission? Do they cause you to shake and tremble at times- as if the end is all to near? Do these thoughts keep you awake at night, force you to drink and keep you confined to your house on certain days? Do the thoughts prevent you from traveling, loving and experiencing joy? I could go on and on but for the sake of my own anxiety I will stop here. I will stop here because I have pointed out enough symptoms of intrusive or unwanted thoughts of impending doom.

I once knew a devout Buddhist who told me that thoughts of impending doom should be welcome to one. We should be open to them and celebrate them because they give us an understanding of our mortality, which in return allows understanding the impermanence of all phenomena. Train the mind he said- and you will be free. Years later, I have trained the mind with therapy and meditation but to little result. Thoughts of impending doom grab me in the moments that I am least prepared and send me into a mystical flight of fear that I am convinced (in the moment) I will not survive. If I have these thoughts while on a bridge- I will avoid the bridge- if I have these thoughts while in bed I will sleep on the floor. If I have thoughts of impending doom while on a walk, I will try to avoid walking. It seems as if I am becoming more knowledgeable about avoiding my life than I am about living it.

I have had thoughts of impending doom for many years now and I thought that by now I would have the answers about how to control these antagonists or even better- abolish them from the mind. But I am no where closer today than I was five years ago in understanding how to live free of such anxiety provocations. I have learned to accept my fate as a man whose mind plays tricks upon him without any concern for his wellbeing. I have come to see my mind as a mass of tissue that is committed to destroying my bodies tranquility. Just today while I was on a walk in a cemetery I suffered a sudden burst of negative thoughts that sent me to the ground where I tried to gain control of my self. I was convinced that I would die and I muttered a few words of a prayer. The thoughts passed and I returned home to do some research on the web about how to stop the mind from having thoughts of impending doom.

I came upon an essay by Martin Luther King. It was an essay about overcoming fear and it talked about courage as the only way to overcome fear. Martin talked at great length about the courage to face death as if it was upon us now. I thought about this idea of courage as being a possible palliative against the thoughts of impending doom. After all- it takes courage to suffer the fate of a silent fury that has no desire to let you be. It takes courage to stand up to your doomish thoughts and convince yourself during your darkest hour that every thing is okay- maybe. I wonder if when Martin was dying from a bullet wound he felt fear? Or maybe he was courageous in the face of death- and rather than holding on to this thing called life he was able to let go, with courage.

And this friend’s maybe the answer. Let go. Accept your fate with courage and with each thought of impending doom- let it go. Now I have never been able to do this and I would be a hypocrite if I said I could. I can’t and I won’t. Letting go is something I seem incapable of doing because I am a Jewish (Jews have a notably hard time letting go. Why this is I am uncertain). When I feel death to be near my knees rattle and I loose control of utilizing any of the wisdom that I have gained from reading, workshops or therapy. I become terrified; because I do not want to die, and I hold on with the force of a man that is unwilling to let it all go. And I wonder is this my main problem? The root of my chronic thoughts of impending doom? “ It is only in courage that the man/woman who stands rooted in fear can be free,” Martin said. “And freedom is only the ability to walk through your fear.” Maybe I’ll just avoid walking for a while.

Squeezed.

I am a man who is being squeezed from the inside out or maybe the outside in. I do not know which comes first- the outside pressure or the inside pressure, but if Karl Marx was right when he said that society determines the behavior and health of man/woman kind- then it is the the world that is squeezing me. Between the pressure that the earth is placing upon human beings to change or be eliminated and the pressure that government is placing up the individual to pay up or go broke- the outside is squeezing me like a balloon which might just burst. Between rising gas prices, food shortages, recessions, depressions, wars, deficits, unequal distribution of wealth, rising costs and poor environmental conditions, my chest feels as if there is a large leather belt buckled tight around it. My fingers and and toes pulsate and I have noticed that my face has grown pale. My vision is clouded and I can constantly feel my heart beating. The stress of the world seems to have nested upon my skinny left shoulder.

