Untethered Soul - Letting Go of False Solidity Pg 139 and comments

 "If you take the journey, you will get to the state in which you see exactly how the unfolding moments bring up a sense of fear. From this place of clarity, you will be able to experience the powerful tendency to protet yourself. This tendency exists because you truly have no control, and that is not comfortable to you. But if you really want to break through, you have to be willing to just watch the fear without protecting yourself from it. You must be willing to see that this need to protect yourself is where the entire personality comes from. It was created by building a mental and emotional structure to get away from the sense of fear. You are now standing face-to-face with the root of the psyche...."

After being abroad many times over the years. Seeing rich and poor nations and people, Americans are definitely living in a state of fear. I think the fear comes up from the thought of building a life, getting to that long term vision, then being part of the build (fortress) and then you've built up so much around you, you don't really experience anything cause you've protected yourself for so long. You've become weak cause you control everything in your world. You've become vulnerable to change and you can't adapt. You are in essence controlling what may actually make you grow as a person. Life happens and hurt happens. Americans (and I am one) surround themselves with way artificial ways to make them feel better. Drugs, booze, cars, houses, vacations, clothes, health kicks, drugs to change appearance....etc etc. The thing we aren't usually changing with all that stuff is our inner self. We are doing all these outside things for the here and the now, but our inside is still made of glass and fragile. I realize that more now at 47 than I did 27. Having gone through some serious pain and loss. Unfortunately, I don't think you really know how human and mortal you are until you have suffered in some great way. It might sound dark, but you only know how deep your love is when the thing you love is gone forever. This could be a myriad of things.

There are days when I realize the amount of loss I have gone through can both make me feel invincible and vulnerable; depending on the moment or what is going on in my body. I think both are fine. 

I guess it comes down to, how strong do you really believe you are? Are you totally insulated out of control? Out of your need to not experience hurt? Are you just in your own little world? Or are you using something as a prop or an excuse? Like you are some homesteader who is living on his own land and the weird idea "it's just me and my family"....while a Starbucks light keeps you up at night?

It may take a lifetime to figure you out. 

A question. An answer I didn’t want to hear.

The older I get the more I believe something is behind all of us in all of this. I’m not specifically speaking about God or Allah or what have you. Just something behind this life, our ability to conjure thoughts any time we’d like. I’ve been put through an emotional meat grinder the last few weeks. Summer, where usually everything is great and free and flowing. I can’t go into it all now cause it’s 7:13am EST. You don’t come up in my daily thought process. Why would you? It’s been forever since I last saw you. It’s been a minute since we spoke. There is no reason to. Regardless of the good; there are boundaries and respect. 

I am waking up from a slumber of really not a lot of dreaming but it all became so vivid towards the end. Scary vivid. I can’t remember ever speaking in a dream. I really cannot and I’ve had some bangers. I haven’t seen you in forever but it was the you I last saw that I was looking at. Face to face. I asked you a question that, well, is always relevant regardless of time. A question where the answer can be both good and bad given the circumstances. The funnier thing is we were in some city. A city we never visited. I can see the room and I can see big windows looking out to some architecture only a city would hold. I laughed cause I just thought, that would be the last place I would want to be. Then again, there are places that you would go with that special person where it was never about the place, but all about the person you were with. That much I know. 

I used to travel a lot. I don’t miss those days. I don’t miss being away. Now I am not away, but yet, I have been “gone”. Checked out of life on this other path. People back home never realized while they were putting in 40, I was usually doing 60 or sometimes 80 with all my travel time. The investment of my time was the worst thing I could’ve chosen. It’s the only investment you usually can’t get back. While I have been “gone” to torment and the chaos around me, I have learned what I did wrong and part of me regrets that deeply. I thought, this is what I invested in? This is the trash I kept? Blah. Granted I survived but man I paid that ultimate price. You. Of course, do I think it would’ve worked out regardless? Who knows? A guy can dream. 

What did I ask you in the dream? I asked you if you still loved me. You started to cry, nodded yes and put your head down. I shook my head and nodded and put my head down. 

The dream ended. I woke up smiling. 

I usually always woke up smiling next to you.