session 3

There’s a concept that was touted during the 1960’s called love, but not just love: unconditional love. I see the world today filled with idealist people searching for peace on Earth and love of all mankind, still saying the same things as those from the ‘60’s, but there’s a key difference between now and then that makes the world we live in today more ominous: people today only talk about unconditional love.
Unconditional love is very rare in today’s society of iPods, cell phones, and “what’s next?” thoughts. People are so focused on thinking about what is going to be happening in the next hour or day that they do not live in the present. This type of culture that Americans are developing is leading us into a world that won’t be able to comprehend this idea of unconditional love. There is only one certain place that we can draw an example of this love from anymore after living almost two decades in a society where divorce is more common than a lasting marriage, hate is easier than love, and violence is used as a communication tool. “What’s that? You can’t understand what I want from you? Okay…how about I blow up your neighborhood so that you’ll get it.” American culture has sacrificed the core idea that every person is a leader for the security that we are sheep and need to be led. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that there is "no shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse." This is the America that we have created for ourselves and are willingly allowing our children to grow up in.
Everyone would love to live their life without any fear of their loved ones coming to harm, but it feels like we’ve given up the hope that this world could find peace, so we try to put up walls to stop intruders from hurting us. We no longer believe in John Locke’s idea that people are generally good. He said “To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.” We’ve completely lost sight of this and see the world as those who are not with us are obviously against us. Locke went on to say that “To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.” We no longer try and understand our neighbors. This understanding of another’s actions is a core component of unconditional love. The idea that I may not agree with you, but I understand you and respect how you feel. It is the ability to love someone so much that their flaws are not forgotten, but understood, respected, and then worked upon. People need to stop being led around by government, materials, media, advertising, the past, and the future. All that you can control and be certain of is the present. Materials are impermanent and are tools meant to be used, the media is biased and greedy, and government can do nothing but protect your rights as a citizen, which usually boils down to your material things.
Where have our values from our Greatest Generation gone? The generation who, up against a terrible and awesomely powerful foe, stood up and fought for everything they hold dear and paid for that with their lives. This is the last generation who knew exactly what unconditional love meant. It is the willingness to give everything even though it may take everything. This generation who left children, mothers, fathers, and loved ones to travel thousands of miles to unknown territories with the knowledge that they may not ever see those they hold dear again. Each person represented their entire country and they did not take that burden lightly. Of course they were scared and lost, but the stakes were too high to be stopped by those emotions. World War II showed the world that Americans capable of more than anyone else because of the love we share.
In today’s world we see our loved ones go to unknown territories to fight an enemy that is intangible and incomprehensible. We can’t understand why these people would go somewhere that they may not come back from. We say, “If that’s what you want, go for it. I’m just glad it’s not me.” We’ve lost ourselves and we’re fumbling in the dark, no longer even trying to get back that which we’ve lost, just fumbling ‘cause there’s nothing else to do when it gets dark. Our core values of life, liberty, happiness, and freedom have been traded for fear, control, and gain.
But this idea of unconditional love hasn’t just been lost in the global sense, it’s been lost in our day-to-day lives. How can a child understand love, especially unconditional love, when all the news talks of is terror, fear, and hate? How can they see that love is possible when their parents are divorced and married to new people who have been divorced? How can love be understood and believable when a family can be together for 5 years before the mother up and leaves for another woman she’s been seeing for 2 years? We our losing our faith in love itself. The media shows us a world that seems more terrible than it truly is. We see people isolating themselves from human contact with the internet, iPods, and cell phones, creating the illusion that they are connecting to people. This is not love. Love cannot be cultivated through screens and electrical wires. But I understand. I get it. Without face-to-face contact there’s less risk of hurting. You can feel close and connected to someone without the bothersome possibility that they may hurt you. It’s easier. Anonymity gives you security. But that is not love. You are sacrificing the ability to feel because there is a slight possibility that you may get hurt. This is why we’ve lost the ability for unconditional love. We don’t want love to hurt us, even though it is inevitable. Soren Kierkegarrd said that “Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.” This is true, but when you give yourself over to it, without expecting anything, it is the greatest thing we have on this Earth.
The reason why love hurts is because it moves from something alive and breathing to something cold and dead. When love begins, in any form, it starts as something with expectancy. Expectation is the act or state of looking forward or anticipating. It’s that giddy feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen with this person. We feel that this type of love has to be special with a specific person. Why can’t it be with anyone? Why can’t a complete stranger make you curious and anticipated for what is going to happen today? Unconditional love. Love moves from alive to dead so easily. It is when you become expectant of that person that love dies. You expect them to hold a door open for you, or make you laugh, or make you forget about the troubles of the world. NO ONE can do that every minute of every day. No one is that consistent. If you can live every day with expectancy, don’t you see how you can grasp this idea of unconditional love?
I said before that there is only one certain place where we can find unconditional love in today’s society and that’s with our pets. A pet does nothing to make you do anything. They don’t scratch you to feed them or, bark at you take it for a walk, or hurt you to rub them. You do it out of love. They quietly and silently go about their day, laying about, playing with toys, and when it comes time to be fed, they patiently wait for you to come and feed them. They stand by the door and wait for you to open it for them because they cannot do it themselves. They gladly welcome your help and you give it freely, hoping for nothing in return. Then, when you’re not paying any attention to them, they will slowly come up to you and lay their head in your lap or lie down in it, saying with their actions, “Thank you for all that you do for me, I love you.” They don’t judge you, they don’t expect anything from you, and best of all, they ask nothing of you. If you don’t feed them, they find their own food. That may not make you happy, but if you shut yourself off from them, they will continue to live their life to the best of their ability. They don’t begrudge you not helping them, they don’t wallow in sorrow that you ignored them, they simply adjust themselves to what’s happening. Unconditional love is thinking completely about the other, leaving the ego (the “I”) behind and focusing on the “You.”
True love is possible in today’s society. It comes when the “I” is left for the “You.” A marriage, true friendship, and unconditional love is when both parties abandon their egos and think about the other. This is how each party can still be safe…each person thinks of the other so they don’t need to think of themselves. Everyday is a new challenge and that love needs to be cultivated and tended to, just like any plant. You must water it, clip off dead parts, remove bugs, and keep it in sunlight. Our Greatest Generation understood this and we need to as well. Kierkegaard also said “Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.” We need to show our children what love truly means and that this world can be filled with it, but we have to stop just talking about unconditional love; we have to start living it.

