I saw Jupiter for the first time recently.
My old elementary school, that I happen to live just a few blocks away from now, has a pretty famous science center attached to it, called the Earth and Space Science Lab. When I was a kid, they had the only planetarium in the state. Now they've moved to their own building on campus, that feels almost as big as the rest of the school all by itself, and they've added an observatory, among other educational attractions. They have shows at the planetarium on a fairly regular basis, and they're cheap, and I'm into astronomy, and it's only a couple blocks from my house, so I sometimes go to these shows, even though the median age in the room is usually about nine.
I don't know what the fuck I expected - it's an elementary school, for fuck's sake. But, for some reason, I assumed that the shows they put on outside of school hours would attract an older crowd, or at least feature content aimed above a fifth-grade level. And when I went to my first show, and realized I was the only adult there who hadn't brought a child with them, I felt, once again, like a complete fucking weirdo. And the whole time, I felt like all the parents were looking at me sideways, like I was standing outside a windowless white van in a clown costume with one hand full of balloons and the other full of roofies. It was mortifying. But then I thought, fuck them, I'm hear for the Science! Then the show turned out to contain about as much educational science information as an episode of Ancient Aliens, and I was back to feeling like the clown with the van and the collection of baby teeth again. But, still, I continue to go to these things. I think just because I still geek out about being in the planetarium, just like I did when I was in school there. And so I still have fun, even if I don't learn very much; and I try to ignore the parents, and their screaming kids.
Anyways, I enjoy it so much (despite myself) that I decided to volunteer there. They're always advertising that they need volunteers, and it's so nearby, and I could convince myself I was doing a good deed, and it beats washing dishes at the soup kitchen across the street. Plus, I thought it'd be a good way to get to see the shows without having to buy a ticket. (It's not like I'm a cheapskate or anything; tickets are only $5. It's just that their process for purchasing tickets was a bit of a wonky pain-in-the-ass, and I thought it'd be better to do it this way, by doing a good deed, and earning my way into the show, rather than just handing over $5. And also, not for nothing, but now I don't have to feel like Beelzebozo the Hellclown anymore, because I'm not just the creepy guy hanging out by himself with all the families and children - I work there, so it's okay.)
And it turns out that my favorite perk of volunteering there, is that I get to go out to the observatory and look through their incredibly powerful telescope.
Jupiter has been plainly visible to the naked eye for a couple of months now. (It's nearly impossible to miss - it's the brightest object in the night sky that isn't the Moon.) And, as is usually the case during these times when it is visible, I've often found myself standing outside, staring up at it. This image of Jupiter as a bright, white point in the night sky is therefore very familiar to me. I often wonder at just how huge that object must be, to be that far away and still be that bright! (Answer: Jupiter is the 2nd most massive object in the solar system, next to the Sun. In fact, if you took every other object in the solar system - every planet, every comet, every asteroid, every Kuiper Belt object - and crushed them all together into one giant ball of stuff, that giant ball would still be less massive than Jupiter! It is literally more massive than the rest of the solar system, combined. That is fucking HUGE.) And I've seen countless pictures of Jupiter before. We all have. The various colored layers of swirling gas, the giant red spot. It's an iconic image.
But this time was different.
I was working in Critter Cove, explaining the weird lives of sea urchins and brittle starfish to six-year-old's, when an intern came in and told me that they had the observatory trained on Jupiter. I almost dropped the urchin I'd been holding. Seeing my reaction, the intern laughed and told me that she'd mind the exhibits while I ran out to have a look. I tried not to knock down any children on my way out of the building, but looking back, I can't guarantee to a certainty that I succeeded in that endeavor.
Shivering in the cold, I leaned into the eyepiece, and saw Jupiter, really saw it, for the first time.
It was as big as a half-dollar. And I could see all of the stripes of layered gas swirling across it. (The red spot was apparently on the far side, out of view.) I could see the four Galilean moons - Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - lined
up in a perfectly straight line to the right of it, on Jupiter's
orbital plane. It was a bit blurry, but still, there was no mistaking it: that was clearly Jupiter. And not just an image of Jupiter, but the real thing! Live and in-person! I was seeing it, for real, as it was right then, in real-time! (Or, at least, as it was about forty minutes earlier. As I said, it's really far away, and so it takes the light a while to reach us. Which only made the fact that it was the size of a half-dollar and that I could make out so much detail as to actually see each individual layered stripe just that much more impressive!)
