jelloman
Couch'd Tater...
I sponsor a young woman on Patreon (Homemade Wanderlust) who has thru-hiked the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails, and will be hiking the Continental Divide trail this year...I asked her once what was the most surprising thing she learned about herself on the trail, expecting something like how much pain she could endure or how much she appreciated the beauty of nature, but she answered "how noisy my mind is"...
It's both very simple and very profound...we have so many things to think about; decisions to make, problems to solve, ideas to pursue, issues to resolve, that our minds are in a constant state of motion, never quieting down enough to really appreciate the moment or even tune in for a moment to what the universe may be trying to tell us...
I learned yesterday that a very good friend of mine is going through a pretty heavy episode of marital discord and doesn't think they're going to hold things together much longer...they're in counseling but the issues appear to run so deep that there's not much hope of finding a resolution...it really sucks because I care very deeply about both of them and there's nothing I can do to help...it's my nature, I guess, to want to fix things, and it's all I can do to keep from jumping in the car and running over there to do something (what I don't know)...the only thing stopping me is the fact that they live too far away...
This, of course, has me thinking about my own situation...I've gone through a number of changes, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, over the past several years, but I still don't have a clear idea at this point of who I've become, and who I want to be...
I've made no secret that I often seek out companionship in non-standard (and questionably legal) ways...last year I fell into what can loosely be termed a "relationship" with a someone close by and we had even started discussing possibilities for an actual future together when she retired from her current situation...last September/October it all came to a crashing end...she of course blamed me, and I have my own version of what happened, the truth probably lying somewhere in between...but in the end the only thing I feel I did wrong was make a really bad decision of who to love and care about...
I put myself onto a couple dating sites, hoping to meet someone and have something real for a change...after a number of false starts and really bad dates I started communicating with someone about a month ago I had a really good feeling about, and after a couple weeks of messaging we had what I felt was a really positive first date...I asked her for a second date thinking she may have felt at least some of what I had and after a week of back and forth she turned me down..."You're a really great guy, and I'd love for us to be friends, but I just don't feel that 'spark' of romance"...it's funny but I've heard those words from so many women in her position that they've ceased to have an meaning...(even funnier is the fact that the only women who ever have were the ones I was paying to lie to me about it)...I wanted to get mad at her but it wasn't her fault that she didn't feel what any other woman ever has, it wasn't her fault that I allowed myself to hope that this time would be different, that she would be different, or even that I would be different...
The one thing good that came out of that episode was the fact that she told me she was a practicing Buddhist and I got curious enough about that to do a little research...I have to admit that there is a lot about Buddhism I find compelling, and there are even some aspects of it that I've already embraced without knowing...
One of those things is the idea of embracing silence to clear your mind and possibly tune into some channel of the universe that may be trying to tell me something...this morning I've been doing exactly that...I've been going about the morning routine I have without the TV on or music playing for background noise to drown out the noises in my mind...it's something I need to do more often...
I'm not sure why I'm telling all of this...
It's both very simple and very profound...we have so many things to think about; decisions to make, problems to solve, ideas to pursue, issues to resolve, that our minds are in a constant state of motion, never quieting down enough to really appreciate the moment or even tune in for a moment to what the universe may be trying to tell us...
I learned yesterday that a very good friend of mine is going through a pretty heavy episode of marital discord and doesn't think they're going to hold things together much longer...they're in counseling but the issues appear to run so deep that there's not much hope of finding a resolution...it really sucks because I care very deeply about both of them and there's nothing I can do to help...it's my nature, I guess, to want to fix things, and it's all I can do to keep from jumping in the car and running over there to do something (what I don't know)...the only thing stopping me is the fact that they live too far away...
This, of course, has me thinking about my own situation...I've gone through a number of changes, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, over the past several years, but I still don't have a clear idea at this point of who I've become, and who I want to be...
I've made no secret that I often seek out companionship in non-standard (and questionably legal) ways...last year I fell into what can loosely be termed a "relationship" with a someone close by and we had even started discussing possibilities for an actual future together when she retired from her current situation...last September/October it all came to a crashing end...she of course blamed me, and I have my own version of what happened, the truth probably lying somewhere in between...but in the end the only thing I feel I did wrong was make a really bad decision of who to love and care about...
I put myself onto a couple dating sites, hoping to meet someone and have something real for a change...after a number of false starts and really bad dates I started communicating with someone about a month ago I had a really good feeling about, and after a couple weeks of messaging we had what I felt was a really positive first date...I asked her for a second date thinking she may have felt at least some of what I had and after a week of back and forth she turned me down..."You're a really great guy, and I'd love for us to be friends, but I just don't feel that 'spark' of romance"...it's funny but I've heard those words from so many women in her position that they've ceased to have an meaning...(even funnier is the fact that the only women who ever have were the ones I was paying to lie to me about it)...I wanted to get mad at her but it wasn't her fault that she didn't feel what any other woman ever has, it wasn't her fault that I allowed myself to hope that this time would be different, that she would be different, or even that I would be different...
The one thing good that came out of that episode was the fact that she told me she was a practicing Buddhist and I got curious enough about that to do a little research...I have to admit that there is a lot about Buddhism I find compelling, and there are even some aspects of it that I've already embraced without knowing...
One of those things is the idea of embracing silence to clear your mind and possibly tune into some channel of the universe that may be trying to tell me something...this morning I've been doing exactly that...I've been going about the morning routine I have without the TV on or music playing for background noise to drown out the noises in my mind...it's something I need to do more often...
I'm not sure why I'm telling all of this...