I have noticed that I am not alone. I have noticed many suffering from similar ailments and running around desperately searching for relief (yoga, meditation, eating, drinking, consuming). People do not seem to be getting along, wherever I look another relationship has ended, another person is struggling to survive and another person is experiencing some kind of transformational event that is threatening the sanity they seem to be slowly loosing. All around me people seem squeezed. I can see it in their eyes. I can hear it in their voices and I can certainly feel it in my gut. Human beings are fighting for their lives.

I have heard it said that 2012 marks a monumental time in the history of our planet. Thousands of years ago Mayans have predicted that this will be a time of great transformation that will result in change that our human minds can not currently fathom. Physics believes that the closer time gets to an end the faster it gets- time speeds up. Along with the sppeed up of time comes a kind of constriction and anxiety within all those who are subject to this elevated blood pressure of time. Animals (humans) become more frantic and stressed, things start to break down and people feel squeezed. Like there is not enough minutes in the day. Chaos can ensue.

It is my belief that the earth is experiencing symptoms of this larger breakdown. The sky is literaly falling and some see it and others have managed to distract themselves enough so as not to have to deal with it (but they still feel it). Others feel the squeeze. There is a pressure upon us that seems to be forcing us into submission, to the transformation that needs to occur within ourselves and upon this planet. Maybe being squeezed is not so bad. Maybe I can look upon my pulsating toes and finger tips as a gift from the universe in which I have accidentally found myself living. Maybe I am being forced to awaken to what is going on around me, outside of me- and change what is taking place within me. After all, physics tells me that I am just a microcosmic reflection of a larger macrocosm…if I can un-squeeze myself- than maybe I can un-squeeze the world.

A SENSE OF HUMOR FOR SALE!

I noticed a sign in the window that said “sense of humors for sale.” I thought that this was a rather awkward thing to be selling and my interests were aroused. I went into the small store that was poorly lit and had many shelves without anything upon them. The walls were bare and no one stood behind the counter. There was an eery feeling that ran through the vacant shop and as I turned around to leave I was startled by a voice from the back that said, “good afternoon young man, can I be of some assistance.” I turned around and noticed a tall skinny man who looked similar to me standing behind the counter holding an unsmoked cigarette in his hand. “Yes,” I said- “I am curious about the sense of humors that you have for sale.” “Oh yes, I believe we have one left,” he replied looking up at a shelf that had nothing upon it but dust. “Would you like to try it on,” he asked?

The dressing room was illuminated by a yellow neon light and there were no mirrors on the walls. I commented upon this to the salesman who continued to smoke his un-lit cigarette and said “we do not sell anything that you would need to see on, so why have mirrors I ask you?” He seemed a little defensive so I asked him another question. “What kinds of things do you sell in this store?” he looked at me with an expression of annoyance and replied, “why don’t you try on the sense of humor and then we will talk.”

I put the sense of humor on by rubbing a very cold cream into my chest. He wanted me to take off my pants as well and rub the cream into my legs but I felt uncomfortable getting naked in this strange environment. I rubbed the cream all over my chest and arms and then was given a cloth to wipe off the residual cream. “Give it a few moments and then you will notice a change. The cream that I gave you was a starter cream. The effects only last a few minutes. If you decide that you would like to purchase a sense of humor, we have a permanent cream,” the salesman said to me as he motioned me over towards a chair where I was supposed to sit and experience the sense of humor.

Within seconds of applying the cream I started to notice a chuckle in the back of my thought. The salesman put up various pictures on the shelves and asked me to observe these photographs. There were photographs of Hillary Clinton, villages destroyed by bombs, a soldier in Iraq carrying a very large gun and of George Bush and John MacCain. There were also photographs of prisoners being tortured, the atomic bomb, people suffering from starvation, animals stuck in small cages, two men having sex with a woman, hospitals, ghettos, a man begging for money, and a dead body that seemed to be so violated that I could not tell if the body was a man or a woman. The salesman also placed white pieces of cardboard on the shelves that had words like CANCER, DEATH, POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT, GREED, GLOBAL WARMING, CORRUPTION and INJUSTICE written on them. The salesman said something like “now feel free to take your new sense of humor for a test drive,” and then he walked away. I sat there alone in the cold room and observed all many photographs and words for a few seconds- and then it happened.