It was like meeting a celebrity in-person; you're so intimately familiar with them as this 2-D image inside the box in your living room, that when you suddenly find yourself face-to-face with them as a living, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood person, there's this strange disconnect in your brain, and things feel just slightly un-real. And that's how I felt peering through that telescope at the 40-minute-old sight of the greatest planet in our system, the planet that more than any other outside of our own is responsible for our existence. (Without Jupiter's massive gravity-well situated smack-dab in the middle of the solar system, Earth would be constantly bombarded by comets and asteroids, making it a relatively unstable environment, and therefore a very unlikely place for life to have been able to evolve.)
I lifted my head away from the telescope, and looked out the hole in the roof at the bright point of light in the sky that I had always believed was Jupiter. I had believed that because the Astronomers told me that was the case, and I chose to believe them; I had no reason not to. But now, I could see the telescope pointed straight at that point of light. And I looked back through the eyepiece, and I could see it, plain-as-day, in all of its massive, iconic glory, spinning there in outer space. It was real. From that moment on, it was real to me.
Before, I had only believed in Jupiter. But now I knew it.
Because I had seen it with my own eyes.
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Chutes and Ladders...
Just a brief synopsis of my day...
In preparation for the upgrade of my work PC (currently my only working computer, since my laptop is in the shop being repaired) from Windows XP to Windows 7 tomorrow, I had a bunch of files to backup, and one program (Quicken) to upgrade, since the version of Quicken that I've been using to manage my personal finances for the last ten years is not compatible with Win7.
I'd already bought the latest version of Quicken, so the upgrade installation should only take about an hour. Decided to do that first, only to discover that the CD-ROM drive on my PC is apparently broken. Luckily managed to scrounge a portable CD-ROM from the Help Desk that plugs in on a USB. After running for a half-hour, the installation program suddenly shuts down with an error message. Had to restart my computer and do it again; another half an hour, but this time it works. But when I start up the new program, it tells me that I can't covert data from my old version (2002) to the new version (2012). I'll need to download and install an intermediate version (2004), convert my data from 2002 to 2004, then re-install 2012, and then finally convert my data from 2004 to 2012. Ugh, ok. Luckily, they offered a free version of 2004 for download.
So, downloaded that, but it took me a half dozen tries to install it. Kept getting error messages, had to uninstall 2012 first (another half-hour), but it eventually worked, and I managed to convert my data to 2004 format. Then I spent another half-hour installing 2012, only to have it fail with the same error message again. Had to restart my machine (all told, had to restart my machine six times - at about ten minutes a piece, that's an hour I spent restarting my machine alone!), and install it again. Another half-hour, but this time it worked.
But then when I went to run it, it told me that I couldn't use my data because it was for a Deluxe version of Quicken. (Apparently the "free" version of 2004 that they offered was the Quicken 2004 Deluxe.) And so, in order to be able to use my data that I had just spent over four hours trying to convert, I would need to upgrade to the Deluxe version of 2012, at a cost of $60. I'd already spent $30 on the version I'd just spent all day trying to install! I then spent an hour on the phone with an argumentative gentleman from New Delhi at Quicken Customer Service trying to find a way around this, to no avail. Ended up having to upgrade to the Deluxe version, even though I didn't want it, just to save my data. Spent another half an hour installing it and converting my data (FINALLY!).
All told, I ended up spending almost seven hours of my day just trying to install this one fucking program. In my entire life using computers, I have never had this much difficulty installing a program, ever. Not even close.
And I couldn't use my computer for anything else the whole time it was installing (so that would be all day), so I still had all the rest of my work to do! But I was out of time, because I had to rush home to try and see the Transit of Venus.
Venus crosses the face of the Sun (from our point of view on Earth) twice about every hundred years or so. The last time it happened was in 2004. The next time it will happen, after today, is 2117. Literally, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I am lucky to live within walking distance of an elementary school science lab/planetarium that had set up telescopes with special filters to allow the public to view the transit from 6-8p today.
But it was cloudy. From horizon to horizon, grey fluffballs of clouds covering the entire sky.
