Grasping

Sometimes from good intentions
Sometimes from unthinking
At the attachment to a certain unfolding

The Wait
Is so hard

Grasping
For forgetting that out of control
For knowing to but not letting go

The Wait
Is so hard

Grasping
The picture seen of what would be exactly right
The actions if only they were just taken
That just don’t turn out that way

The Wait
Is so hard

Grasping
In this world of other
Must be surrendered to the actuality of other and the world as is

To Breathe
Instead of To Grasp
To seek self, and with integrity, to be just that

The Wait
Is so hard

There was a plan.
First a, then b, finally c.
It didn’t happen that way
This, that, and them couldn’t be controlled
didn’t respond as desired
And all went to pieces
Or so it seemed.

Wait.  What about what did happen
Don’t judge, just observe
What did occur.  And how.
Don’t judge, just observe.
What feeling led to which other feeling.
Don’t judge, just observe.

Oh, that was the lesson.

“That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt…
But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself… an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it.”
Immanuel Kant
The Critique of Pure Reason
Translator: J. M. D. Meiklejohn

Rationalism versus Empiricism.
An enormous debate in the history of ideas,
and in the question of Free Will
Far beyond the scope of this site.
But the basic question
What is figured out by self,
What does experience figure out itself for the self

How much seems under control of choice
How often does the choice seem given, seem inevitable.
What experiences long forgotten have already had their way
What unconscious can be not unconscious
Where then is found, all of self.

This part inside despicable
It cannot be shown to the outside
It cannot be tolerated on the in

To run from it
To hide it
To cloak it
Is all that can be done

But that which returns returns
And that which returns is.
is a part of the whole.
Such a great variety of parts,
who is not this way.

The parts evolve.
Parts can pushed, pulled, formed, affected.
But not by moving away from
only by going towards
for the sake of understanding.
Done in small amounts
only bits at a time.

To accept all that is
because it is what is
is a brave, courageous act.
And which in time will quietly reveal
what is sensible next.
It takes tolerance of great discomfort
during the walk.
The beginning is acceptance.

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
David Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739).
ed: L.A. Selby-Bigge, M.A. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896)
Book II, Part III, Section III

Long intellectual debates within
Decisions and beliefs at the end of lengthy reasoned chains
The very control of action
Intellect, reason; these claim control
But what wills the will.

I Can’t…
To want that which is discouraged
To need the form in which it is not available
To receive and feel guilt for the taking
Help. The word thus not said.

But I Want You To…
It feels so good to give.
Even if the effort falls short.
The offer so desired needs the invitation.
Ask, please ask.

The choice of the first three pieces below was unintentional.
Just what was there at the time.
But they move together:
The past that pulls; an invitation to be gentle; and the challenge of moments.

Other and unrelated themes ahead.

The words.  Yes, perhaps the words.
But what of the pain.
The pain consumes, it fills, it overwhelms.
Will the words stop the pain?

Perhaps, just perhaps, the words can bring a new moment.
Is one moment possible,
just the next one.
Is it possible to be mindful of just now, this moment?
Is it possible… to breath
Just one breath in this one moment.
Is it possible for awareness to be in this one moment, this one breath.

Perhaps the words will lead to a moment in place of pain
Awareness of only the moment, the breath.
Maybe then another moment.
Maybe

“It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards. Which principle, the more one thinks it through, ends exactly with the thought that temporal life can never properly be understood precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest in which to adopt a position: backwards.” Soren Kierkegaard, Journals IV A 164 (1843)

Then this place, this direction, this decision, this un-figured-out
That could so easily be given some label.
Life understood backwards but lived forwards? (Kierkegaard says)
Perhaps what can be know now is simply what transpired.
Perhaps the meaning, not yet.

What unfinished can be defined.
What still a part can be seen as the whole.
What that seems so clear now can the courage be found
to instead of label… to wait.

The past returns to haunt. Memories of that done wrong – years past and this morning. The struggle so hard towards change, when the past appears and thus ruins. It immobilizes with shame, it takes over present actions and pulls into past ones.

No, it is not true. (Even if it feels so)

The past only reminds. Though it feels as it defines us. But it is merely greedy and unwilling to depart. It wants to trick so it screams you are still yesterday because it knows you are, in fact, so much more of today. It would kill you with it’s lies to prevent it’s already death. Today may be new challenges, even similar to those before. But if you struggle anew, you are not then but now; with the hope of yet more different to come.

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