SHAKESPEARE, FRUIT FLIES AND THESPIANS

Our tame globetrotting poet does it again - David Farnsworth in full flight:

 

 Out of the Window

Hi, my name's Fernando. I'm a fruit fly. I live with David.
He lives with me. Whatever. The alcohol here is unlimited, and
such good quality. You might have noticed we fruit flies love our
alcohol.

David has given me the task of writing this piece. He has told me
to write fast, don't stop and be as trivial as you like. I like the
last one.

I am writing this perched on the rim of a glass containing
a stiff gin and tonic and a slice of lemon. While I write, David is
reading "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens. The poor man is up to
page 587. Only another 413 pages to go. And there is much
 housework and gardening waiting for him!

On the nature strip opposite, a couple of magpies have taken
possession, hunting off a couple of blackbirds, who were there first.
I feel sorry for the worms. It's been a wet year. Luckily here, the
pickings for the spiders  have been so poor, they have decamped, so I
don't have a worry in the world.

The red car opposite has just moved off. People in this street come and go
all day. There's always something to notice. The red car people are
all female and always, in the weekends, filling the car with beach
equipment. Oh, that we could be so lucky. David tells me we are off
to Maryborough tomorrow. "Can you manage four hours without
alcohol?" he asks. "I guess we will make up for it on our return."
I reply.

Green-haired Bob's roses need pruning. He's such a busy man. David's
roses need pruning too.

My technical name is Drysophila. (The red car has just returned and
is disgorging passengers) David tells me that he and a few mature-
aged students (teachers) were attempting to pass a diploma studying something
called Biology as part of a Social Sciences course. They were studying the
mating habits of the Drysophila. He and a friend failed the subject four
times.  I often worry about the intellect of David. To get him and his friend to graduate, they deleted the subject.

David has refilled his glass. I just managed to avoid the bubbles from
the tonic water smudging this page.

The pink flowering-gum overhanging this window is festooned with gum nuts.
The new flower buds are swelling. Two weeks ago, four spotted pardolates
were feeding on insects, which were feeding on the leaves. They improved
the tree's health. One good turn deserves another.

After a -2C morning (8C in the house), the sun shone, the sky
was a deep blue and as I write, the sun is sinking, as it does, in
the West.

South-west at night, you get the lights from the trotting track.
David says I would love it there. There is so much alcohol in the
Flying Horse Bistro.

Maryborough  01/ 09/ 17


Happiness

I did such a good job on the last piece of writing, David has asked to do the hard work on this one. In case you've forgotten, my name's Fernando and I'm a fruit fly. I live with David. He lives with me. Whatever.

Happiness for me will be when a female fruit fly flies in through an open window or down a chimney. Now the weather is warming up, the chances are greater. I have known unhappiness in my life. I lost 16 wives and 326 children when someone sprayed my home with insect repellent. My family were dropping like flies!  I am still in mourning.

David is going to tell me what to write. Here he goes... his head still in his wine glass.

"When I was a young child I would ride my bike around Ballarat pretending I was visiting foreign countries. I loved atlasses; knew the names of all the world's countries and their capital cities. I loved the shapes and colours of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria.

I started travelling abroad when I was about 37. (So many wasted years)  Maybe then overseas travel was more expensive? The sheer bliss of foreign travel.

In young days, when I didn't need to go to the toilet so often, I would ask for a window seat.
The world would be set out below you. The subsistance farming up the volcanic peaks of Papua New Guinea ... flying over the Himalayas at night in moonlight... flying over the Arctic Circle ... all pink and icy.

Maybe unhappiness was when I couldn't afford to travel?

Happiness was teaching at a well-run school with dedicated staff. Unhapiness was the opposite. I experienced both. Happiness is being part of a friendly group like writers in Maryborough. Believe me, not all writing groups are as friendly as this one is.

Happiness was looking at the Tian Shan Mountains in China for the first time, maybe ten years ago. As a youth I had drawn maps which featured the Central Asian mountain chains.

The sheer joy of floating in a hot spring heated pool in Tibet, looking at the Himalayas in the background or in a glassed in heated pool in the Rocky Mountains, near Jasper in Canada.

So many happy moments."

David has just rescued me from my small glass of gin. I'd fallen asleep. His story is so boring and repetitious. He picked me out with a tea-spoon. My wings should dry quite soon.