Anticipating a long wait, we brought along one of our two folding camp chairs. Removing it from it's carrying pouch, She discovered a hidden treasure inside. A sword, with a crystal handle, and a brass hilt. This sword had been an important magickal item to me for years. I used it in various Solar rituals. It had also been one of the treasures offered up in our wedding ceremony. I had lost it years ago. So long ago in fact, that it has been years since I even considered it lost; for many years now I have simply assumed that it was gone, and that I would never see it again.
And then, suddenly, as I'm waiting, desperately, for the Sun to appear from behind the curtain of clouds, so that I could watch this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of our closest neighbor planet floating across its immense, bright face, my long-lost Magickal Sun Sword simply appears out of nowhere. Almost as if by magick.
Surely, this was a sign that my luck was turning.
And, sure enough, with less than fifteen minutes before the Sun disappeared behind the horizon, there was a sudden break in the clouds! And She managed to secure us a spot near the front of the line!! (You have my eternal gratitude for this, Precious. You saved me from disappointment and disaster.)
And so, for about ten seconds, I was able to look through a telescope's eyepiece, and directly into the face of our Star. And there she was - Venus. A small, black dot, floating against a backdrop of the enormous, white circle of the Sun. I saw it with my own eyes.
I will remember those ten seconds for the rest of my life.
And then I got to drive all the way back to my office to finish up the file backup preparations for tomorrow that I hadn't had a chance to do earlier. And now I'm done, and it's time to go home. And by the time I get there, it will be past my bedtime.
But I don't even care.
Today was a great day.
In preparation for the upgrade of my work PC (currently my only working computer, since my laptop is in the shop being repaired) from Windows XP to Windows 7 tomorrow, I had a bunch of files to backup, and one program (Quicken) to upgrade, since the version of Quicken that I've been using to manage my personal finances for the last ten years is not compatible with Win7.
I'd already bought the latest version of Quicken, so the upgrade installation should only take about an hour. Decided to do that first, only to discover that the CD-ROM drive on my PC is apparently broken. Luckily managed to scrounge a portable CD-ROM from the Help Desk that plugs in on a USB. After running for a half-hour, the installation program suddenly shuts down with an error message. Had to restart my computer and do it again; another half an hour, but this time it works. But when I start up the new program, it tells me that I can't covert data from my old version (2002) to the new version (2012). I'll need to download and install an intermediate version (2004), convert my data from 2002 to 2004, then re-install 2012, and then finally convert my data from 2004 to 2012. Ugh, ok. Luckily, they offered a free version of 2004 for download.
So, downloaded that, but it took me a half dozen tries to install it. Kept getting error messages, had to uninstall 2012 first (another half-hour), but it eventually worked, and I managed to convert my data to 2004 format. Then I spent another half-hour installing 2012, only to have it fail with the same error message again. Had to restart my machine (all told, had to restart my machine six times - at about ten minutes a piece, that's an hour I spent restarting my machine alone!), and install it again. Another half-hour, but this time it worked.
But then when I went to run it, it told me that I couldn't use my data because it was for a Deluxe version of Quicken. (Apparently the "free" version of 2004 that they offered was the Quicken 2004 Deluxe.) And so, in order to be able to use my data that I had just spent over four hours trying to convert, I would need to upgrade to the Deluxe version of 2012, at a cost of $60. I'd already spent $30 on the version I'd just spent all day trying to install! I then spent an hour on the phone with an argumentative gentleman from New Delhi at Quicken Customer Service trying to find a way around this, to no avail. Ended up having to upgrade to the Deluxe version, even though I didn't want it, just to save my data. Spent another half an hour installing it and converting my data (FINALLY!).
All told, I ended up spending almost seven hours of my day just trying to install this one fucking program. In my entire life using computers, I have never had this much difficulty installing a program, ever. Not even close.
And I couldn't use my computer for anything else the whole time it was installing (so that would be all day), so I still had all the rest of my work to do! But I was out of time, because I had to rush home to try and see the Transit of Venus.
Venus crosses the face of the Sun (from our point of view on Earth) twice about every hundred years or so. The last time it happened was in 2004. The next time it will happen, after today, is 2117. Literally, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I am lucky to live within walking distance of an elementary school science lab/planetarium that had set up telescopes with special filters to allow the public to view the transit from 6-8p today.