The laughter was so intense that I was unable to control it. I laughed like I had never laughed before in my life. There was a feeling of great release that caused all of my stress to dissipate into thin air. All things that normally were causes of stress and despair for me seemed to no longer cause me any aggravation. I looked at the photos of George Bush, Hillary Clinton, the soldier and the dead body and my normal feeling of constriction and anger seemed to vanish. All I could do was laugh. I could see the humor in the ridiculousness of human behavior and I was able to laugh at all the ways that we take ourselves SO SERIOUSLY. I saw the ignorance that most human beings seem to suffer from and all I could do was find this ignorance very funny. When I looked at the words my laughter increased because I was able to see how funny it is that human beings create the very things that they fear and do not want the most. I could not believe how funny all these realizations were to me. I saw the whole divine human comedy in which we are the actors on a stage creating our own tragedy. How fucking funny is that!! We do it all to ourselves and then think that we are free!!!

Finally, after my allotted period of time was up, the salesman returned into the room and began taking the photographs and words off the shelves. “You can take off your sense of humor now,” he said as he still held the un-lit cigarette in his hand. The moment he said this to me my laughter halted as if someone had suddenly applied brakes. I wiped the tears from my face and tried to compose myself. “When you are ready please meet me back at the counter and we can talk,” he replied as he walked into the back room. I sat in the chair and tried to assess what had just taken place. I felt what turned out to be a pulled muscle in my upper back (from laughing so hard). I took a few deep breaths and decided that I wanted to purchase a sense of humor.

“We sell all sorts of potions and creams. Not only do we sell sense of humors but we also sell, happiness, IQ’s, ambition, sex drives, maturity, wisdom, feeling successful and we just ran out of love. We sell what we can to make life more worth living or should I say to make life more enjoyable. That is our intention- however, not many seem to want to purchase what we have for sale. It is almost as if people have become so attached to their suffering that they fear change. They are addicted to the way things are because that is how they think things are supposed to be. Little do they realize that we human beings have it all wrong. We have been conditioned to suffer and we do not even know it,” the salesman said to me as he sat on a stool with his arms crossed. “How much does a sense of humor cost,” I asked? “I can sell you the cream for $75.00 and it also comes with a one month warranty. If for some reason you find that it is not working for you- you are welcome to return it and I will give you your money back. I think this is a good deal because after all a good sense of humor is priceless.”

The Cricket Who Talks To God

What is it that I can do that can help raise the consciousness of humanity? How can I- an underpaid high school teacher who suffers from anxiety and various health ailments participate in the evolution of human kind on earth? I realize that these may be big questions but I also realize that they need to be asked, now. I have often heard it said that humanity is at a vital turning point in our history upon this earth. Many of my high school students justify not coming to class or doing their homework by saying that the world is going to end soon anyways, so why worry about school? Sometimes I find it difficult to argue with a perspective that I find may be true- but I try to keep my mind upon transformation rather than liquidation. If I only had some version of an answer then I could cleanse and heal my mind by writing a book and traveling around the world doing consciousness workshops- but I am afraid that there maybe no answers, only cricket’s who talk to God.

There is a cricket that sits upon my deck day upon day as if it is in a deep state of blissful meditation. I am convinced that this cricket is praying to God. It seems to be that the cricket is channeling some kind of divine energy for the sake of all life uponn earth. I have tried to communicate with this cricket in various ways, but each time I get close to connecting I am met by a strange energy which feels like an electric shock. So I keep my distance and pray along with this cricket at certain times during the day.