"Happy moments also included many memorable meals and wines, mainly in foreign climes.
Roasted meats and heavy red wine in Beograd, Beijing Duck in Beijing, Dumplings in Weifang,
the salads in California, the oysters in the Oyster Bar underneath Grand Central station New York, the clam chowder on Alaskan Airlines, the French food and wine in Noumea. The memories linger.

Happiness is a state of mind which has to be developed. One needs to monitor one's state of mind and keep it fresh and in good humour. I spent 30 years running huge distances which I suspect reduced my stress levels. At least stress levels let us know we are alive. Many of the best things and times are free. With my 'new' eyesight I can now see the beauty and details of cloud formations, the details of the natural world.  Walking and identifying the local birds.

Happiness closer to home? Skiing in fresh snow at Falls Creek, performing in plays , maybe over a hundred over a thirty year period. Snorkelling at Coral Bay and on the Great Barrier Reef, climbing Ayers Rock, driving my car at 185kph in the Northern Territory when it was legal.

Fernando is starting to totter. I should stop while I am still ahead.


Centre Stage

In my twenties, and to my fifties, I spent much of my time on stage, especially in Ballarat.

When I was a child and even later, I was a nervous soul, who stammered .It took until I was about 14 for this to disappear. Strangely, when I sang in Church and school choirs, I didn't stammer.

At the Anglican Cathedral, as a boy soprano, I was chief chorister. I wore a medal on a thick blue ribbon around my neck, over my surplice and cassock.

At Secondary School, I performed in a couple of plays in the chorus. At Teachers' College I was in the debating team. All of these things gave me confidence. When I went to Mt Beauty, in North East Victoria, the local garage owner told me to join the local Drama Group and to not have my hair cut in town. (The barber was an alcoholic!)

I remember playing the villain and the Dame in a pantomime. One of my lines was,  "And my baby, my poor baby was torn from my breast." Cast member in ad lib, "Did it leave a hole?"
We had so much fun. I remember a play reading of The Deep Blue Sea in front of a small audience, where the cast followed the stage instructions and drank real alcohol. It was chaotic.

When I got to Ballarat I joined Wendouree Arts Council and Ballarat National Theatre and played in Lyric Theatre's productions of Kiss Me Kate and The Pajama Game. At an audition I was asked whether I wanted a main role or a chorus role. (I had been drinking.)

I said, "A main role or nothing!"  I got nothing. I probably appeared in hundred productions in thirty years. I was on stage somewhere most days.

At Sebastopol Technical School, I usually made announcements during the assembly in front of 1200 people. This did wonders for your confidence as well. All of this is Centre Stage.
For one assembly I organized Gough Whitlam and Margaret to attend and speak at assembly.
.
 We also had famous Australian sprinter, Peter Norman.

Of course, teaching is an activity where you take centre stage. Classrooms even had a platform (stage) to stand on.

In China, I took Centre stage, part of a 30 minute advertisement on commercial TV for the school I was employed at. My 15 seconds of fame. When I was riding my bike, people in buses would point at me. I wrote a poem in English in the playground and a photo of the poem appeared on the front of a school newspaper, distributed to 6,000,000 children.

Was it Shakespeare who said the whole world's a stage? We are acting most of the time.  In my declining years, I am now happy to occupy stage left or right. The time is coming when I won't be on stage at all.

Read David's Travel Poetry anthology Middle Kingdom

Fruit flies and alcohol - poetry to go

David Farnsworth's latest poems are increasingly clear sighted. They ruminate on cold days in Ballarat, the virtue of inebriation and more.

If you want more of this fine poet's work, check out this link: Middle Kingdom. A take on world travel through the poet's eye and an anthology worth reading.

 

 

Reflections

The red wine danced in the glass

a darker red than blood,

the sun travelling through the wine

to the tablecloth beneath.

Are reflections a heightened way

of seeing? - So much variety

depending on whether it's windy

or not. The ruffled waters

of Lake Learmonth, with ribbons

of yellow and blue capturing

the late afternoon sky.

As usual, I don't stop.

It's the still days with water

where reflections reach great

heights - where even the seemingly

mundane is magically transformed.

02/ 02/ 2017   Ballarat for Maryborough

 Downhill

The fruit fly was water-skiing over
the sweat on my chest. I felt
woozy. "Do you have a fever?" asked
the medical guru.

"I feel about as normal as ever
which I admit is not terribly
normal." I stood up.
The fruit fly went rapidly downhill.