But it was cloudy. From horizon to horizon, grey fluffballs of clouds covering the entire sky.
Anticipating a long wait, we brought along one of our two folding camp chairs. Removing it from it's carrying pouch, She discovered a hidden treasure inside. A sword, with a crystal handle, and a brass hilt. This sword had been an important magickal item to me for years. I used it in various Solar rituals. It had also been one of the treasures offered up in our wedding ceremony. I had lost it years ago. So long ago in fact, that it has been years since I even considered it lost; for many years now I have simply assumed that it was gone, and that I would never see it again.
And then, suddenly, as I'm waiting, desperately, for the Sun to appear from behind the curtain of clouds, so that I could watch this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of our closest neighbor planet floating across its immense, bright face, my long-lost Magickal Sun Sword simply appears out of nowhere. Almost as if by magick.
Surely, this was a sign that my luck was turning.
And, sure enough, with less than fifteen minutes before the Sun disappeared behind the horizon, there was a sudden break in the clouds! And She managed to secure us a spot near the front of the line!! (You have my eternal gratitude for this, Precious. You saved me from disappointment and disaster.)
And so, for about ten seconds, I was able to look through a telescope's eyepiece, and directly into the face of our Star. And there she was - Venus. A small, black dot, floating against a backdrop of the enormous, white circle of the Sun. I saw it with my own eyes.
I will remember those ten seconds for the rest of my life.
And then I got to drive all the way back to my office to finish up the file backup preparations for tomorrow that I hadn't had a chance to do earlier. And now I'm done, and it's time to go home. And by the time I get there, it will be past my bedtime.
But I don't even care.
Today was a great day.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Rocks From Outer Space...
I've purchased two meteorite fragments in the past week.
I've never bought a meteorite before, and until recently, hadn't given them much thought. But as my interest in astronomy and astrophysics has grown, so has my fascination with meteorites. The idea of being able to touch, to hold in my hand, a piece of material that was formed in outer space, has thrilled me in a way that I find hard to describe.
Somewhere in the Milky Way, billions of years ago, a gigantic star a million times larger than our Sun ran out of fuel. It had burned through all of its helium and hydrogen, producing heavier elements in the fusion process: nitrogen and oxygen, then silicon and carbon. Then it had burned through all of those elements, as well, producing yet heavier elements such as neon and magnesium. This process continued for billions of years, creating heavier and heavier elements, until finally, the nuclear core of that giant star produced an element that it could no longer fuse for fuel: iron. And this infinitesimal speck of iron upset the delicate balance between gravity and atomic explosion that had been that star, causing it to explode in the most violent and catastrophic event in the known universe: a supernova.
That explosion sent elemental material careening out through space, all throughout that local area of the galaxy, where it eventually cooled, and mixed with other material from other exploded stars, to form enormous clouds of dust and debris. Pieces of this debris clumped together, attracted by their gravitational pull in the vacuum - the bigger the clumps got, the more mass they had, so the stronger their gravity, so the more debris they pulled into them, so the bigger they got. Every planet was produced in this way, including our own. But this particular clump of debris - iron and nickel and stone by this point, among other things - never became a planet. It was simply a large asteroid.
Approximately 700,000 years ago, that asteroid came just a hair too close to Earth, and fell down our planet's gravity well, becoming a meteoroid as it hit our atmosphere, and exploding into fragments as the force of our gravity and the heat of re-entry combined to tear it apart. The fragments slammed into the planet north of the Arctic Circle, near what is now Norbbotten, Sweden, making it a meteorite. Over the next 700 millenia, those fragments were pushed and pulled this way and that again and again by glaciers, and tectonic shifts, and an Ice Age or two. Then, in 1906, two children tending cattle in a field discovered the first fragment of this gigantic rock from outer space.
And in a few days, I will be able to hold a slice of it in my hand.
Isn't it beautiful?
It's now known as the Muonionalusta meteorite, and it's the oldest meteorite ever discovered. The pattern of lines visible on the slice in the image above is known as a Widmanstätten Pattern. It's produced by bathing the slice of meteorite in nitric acid, to oxidize the metals it is composed of. The nickel and iron oxidize at different rates, creating the pattern, which outlines the nickel-iron crystals that formed as the asteroid grew in that dust cloud so long ago.
