Broken glass everywhere

Ichigo was curiously exploring the glass vase on top of the refrigerator. He accidentally knocked it over, and broken glass scattered all over the kitchen. Nini was jarred awake from the top of the couch and ran over my face and chest as I lied there, scratching me to the point of bleeding. I sat up and stayed there quietly for a few minutes thinking calmly about what just happened. I went to the bathroom and checked and washed the cuts on my lip and my chest. Then I swept the kitchen floor. Finally, I smiled a mischievous smile at the kittens.

I wasn't mad at them because it all started with curiosity, which is a trait I admire and encourage. Of course, accidents happen, and fear is just another one of them. The result of fear can be violent or destructive, like the cuts on my body. Again, I almost instantly traced the chain of cause and effect back to curiosity and defused the potential anger or blame I could've felt.

Why don't I do that when people are involved? Somehow, I assume that people can be malicious inherently, that they are not merely hapless carriers of an infectious disease that happened to hit me. How useless a thought, this attribution of evil! The attribution itself is the evil that generates all the madness in my world and the world at large. If most of us would stop blaming others, it would be like a vaccine creating herd immunity against the virus of anger. The isolated outbursts of anger would simply dissipate as there aren't enough people around with the propensity to propagate it.

Positive Desire

The problem of seeking happiness is that it's always a step out of reach. If it were present, then there would be no seeking. We are always looking for a future situation that promises better feelings than the one we have right now. As soon as we get that situation, we imagine a better one just out of reach of the present so that the cycle of dissatisfaction continues. From the emaciated poor starving for food to the anorexic rich starving for attention, there seems to be no escape from this mental wiring of insatiable desire.

It's not exactly desire that is the problem but its tenor of dissatisfaction. What if there was a way to desire happily? Positively expectant salivation over a meal is qualitatively different from a hunger pang though they share the desire to eat. At the other end of desire is fulfillment or the failure to fulfill. Can the failure to fulfill be reliably avoided or prevented from causing disappointment? Failure loses its sting when you know it's temporary. It's just a mistake that can be corrected. The mistake could be in an intermediate step toward attaining the goal or even a mistake in choosing the goal. Disappointment occurs in proportion to the perceived permanence of the failure state.

Boundaries

I had a good discussion with a friend yesterday about boundaries, a word I've avoided because of its confrontational tone. Based loosely on her description of what it means to her, I've come up with my own provisional definition that a boundary is an explicit description of what behavior in another or circumstances make one uncomfortable. It's not intended to lay blame but to inform the other person that one may react poorly or leave if those circumstances occur.

I think part of the reason I didn't like to think about boundaries is that it puts emphasis on external circumstances for one's happiness. I believe in ultimate oneness, and boundaries seemed to be a delusional separation. I think I may have been too idealistic. Upon entering the physical world, we have "signed up" for separation as a vehicle to learn how to reunite. We grow incrementally, dissolving one boundary at a time, but to do away with the boundary concept all at once denies the structure of the school in which we find ourselves.

Boundaries do presume and uphold separation but for the greater purpose of enabling relationship. A lonely Creator can be seen creating an independently willful Other, whom He can love. Not satisfied with just satisfying Himself, he allowed multiple Others to feel separate from each other and so that they may potentially experience a microcosm of the original love that created them.

In order to experience true relationship, people must allow for the will of others to remain independent of their own. Otherwise, what they experience is a premature merger, a destructive consumption of another. All forms of control seek to consume or subsume another. Love, on the other hand, plays with that illusory gap between selves in a way that enhances and enthuses (i.e. puts God in) both the individuals and the whole.

Dream on, kid

I just did my favorite education/public outreach demo so far to a high school class in Chile. The kids were really good at driving the rover, not getting stuck on rocks or driving crazy because of the 4 second delay between a keystroke and seeing the result of the motion on webcam. (The delay simulates the logistics of off-planet exploration.) I loved seeing them smile as they operated the rover. They looked so happy. I would be too if I was 15 years old driving a NASA robot on another hemisphere. The applause at the end of the session was heartwarming.