Session 2

I stared in the mirror today for a few minutes. I grew up and live in a Western Society Culture. This culture has put an emphasis on production, speed, and efficiency. “What are you doing today?” translates to “What are you going to produce/accomplish? What actions are going to produce an outcome that I (someone outside of you) can measure?” We feel discouraged and disappointed if we don’t do something. Sometimes we do things that can’t be measured by others. Sometimes we have to do things that we as individuals can measure. This might mean taking a few minutes out of the hurry and rush of the day to look in the mirror. It helped to see me. I hadn’t done it in awhile and I reassured myself that I respected who looked back at me. I said nothing, did nothing. Just looked. Deep and hard, straight into my eyes and was happy with who looked back. I didn’t shun and I feel I’ve had a productive day.
I stepped into the shower and found myself in a trance. Our Western Society Culture has us focusing on the next. What’s the next thing we have to do? What’s the next thing that we have to accomplish? We break this down into little and big things. Little things are the grocery store, class, interviews, and day to day living. Big things are careers and goals that we work for through little things. We forget to slow down and see everything outside of our lives. It’s what Indian religions call an “observer.” This is the part of the mind that can step beyond our tendons and muscles and see everything. See how the events of Buenos Ares are touching Sri Lanka which are touching New York and so on. See how all of these events are channeled and touching your bones and muscles. When we take time to stop and feel what are bodies are saying and see the big picture…the interconnectedness of everything, then we can better accomplish our tasks for the day.
So, I step in the shower after looking at myself for a few minutes, and I can feel the individual drops on my back. I take a shower every morning, but I have never felt a shower like this. It stopped me from moving. My feet were close together, my hands raised to chest level, as if I was holding an offering of some sort…and maybe I was. In everyday life, this would be a somewhat weird and uncomfortable stance, but at that moment, it wasn’t. My mind started to sing a song, but something else pushed the song away. I felt like there was no limit to my conscious. I had my normal brain pattern that thought about the day, songs, and other such things…and then I had something else, something I have had before, but not in my conscious thought. It was something that I’ve had unconsciously, but for some reason came into my awareness today. I can only understand it in this Indian idea of an observer. There was something else watching everything, keeping my smaller mind from thinking about the everyday. It was aware of everything. Aware of the proprioceptors keeping my body’s gravity centered…fixing the nuances that would normally tip me over if I didn’t have them correcting my stance. Slow down…control your breathing…push everything out of your mind…close your eyes and you’ll feel them working. You don’t have to think about them working…they just operate within your body. It was fascinating. I could see every individual drop of water hitting my back. I had the temperature a little hotter than normal because my back was feeling tense and I could feel the impact of each drop and how it was massaging my aching muscles. I had my eyes open at this point and could see the beige wall in front of me with small drops of water clinging to it, but I could also see my muscles releasing their tense grip on the chemicals that were being held in. I could see what was holding in the tension and allow it to let go. I was aware of something larger in me than just what I typically skim off of the top. In a way I guess I was probing. My stance hadn’t changed, and I was aware of this and how different it was, but at the same time comfortable. I wanted to move my hands, but knew that the minute I did, this trance would be finished. I had to actually prepare myself for them to move…had to say to myself that they were going to move. I imagined what it would feel like and how it would change my consciousness.
Then I moved my hands. Everything was broken, but I held on to what had happened because I knew I wanted to write it down. I grabbed the shampoo and began to wash my hair. This shower was different though. My mind was flooded with a surge of inspiration. I had to go and write all this down. I started to think about the music I’ve been writing and thought about some interesting ideas that I could pursue with them. I thought about what I wanted to do with my life and what was fun and satisfying to me. I want to write. I don’t know about what, but I want to write. I thought “Why not try and get my thoughts published?” Maybe all of the conversations that I’ve been having in my head could be interesting to others, even if there is no plot to the writings. Who knows? All that matters is that it happened. And whether or not anyone can measure what I’ve done today doesn’t matter to me. I feel I’ve accomplished something important and my day was prosperous to me. Isn’t that what we strive for every day in this Western Society Culture?

