Filtered Through a Sense of I
When there is a sense of "I" - a belief in the idea of I - it seems that just about everything gets filtered through it: emotions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, actions.
I see...
- How surrendering to fatigue comes with the hope of "I" then being released from it. And that this is not a complete surrender. A complete surrender includes a surrender even to the hope, in this case the hope of it ever going away.
- How listening to the horrors in Iraq comes with the idea of "I told you so" and a hope of how it may hurt the US government maximally. And that this prevents me from really experiencing the pain, grief and sadness that comes up in me in hearing these news reports. It creates a sense of separation and alienation - to myself and others, where there could be a sense of intimacy and shared humanity - with the victims, the insurgents, and even the Bush administration.
- That any action I do comes with hopes or fears out the outcome. And how this prevents me from being with whatever is, and surrendering to whatever is.
- That there is always an examining of the current (or future) situation to see how it can be spun to make me appear "better" or "worse" than what I used to be, can be in the future, or how others appear to me now.
Enjoyment and suffering
There is an incredible self-centeredness here - which organizes seemingly everything that comes up - whenever there is the belief in the idea of "I". It is all-pervasive.
On the one hand of all this is the enjoyment in the sense of drama that comes from this. The enjoyment of all the infinite I-Other dynamics. The enjoyment of the ups which goes with the downs. The victories that goes with the failures. The hopes that goes with the fears. The list continues. If there wasn't for this enjoyment, we wouldn't want to be around for it all.
And it also creates everything that my human self see as undesirable in this I-Other dynamic. A tremendous amount of loneliness. Sense of separation and alienation. Sense of drama and struggle. Sense of always being "better" or "worse" than something else. And so on. It is a high price to pay for the moments of enjoyment, although it seems to even itself out in the big picture.
Weariness
My human self enjoys some of it, and can't stand other parts of it, as is the apparently universal human condition. And constantly going around and around all this brings about a certain weariness. Becoming weary of it all, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats.
And this in turn can lead to cynicism and despair, or to a wish to find a certain release - the space or the ground this all unfolds within and as.