I don't know what exactly it is that fascinates me so much about this. It's almost as if this tiny piece of metal and stone is a tangible piece of the forces of creation. That vast majority of Nature, of Tao, that dominates the rest of the universe outside of our microscopic little blue bubble of air and water. And I want to know that Nature, to understand it, to be able to visualize it, to feel it. And this solid evidence, this proof of that Nature, somehow takes it out of the realm of abstract contemplations, and makes it real for me. It's like faith becoming fact. It seems almost impossible somehow, and yet there it is, undeniably real. Iron crystals, from a long dead star, touching my skin.
Like a kiss from Creation.
I've never bought a meteorite before, and until recently, hadn't given them much thought. But as my interest in astronomy and astrophysics has grown, so has my fascination with meteorites. The idea of being able to touch, to hold in my hand, a piece of material that was formed in outer space, has thrilled me in a way that I find hard to describe.
Somewhere in the Milky Way, billions of years ago, a gigantic star a million times larger than our Sun ran out of fuel. It had burned through all of its helium and hydrogen, producing heavier elements in the fusion process: nitrogen and oxygen, then silicon and carbon. Then it had burned through all of those elements, as well, producing yet heavier elements such as neon and magnesium. This process continued for billions of years, creating heavier and heavier elements, until finally, the nuclear core of that giant star produced an element that it could no longer fuse for fuel: iron. And this infinitesimal speck of iron upset the delicate balance between gravity and atomic explosion that had been that star, causing it to explode in the most violent and catastrophic event in the known universe: a supernova.
That explosion sent elemental material careening out through space, all throughout that local area of the galaxy, where it eventually cooled, and mixed with other material from other exploded stars, to form enormous clouds of dust and debris. Pieces of this debris clumped together, attracted by their gravitational pull in the vacuum - the bigger the clumps got, the more mass they had, so the stronger their gravity, so the more debris they pulled into them, so the bigger they got. Every planet was produced in this way, including our own. But this particular clump of debris - iron and nickel and stone by this point, among other things - never became a planet. It was simply a large asteroid.
Approximately 700,000 years ago, that asteroid came just a hair too close to Earth, and fell down our planet's gravity well, becoming a meteoroid as it hit our atmosphere, and exploding into fragments as the force of our gravity and the heat of re-entry combined to tear it apart. The fragments slammed into the planet north of the Arctic Circle, near what is now Norbbotten, Sweden, making it a meteorite. Over the next 700 millenia, those fragments were pushed and pulled this way and that again and again by glaciers, and tectonic shifts, and an Ice Age or two. Then, in 1906, two children tending cattle in a field discovered the first fragment of this gigantic rock from outer space.
And in a few days, I will be able to hold a slice of it in my hand.
Isn't it beautiful?
It's now known as the Muonionalusta meteorite, and it's the oldest meteorite ever discovered. The pattern of lines visible on the slice in the image above is known as a Widmanstätten Pattern. It's produced by bathing the slice of meteorite in nitric acid, to oxidize the metals it is composed of. The nickel and iron oxidize at different rates, creating the pattern, which outlines the nickel-iron crystals that formed as the asteroid grew in that dust cloud so long ago.
I don't know what exactly it is that fascinates me so much about this. It's almost as if this tiny piece of metal and stone is a tangible piece of the forces of creation. That vast majority of Nature, of Tao, that dominates the rest of the universe outside of our microscopic little blue bubble of air and water. And I want to know that Nature, to understand it, to be able to visualize it, to feel it. And this solid evidence, this proof of that Nature, somehow takes it out of the realm of abstract contemplations, and makes it real for me. It's like faith becoming fact. It seems almost impossible somehow, and yet there it is, undeniably real. Iron crystals, from a long dead star, touching my skin.
Like a kiss from Creation.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Emptying, to Form...
Where am I going with this?
What am I doing?
What's wrong with me? Why am I so unhappy?
What do I want?
Do I love you, completely?
Do I love you, at all?
Or do I just need to feel loved by someone?
...
No. No, that's not the right question. I do love you. We've been through way too much together for way too long, have too much history, for me to not love you. There's a part of me that will always love you, in some way.
The question is, do I love you the way that I'm supposed to? Do I love you the way that a husband should love his wife? Or do I just love you as the one person I've been closer to in my life, and shared more of myself with, than any other?