When I was in 3rd grade, the teacher had us draw or paint a nearly life sized body and put a photo of our face on it. I drew an astronaut suit. My parents still have it. When I was in 2nd grade, I etched and painted a psychedelic shuttle on a clay tile. When I was a toddler barely able to walk, I fell asleep on a hammock with a small picture dictionary on my face. The page I was on was one depicting planets and space related words. I still have both the clay tile and the picture dictionary. And now, where do I find myself? Near a world famous observatory with a beautiful view of the heavens every day, rain or shine. Here I am tearing up again at the sheer brilliance of destiny or whatever you call it. I still feel like I'm dreaming as I walk into my room in solitude.

I have so much to tell my young self. I would tell him not to worry so much about what other people think of him because it'll ironically just make him less attractive because no one likes a phony trying to conform. As I grew older, I began to fear the difficulty of projects. I would tell him to continue doing impossible things without a care for how long it takes or how hard it is. I would tell him that romantic relationships are one of those impossible things but to take care not to assume it will eliminate all of his problems. I would tell him to practice self-love now because it doesn't get easier if he habituates in the other direction.

Now at 31, reading this as if my 50 year old self were admonishing me, I have trouble accepting this advice. "Yea, right, old man. You've forgotten what it's like to be young." So instead of further giving answers to life lessons, I would just give him a calm smile and a fearless hug. I would express through my demeanor that things will be all right. I would tell him yesterday's dreams that I'm living today and my dreams today that I know will be fulfilled tomorrow.

Inner Being

Who is this inner being?

It is the part of me that knows of eternity. It has no fear of death. It understands this physical reality as a subset of reality. A fun game. A play.

It puts obstacles in the way as part of the game. Every problem that arises is exactly the problem I need, is exactly the contrast I need to clarify where I want to go. The going is as enjoyable as the getting to. Desire is as endless as eternity, and that's a good thing to the inner being, who enjoys fulfilling each and every one of them.

The inner being knows that everything is as it should be, just as it is and just as it is changing.

Superstar

When I was watching the YouTube video of Karen Carpenter playing drums, smiling so big and enjoying herself so much, I felt jealous. She's so pretty, musically talented, and adored. Songs like Superstar and Yesterday Once More were ironic in that in singing them, she was speaking of stars as if she wasn't one. In an attempt to feel better about myself, I thought, "There must be something wrong with her life. It's too damn perfect." I was ashamed at my schadenfreude when I discovered the circumstances of her death. On the other hand, I wanted to find proof that being admired like her wasn't all that great, and it was good to find that evidence. The admiration of entertainment stars is often for superficial and unstable reasons. It's much better to be validated just for being human rather than for any particular accomplishment or gift because conditional love isn't really love and can only sustain you temporarily.

Fairness

There is no such thing as fairness or unfairness. It is a line in the sand of human imagination drawn to motivate balance between equally imaginary parcels of the one true whole. Instead of engendering balance, thoughts of fairness or justice sometimes instigate war as one side imagines being deprived by the other.

"Reciprocity" can also be used as a club to beat the other into giving back. Such a demand needn't be verbalized; one can signal disapproval with the body, mood, or even more subtle ways.

Balance doesn't require justice. Balance just is. When a ball drops into a pool of water, the water splashes upward in a balanced response. Every moment is a moment of balance even while the quantities involved are still changing. Equilibrium is no more balanced than the movement toward equilibrium.

We may push forcefully to secure a certain outcome we consider fair. If worry accompanies the push, the outcome will likely bounce back the opposite direction. If the weight behind the push is greater than the either your hand or the object you're pushing, you will effect a more durable change. The largest weight is the weight of the world. Hence it is the complex interactions of the entire world that determine where the scales tip, not some man-made sense of fairness.

It would do us good to observe with humility the hugeness of the universe and let it determine how the galaxies and atoms should dance with each other. Atlas, let down your rock and let it roll.