The cricket seems to be staring at the sun with its eyes wide open. Be it that I can not stare at the sun I keep my eyes shut and do what certain Harri Krishna’s refer to as sun divining (it is when you stare at the sun with your eyes close and feel the heat against your closed eye lids). I ask the cricket if he/she/it can take a moment and listen to my prayers and then relay them to God. There never seems to be any form of communication that suggests the cricket is unwilling to do so, rather I feel like he/she/it is saying “okay go ahead, lets hear it:”

I feel so blessed to be alive, to be breathing and free from a hospital bed or jail cell. I feel so blessed to have all of my family alive and well at the moment because I know that at any moment this will change. We never know which time the phone will ring and bring news that will forever alter our lives. We never know when our own lives will be altered in the blink of an eye. Everything is always changing and it is this movement that keeps human beings terrified- living in constant fear. How is it that we can be free from this fear, let go of our constriction and tension so that we can live with and in the chaos without terror…with peace and health and wealth? How can I participate in giving something to humanity that will help us evolve out from our fear and into a state of connection to gratitude and love? How can this be done? Fear is destroying us and the natural world- quicker than I could ever imagine….what is the answer. I am asking for an answer that is greater than just recycling, going to protest marches and workshops on weekends and doing Yoga. If you tell me I promise to give free lectures around the world. I will spread this answer like a wild fire. There is no greed here, just my will to save myself, the earth and all those who live upon it. Thank you for listening and considering my prayer, peace…Amen…well maybe there is a little greed.

When I am finished with my long winded prayer the cricket is in the very same position that he was prior to my prayer. I do not know if he received and relayed it to the appropriate authority, but I suppose this is where the power of faith comes in. I offer the cricket some water or wine and when I get no reply I leave it alone in what looks like a state of divine rapture. This is a cricket without fear…and I want some of what he’s got.

This evening I went outside to see if the cricket who talks to God would not be interested in relaying another prayer for me. I opened my front door and noticed the cricket was not in his same spot. I felt a sadness come over me that I had not felt in some time but then I remembered that nothing lasts forever. I looked up at the moon and took a deep breath and then went back inside. I decided that I would make a nice dinner for my wife and I- and as I took out the fish from the refrigerator the phone rang. It was a trauma nurse in Los Angeles telling me that my mother in law is in the intensive care unit and in critical condition. The doctors were awaiting the results of a Ct Scan that would show if there was internal bleeding, hemorrhaging and a broken or fractured spinal column. A speeding car cut her off while driving on the freeway and she lost control of her automobile and ran into a tree. When I got off the phone I put the fish back into the refrigerator and went outside to search for the cricket before giving my wife the news.

I’m Searching For A Cure.

I have a new perspective I would like to share. It may change the world- and your life. It is a rather simple perspective and will take only a brief time to apply to your life. We can all learn how to build upon this perspective to create a better life for ourselves and our family (if we still have one). My perspective is rather unique. It is based upon years of struggle and unfulfilled potential. It has been cultivated like a fine wine through the several circular evolutions that have gotten me to where I am today. It is a perspective that is based upon not just love but also hate, not just right but also wrong, not just you but also me. It is a perspective that comes from my heart and I would like to share it with you.

What exactly this perspective is I am uncertain at the moment. I am patiently awaiting its arrival and the moment I receive it I shall let you know. It would be nice if this perspective was something that you could use to transform your own existence into that which you most desire. If you could use this perspective to free yourselves from poverty, pain, debt, illness and addiction than my expectations will be fulfilled. I know that this perspective can somehow change the world and save it from collapsing in upon itself- but I just need to find it. Time is of the essence. As a species we are struggling to survive and I feel the great burden of being able to come up with a solution sooner than later.

I spent the afternoon in the library searching stacks of books for this perspective. I found tidbits of wisdom such as “learn to identify a good feeling from a bad feeling,” or “we create our reality by feeling not thought.” I tried to incorporate these ideas into my own experience but all that happened was I became hungry and wanted a beer. I searched on the internet for various perspectives that could somehow provide the solution- but nothing appeared upon my screen that seemed to be adequate, other than Oprah’s recent interviews with Eckhart Tolle and a few things by Deepok Chopra. Today I will search no more because if a perspective is to take form in my mind- I feel like it will happen without the involvement of my own will.

It is terribly important to me that I offer you a perspective that will change your mind, give you hope, reunite you with your soul and start you off upon a path that will fill your life with meaning and purpose (this is ultimately the revolution that I would like to wage). I want for this perspective to do the same for me as well, but I am willing to sacrifice myself for other peoples enlightenment. As soon as this perspective come to me I will write a blog entry entitled, Perspective Found, but for the time being, while I wait I am going to go sit in the sun.