And is there a difference?
Questions, questions, questions! Everywhere I look it's more fucking questions! WHERE ARE THE FUCKING ANSWERS?!!
...
I've moved out, temporarily. Checked myself into a hotel for the week.
Why? What do I hope to gain from that? Am I just trying to "shake things up" - just introduce a little anarchy into my life to see what happens? Am I just trying to force a random change? Or am I trying to step out of my life, to gain some perspective? Or am I just hiding? Just running away?
I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew.
I'm grasping at straws here. Suddenly, every single little thing is pregnant with meaning. Is this The Answer? Is this what I need? Will this make me better? Will this solve my problems?
How can I get better when I don't even know what's wrong? How can I find The Answer when I don't even know The Question??
Am I looking for fulfillment? Or do I just want a happy, satisfying marriage? Are they mutually exclusive? Or are they one and the same?
...
I keep coming back to this one thought. That I need to clean up my act. That everything will be better, and I will be happy and content, if I just give up the drink and all the rest, start working out and losing weight and eating right, start meditating again and studying the Tao, etc., etc.
But then I also can't shake the feeling that all of that is just a bunch of middle-aged, white, American, liberal, hipster bullshit.
But I'm following my gut, aren't I? That's what I'm doing right now. I'm following my gut instincts, blindly, in a desperate attempt to get away from wherever the fuck I am right now, to someplace, anyplace else.
And it's my gut that's telling me to follow that path. That salad yesterday (my first in I-can't-remember-when; it's been all pot pies and beer lately) was the best thing I've tasted in a long, long time. It's was, literally, unbelievably, shockingly delicious. And there was absolutely nothing special about it - just greens, some veggies, and oil & vinegar. I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be to just spend some time sitting still and being quiet. I keep dreaming of my gomden the way I've so often dreamed of the pipe. That stupid little weekly email quote from Pema Chodron felt like the Universe speaking directly to ME.
And it's my head that's telling me it's all a load of crap.
That means something.
Doesn't it?
But what if all of that only feels right because it's my safety net; because it's safe and familiar because that's what I do when I get lost in these existential crises? ("Existential Crisis" - jesus, talk about a first-world fucking problem. How spoiled of a brat do I have to be to even be taking any of this seriously? But, what, am I supposed to pretend I have the experience of a migrant worker in Guatemala or some shit?? I DON'T. I can only be who I am. And I am a white, middle-aged American liberal, who is fortunate enough to have the luxury of being able to engage in this kind of introspective panic.)
But what if that's what I do when I get in these situations because that's what I'm supposed to do in these situations because that is The Answer to these problems?!
Ugh, this is making me dizzy.
...
And way, way back in the deep down of me, I feel this fear. This fear that I'm going to die here. That I'm never going to get out of this maze of questions alive. That any reprieve is only temporary, and that I will always end up right back here.
That they're going to find me, cold and still on a hotel bed, the same way they found my mother.
I'm scared of the way that feels like Destiny.
...
And She says, "I'm sure it hurts! I can't imagine caring so much about so many things. It must be exhausting! Maybe you should get back into the Tao so you can let things go and ease your pain..."
And I can't help but laugh! She has no idea I've been thinking that, or writing this here, at the exact same time. Out of the mouths of babes...
Is it another sign? Or am I just connecting dots to find the pattern in the chaos that I want to see?
...
Is all of this just because I don't like myself? Is that why I feel compelled to do all of those self-improvements? Because I feel like I would like myself better?
...
When I'm drifting like this, grasping at straws, lost and desperate in this vague and undefined way, I find that I start to obsess about strange things. A lot of the time it starts as ordinary, banal escapism. But sometimes it leads me to the Way Out. The most famous example of this in my life so far, was reading Wild Cards in the bath way back when. In about the strangest way possible, it was those baths that led me directly to my first direct experience of the Tao. Changed my life forever.
Right now, it's The Moth.
I can't stop listening to it. Every story just makes me feel, so much, and so powerfully. And so I guess there must be something about that feel-ing that I need right now, just like I needed to disappear into the warm water back then. I would assume then, that also like the baths, I probably will only be able to explain this obsession in hindsight.
Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I can do right now. When all else fails (and, let's be honest, all else really has failed here), then Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I know, for certain.
...
