Doing something

I have been thinking recently of starting a blog about my spiritual ideas. I think I have some originality and a possibly interesting writing style and maybe something to add to the, cringe, blogosphere. Then I checked out google “spirituality blogs” and I think there are many. Argh. I don’t want to be just another voice. I can’t see how it helps for me to contribute my ideas when other people already have shared theirs. Anyway, isn’t it just more talking anyway, something I want to avoid?

The question in part is: do I want to be a teacher? Well, I certainly don’t want to teach, so, do I want to be a guide? Yes and no. It seems natural, and also I am not at this moment motivated towards it.

In a way I could see it like painting. It’s something a lot of people can do but I apparently have some extra gift which I can sort of see. To clarify: I deeply value the work I can do. I love almost everything I do (unsurprisingly, perhaps). I can imagine this world where I am meditating every day, almost completely grounded, and then also painting and teaching. Somehow in my mind it comes out of this grounded, idyllic place or something. I just know that if I plan to do it now, I get too overwhelmed.

Yes it’s true that I am seeing the need to break from the cycle of ‘when this happens, I’ll be able to be that/do that’. Things start now or they start never, to some extent. But I also like the idea of the seed: planting a little bit of it now. For instance, if guiding and painting are something I could see myself doing if circumstances were right, what seeds can I plant for those circumstances?

The thing is that I don’t actually WANT to guide or paint. What I want is to eat sugar, party, watch DVDs, and then shut out the world in a quiet room. Or, what I want is just to get through the day without getting angry or agitated or crying. What I want is to be grounded. This last is a seed, though, if anything is.

All my life I’ve been searching for stillness. I never really wanted anything else, even though I romanticized some things. Stillness and excitement in balance is what I wanted. Or, inspiration. Stillness and inspiration. I think it’s easier to imagine that concrete actions and products might flow out of these states, rather than me choosing and forcing myself to do them.

I certainly do not want anymore to ‘choose’ my activities, my friends or my products. I want them to flow out of from the universe and react to them. I say this because I have only found suffering, tiredness and dissatisfaction from trying to select my experiences. Right now I feel generally good about this in my life: what I do have I like.

However, the question is there, the call to ‘do’ something. I want to prove myself to other people. I want to have created something for other people. Perhaps this is a fundamental human urge and perhaps it is ego. Is it beneficial, is it not? Ah. Perhaps if what I create causes other people to be healthy/enlightened. Yes, that seems valid. Or, if actually doing it causes me to be healthy/enlightened. If the product in some way contributes to a mind or body state that creates in a participant the possibility for growing healthiness, ie,

- genuine love for self

- genuine compassion for others

- deeper awareness of the real

- deeper acceptance of the real

- deeper connection with the real

In other words, if the product is the guide, then the product has value and also is not ego-driven. I suppose one can guide through words, text, example, or product.

The big key in this is recognition. I want to be recognized for the teaching, the guiding. Which means that I want to solidify an identity around it. I want to ‘be’ the teachings, in a way that no one else is, so that people look to me as ‘the guide’ and I derive – not even praise, that’s not even what I want – but solidity. I ‘am’ something. Partly it’s a love for wisdom and a desire to literally incorporate it. I want to literally be the transformative being for someone.

Also though it’s seeing other people create things and wanting that too. It still comes down to identity. I don’t inherently care if I am every of value on a grand scale. I am very aware of the ways I could be a of value on a small scale. There are many opportunities which I could take to contribute to people around me. No. I do care about the grand scale. I am wanting fame on the grand scale, not fame, but existence. I want to exist as part of remembered history. Or, I have always felt that I am part of known history. That’s because most of my friends are writers in the books I read. My difficulty with friendships is based on the same issue: one sided relationships. I feel different from people who can dialogue and who aren’t internationally recognized. However, actually being famous would possibly not change that because when actually encountering other famous people, we would both be in the room and would likely both be suffering from too much of the company of books.

Thus it’s my belief that I am only a member of the idea world – it just comes from the time I have spent reading so many ideas from famous people. Why don’t I listen to real people more? It makes me ask what I am trying to get from them – if real people can’t offer me the neatly packaged wisdom and entertainment of writers, then what else do they offer? What else is communication, when it is not one-sided and informational? What I give up in occasional boredom or anxiety or confusion, I give up in intimacy. True intimacy with another is not reading a book – book intimacy is intimacy with myself and my imagination of the writer.

As for fame … I want to contribute. I want, more accurately, to have contributed. I want to be associated with something I have contributed. I want to say I contributed. I want it to be known I contributed? I want to know I have contributed. I want the sate of being in contribution. The actual activity I care little about. And yet it’s important too.

These are interesting questions which I’ll have to think over for a while.