Session 1

They say to be a good writer you have to write every day. Constantly. Well, that’s easy when you actually have the time to put your words down on paper…oh, and what you have to say is interesting. When I say interesting, that doesn’t only mean that you have to believe it is; it also means that people in the world have to deem it worthy of their time. They have to have the willingness to take time out of their day to sit down and read your words…they may not have any point or poignant subject matter, but people feel that the words you’ve written down are giving them something more than they’re taking from them.
Understanding the “interesting” gives an artist a great deal of power. I know that what I’m now writing doesn’t have much substance, but it is an accumulation of thoughts that are in my head that do have a value of interest, otherwise I wouldn’t be putting effort into them. Knowing this, please understand that what I am writing originated with no plot, no frame of reference, nothing. It was simply me sitting down and thinking. Any underlying themes or ideas came from pure nothingness and have been produced by connections of thought.
Sometimes life has no real plot or setting. It just is. A stream of consciousness moves way too quickly for a writer to keep up with. That’s why books, movies, television, and other entertainment forms are so popular…they have a frame of reference; something that pushes the audience from beginning to end. We can step out of the mundane, day to day goings on of life and step into a world that is controlled, concise, and organized in an aesthetically pleasing way. Music applies the same principles. There’s an underlying theme to every note, every letter, and every aspect of entertainment. That’s what makes it entertaining. There’s no real underlying theme to life. There’s nothing that pushes an individual through to the end except for the pure and simple fact that there is a consciousness there. There is a living, breathing individual that is going through the world in their own way. That’s the only frame of reference.
We can try and insert meaning. We can say, “I’m going to be an engineer” and that would be the illusion of an underlying theme. One would feel like they had a platform to stand on. As you’re reading this you’re attempting to piece together all of the sentences to create some point, some sort of overall plot or theme. And what’s crazy…there is. It’s there, hidden in every sentence. Doesn’t this sound a lot like life? What starts out from nothing actually creates a meaning as it grows.

Maybe each individual sentence is a theme on its own. I feel that a piece of writing works just like the world. There is the overall everything…the entire global perspective that we can watch. We can see huge trends in weather, fashion, knowledge, technology, economics, politics, and everything, but those overall trends are created by us analyzing them. Truly, they can all be measured as coincidental outcomes from each of us individuals operating within the large context.
Just like letters on a page. Letters form words that form sentences that make up paragraphs that are chapters that make up a novel that has a big idea or a punchline. But that punchline won’t come without the reader’s consciousness finding it. Sure, the beginning spark came from the author, but the reader breathes life into it. The reader creates the meaning. Seems to me that that’s how the world works. One person is the letter. There’s no real meaning or intrinsic value there except for when put together with other letters that can create a word. We live in a world where it is no longer enough to simply be a letter. Where our value is created by the larger context we inhabit. Is that life? Is it no longer enough to simply be?