”This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” – Maya Angelou
Two things are semi-responsible for this story, a friend’s birthday and a buddy’s comment. First, I got the standard Facebook birthday notice regarding a friend of mine. I wished her a Happy Birthday and then wrote, “Have a wonderful day.” Within minutes of this exchange, a friend wrote to me that my last story put him in a funk. I started thinking about why I do this writing thing in the first place.
I know I write about writing way too much, but I can’t help myself. I just can’t separate what I am doing from what I am saying. I have also shared why I am doing this, which started out as stories for my grandson. I made a point of casting my stories in a positive light, primarily because that is how I felt, a celebration versus a lament regarding my history. I got hooked on this process, after spending around a year and a half on my memoir.
Right now, the challenge for all of us is to hold on to pieces of positivity in the midst of the darkness choking our sensibilities. I know I vacillate between the two. I was reminded of that with the birthday exchange and the tone of the last story. It made me more aware of this schism we are all living with and how it has become such a part of my personal narrative.
In a seemingly contradictory manner, when we shrink our world, we can see a bigger picture and the reverse is true, too. The more inclusive you want to be, the easier it is to get lost, buried by the overload of information. You would think that the more you understand the world, the closer you get to your true nature, but it is not so.
When I wished a friend a ‘wonderful day”, it was sincere and I said it, because I believed it is possible. It is our everyday dealings that really matter and we actually have control over them. It is easy for me to get lost in all the esoteric bullshit and smack into a wall of depression and hopelessness. The truth is, I want everyone to have a wonderful day. Why wouldn’t I?
We can make so many wrong turns on the road to happiness, assuming it is even possible for you. So many of us get so terribly turned around, bombarded by bullshit, we can lose hope and lose touch with ourselves. There is a real danger in getting so absorbed with everything going on around you, you can forget why you are here in the first place. How about this one? Why are you here in the first place?
I was pretty young when I started thinking about that kind of stuff. It had to do with what you wanted to do when you grew up, not who you wanted to be, a big difference. It’s funny how doing preempts being and that easily develops into a pretty lousy habit. The younger you are, the greater the likelihood of career trumping character. There are inevitably disappointments along the way. I know it caused me to start thinking about my choices, wondering what the hell I was going to do about it all.
In the very beginning, it is all about the small stuff, fairly one dimensional. Questions and answers are relatively simple, but mistakes eventually start happening. All along the way, there is a feeling you will eventually figure it out and it takes decades to understand it ain’t gonna ever happen. We are a work in progress our entire lives.
So, how can I wish someone a wonderful day in the midst of all we are now living with? A couple of days after starting this particular tome, I read some words from a guy by the name of Maezumi Roshi, a former Zen teacher and prominent personality in that world. I need to be very careful here, lest I am thought of as a Buddhist zealot, convinced I have found the way for you. If you find a way of engaging the world that works for you, be my guest. I am not a closet conversionista, not even close.
Folks like him are convinced that the way out is through the way in, kind of what I have been talking about. The more you try and sort yourself out, the more you are confronted with a riddle that has no answer. The things we want to know, we simply can’t put on a leash and walk around the block. The closer you think you are getting to the light, the more it blinds you.
I want to share one quote from Maezumi Roshi. “We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right now.” This is not about putting on a happy face either. Meditation is often brought up as a way to focus attention on what it means to be alive. The tougher it gets, the more you gotta look inside. Whatever works is the right way.
This journey is all about falling down and getting up and falling down again. This story is about doing both. How and where we take refuge is up to us, but without going inside, we go nowhere. It is also impossible to be impervious to the world around us. Sure, I am impacted by it all and sometimes it feels like we are in a hopeless spiral and there is nowhere to go with it. I live with this conflict. This story bounces between the falling down and the getting up.
When it feels like you’re drowning in a morass of mindless bullshit, grab for that life preserver and call a time out. This life is all you got right now and wouldn’t it be a shame if you never allowed yourself to feel what a privilege it is to be here? Yeah, it is a challenge, fraught with conflict. Right here, right now is all any of us have.
Think about it.
Almost forgot, Have A Wonderful Day!
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