Yesterday, the quote on Zen Pencils reminded me of Bill Hicks' "It's just a ride..." quote. I got a strong urge to submit that quote to the author/webmaster. In doing that, I had to find it in my PDA so I could copy and paste it into the email.
Just now, I needed to go into the same section of my PDA that holds all my little notes and stuff, to look up something else. It was still on the same page with the Bill Hicks' quote. That page is titled "Philosophies."
I have a collection of notes on my Philosophies of Life that I've collected over the years, stored in my PDA - and I had completely forgotten about it!
And there it was, right in the middle of the list: The Tao of ManniMoonYin that had come to me so many years ago under such similar circumstances - the Tao that I had been led to from my bath.
How can it be?? It seems that I've forgotten my Tao:
"All things that are, are change."
("All things that are, are fire." The only constant is change. Nothing lasts forever. EVERYTHING is mutable.)
"You cannot be good. You cannot be bad. You can only be."
(You cannot be "good," and you cannot be "bad." These are entirely relative judgements - what is "good" for one will be "bad" for another, and vice versa. The only thing you can "be," is Michael.)
"Look on the bright side." "Make the most of it."
(This is the only life you get. There's nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so - so find the good in *everything* - even your mother's suicide was a good thing when you figured out how to look at it right. Choose joy, and you will be joyous.)
"You are amazing. And so is everyone else."
(Glass houses; no one is fit to judge anyone else. Judgement only leads to division, separation, and loneliness. We are all One.)
...
That's 3 coincidences now today, all pointing to the same thing. And today is my 3rd day of this desperate searching.
Even if I'm just connecting the dots in the chaos to find the pattern I want to see, that pattern is obviously deeply meaningful to me in some way. My path clearly leads in that direction. And if I am to follow my instincts, then how can I ignore the pattern I see in the noise, like meaning in an inkblot?
It seems that I have found My Answer.
...
What am I doing?
What's wrong with me? Why am I so unhappy?
What do I want?
Do I love you, completely?
Do I love you, at all?
Or do I just need to feel loved by someone?
...
No. No, that's not the right question. I do love you. We've been through way too much together for way too long, have too much history, for me to not love you. There's a part of me that will always love you, in some way.
The question is, do I love you the way that I'm supposed to? Do I love you the way that a husband should love his wife? Or do I just love you as the one person I've been closer to in my life, and shared more of myself with, than any other?
And is there a difference?
Questions, questions, questions! Everywhere I look it's more fucking questions! WHERE ARE THE FUCKING ANSWERS?!!
...
I've moved out, temporarily. Checked myself into a hotel for the week.
Why? What do I hope to gain from that? Am I just trying to "shake things up" - just introduce a little anarchy into my life to see what happens? Am I just trying to force a random change? Or am I trying to step out of my life, to gain some perspective? Or am I just hiding? Just running away?
I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew.
I'm grasping at straws here. Suddenly, every single little thing is pregnant with meaning. Is this The Answer? Is this what I need? Will this make me better? Will this solve my problems?
How can I get better when I don't even know what's wrong? How can I find The Answer when I don't even know The Question??
Am I looking for fulfillment? Or do I just want a happy, satisfying marriage? Are they mutually exclusive? Or are they one and the same?
...
I keep coming back to this one thought. That I need to clean up my act. That everything will be better, and I will be happy and content, if I just give up the drink and all the rest, start working out and losing weight and eating right, start meditating again and studying the Tao, etc., etc.
But then I also can't shake the feeling that all of that is just a bunch of middle-aged, white, American, liberal, hipster bullshit.
But I'm following my gut, aren't I? That's what I'm doing right now. I'm following my gut instincts, blindly, in a desperate attempt to get away from wherever the fuck I am right now, to someplace, anyplace else.
And it's my gut that's telling me to follow that path. That salad yesterday (my first in I-can't-remember-when; it's been all pot pies and beer lately) was the best thing I've tasted in a long, long time. It's was, literally, unbelievably, shockingly delicious. And there was absolutely nothing special about it - just greens, some veggies, and oil & vinegar. I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be to just spend some time sitting still and being quiet. I keep dreaming of my gomden the way I've so often dreamed of the pipe. That stupid little weekly email quote from Pema Chodron felt like the Universe speaking directly to ME.
And it's my head that's telling me it's all a load of crap.
That means something.
Doesn't it?
But what if all of that only feels right because it's my safety net; because it's safe and familiar because that's what I do when I get lost in these existential crises? ("Existential Crisis" - jesus, talk about a first-world fucking problem. How spoiled of a brat do I have to be to even be taking any of this seriously? But, what, am I supposed to pretend I have the experience of a migrant worker in Guatemala or some shit?? I DON'T. I can only be who I am. And I am a white, middle-aged American liberal, who is fortunate enough to have the luxury of being able to engage in this kind of introspective panic.)
But what if that's what I do when I get in these situations because that's what I'm supposed to do in these situations because that is The Answer to these problems?!
Ugh, this is making me dizzy.
...
And way, way back in the deep down of me, I feel this fear. This fear that I'm going to die here. That I'm never going to get out of this maze of questions alive. That any reprieve is only temporary, and that I will always end up right back here.
That they're going to find me, cold and still on a hotel bed, the same way they found my mother.
I'm scared of the way that feels like Destiny.
...
And She says, "I'm sure it hurts! I can't imagine caring so much about so many things. It must be exhausting! Maybe you should get back into the Tao so you can let things go and ease your pain..."
And I can't help but laugh! She has no idea I've been thinking that, or writing this here, at the exact same time. Out of the mouths of babes...
Is it another sign? Or am I just connecting dots to find the pattern in the chaos that I want to see?
...
Is all of this just because I don't like myself? Is that why I feel compelled to do all of those self-improvements? Because I feel like I would like myself better?
...
When I'm drifting like this, grasping at straws, lost and desperate in this vague and undefined way, I find that I start to obsess about strange things. A lot of the time it starts as ordinary, banal escapism. But sometimes it leads me to the Way Out. The most famous example of this in my life so far, was reading Wild Cards in the bath way back when. In about the strangest way possible, it was those baths that led me directly to my first direct experience of the Tao. Changed my life forever.
Right now, it's The Moth.
I can't stop listening to it. Every story just makes me feel, so much, and so powerfully. And so I guess there must be something about that feel-ing that I need right now, just like I needed to disappear into the warm water back then. I would assume then, that also like the baths, I probably will only be able to explain this obsession in hindsight.
Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I can do right now. When all else fails (and, let's be honest, all else really has failed here), then Follow Your Instincts.
It's the only thing I feel like I know, for certain.
...
Yesterday, the quote on Zen Pencils reminded me of Bill Hicks' "It's just a ride..." quote. I got a strong urge to submit that quote to the author/webmaster. In doing that, I had to find it in my PDA so I could copy and paste it into the email.
Just now, I needed to go into the same section of my PDA that holds all my little notes and stuff, to look up something else. It was still on the same page with the Bill Hicks' quote. That page is titled "Philosophies."
I have a collection of notes on my Philosophies of Life that I've collected over the years, stored in my PDA - and I had completely forgotten about it!
And there it was, right in the middle of the list: The Tao of ManniMoonYin that had come to me so many years ago under such similar circumstances - the Tao that I had been led to from my bath.
How can it be?? It seems that I've forgotten my Tao:
"All things that are, are change."
("All things that are, are fire." The only constant is change. Nothing lasts forever. EVERYTHING is mutable.)
"You cannot be good. You cannot be bad. You can only be."
(You cannot be "good," and you cannot be "bad." These are entirely relative judgements - what is "good" for one will be "bad" for another, and vice versa. The only thing you can "be," is Michael.)
"Look on the bright side." "Make the most of it."
(This is the only life you get. There's nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so - so find the good in *everything* - even your mother's suicide was a good thing when you figured out how to look at it right. Choose joy, and you will be joyous.)
"You are amazing. And so is everyone else."
(Glass houses; no one is fit to judge anyone else. Judgement only leads to division, separation, and loneliness. We are all One.)
...
That's 3 coincidences now today, all pointing to the same thing. And today is my 3rd day of this desperate searching.
Even if I'm just connecting the dots in the chaos to find the pattern I want to see, that pattern is obviously deeply meaningful to me in some way. My path clearly leads in that direction. And if I am to follow my instincts, then how can I ignore the pattern I see in the noise, like meaning in an inkblot?
It seems that I have found My Answer.
...
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