That's the way with life. Just when
you feel comfortable, somebody tips
the table and some normality
disappears. Like the Government

taking $90 a fortnight from
my pension, but what's not to like
for the liver with the prospect of 6
fewer bottles of red wine passing

through its system? It may even
survive a few extra weeks.
Are you aware of the unusual strain
on the legs when running downhill?

I thought not. Avoid it all costs.
Walking is permissible; like downhill
from Mt Bogong; over snow drifts;
through the mountain ash; now but a memory.


Ballarat for Maryborough 02/ 03/ 17

 

The Dark Side of the Moon.

The fruit fly abseiled up my nose hair.

I made the mistake of dipping my nose

in the glass of gin. The fly landed on

an ice block and wondered whether he

had landed on the dark side of the Moon.

I assured him he was still on terra firma.

He proceeded to the rim of the glass and

began to dry his wings. After the immersion

in the gin he tottered slightly. He was not

the only one.

Why are fruit flies so attracted to alcohol?

Why am I so attracted to alcohol?

The recycling bin is so heavy with bottles

and what must the neighbours think

when a fortnight's bottles are emptied noisily?

The fruit fly is still here, always within

reach of my nearest glass. What a mean

occupation! How limiting! I tried to educate

him with other beverages but he's not

having any. We are both tied to our old ways.

Maryborough 05/05/17

With my powerful magnifying glass

I noticed my friend wearing Lycra.

I suspect (know?)he was hit by the cycling craze.

Many other fruit flies were in Lycra.

All had tiny bicycles. The Lycra grabbed

their crotches, so  you could see who

had been circumcised and who had not.

I'd made the mistake of sprinkling salt

on the table cloth. "These stones are rough,"

whined my fruit fly. It didn't last. Soon he,

and his fellow flies, all male, cycled around

a small puddle and then stopped at a small

shed-like building where they entered and

enjoyed a cappuccino, late, long black, whatever.

The owner of the shed was smiling.

Now, whenever my fruit fly is due to ride,

I cover my alcohol

with Glad Wrap.

I can't afford the wretch being pinged for .05

Ballarat 06/07/17 

Out of the Window

Hi, my name's Fernando. I'm a fruit fly. I live with David.

He lives with me. Whatever. The alcohol here is unlimited, and

such good quality. You might have noticed we fruit flies love our

alcohol.

David has given me the task of writing this piece. He has told me

to write fast, don't stop and be as trivial as you like. I like the

last one.

I am writing this perched on the rim of a glass containing

a stiff gin and tonic and a slice of lemon. While I write, David is

reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The poor man is up to

page 587. Only another 413 pages to go. And there is much

 housework and gardening waiting for him!

On the nature strip opposite, a couple of magpies have taken

possession, hunting off a couple of blackbirds, who were there first.

I feel sorry for the worms. It's been a wet year. Luckily here, the

pickings for the spiders  have been so poor, they have decamped, so I

don't have a worry in the world.

The red car opposite has just moved off. People in this street come and go

all day. There's always something to notice. The red car people are

all female and always, in the weekends, filling the car with beach

equipment. Oh, that we could be so lucky. David tells me we are off

to Maryborough tomorrow. "Can you manage four hours without

alcohol?" he asks. "I guess we will make up for it on our return,"

I reply.

Green-haired Bob's roses need pruning. He's such a busy man. David's

roses need pruning too.

My technical name is Drysophila. (The red car has just returned and

is disgorging passengers) David tells me that he and a few mature-

aged students (teachers) were attempting to pass a diploma studying something

called Biology as part of a Social Sciences course. They were studying the

mating habits of the Drysophila. He and a friend failed the subject four

times.  I often worry about the intellect of David. 

To get him and his friend to graduate, they deleted the subject.

David has refilled his glass. I just managed to avoid the bubbles from

the tonic water smudging this page.

The pink flowering-gum overhanging this window is festooned with gum nuts.

The new flower buds are swelling. Two weeks ago, four spotted pardolates

were feeding on insects, which were feeding on the leaves. They improved

the tree's health. One good turn deserves another.

After a -2C morning (8C in the house), the sun shone, the sky

was a deep blue and as I write, the sun is sinking, as it does, in

the west.

South-west at night, you get the lights from the trotting track.

David says I would love it there. There is so much alcohol in the

Flying Horse Bistro.

Maryborough  01/ 09/ 17

For Susan.

Ye Gods and Small fish. What a

revolting ornament! It looks like it's

fallen off a plumber's truck. Maybe it

would look better from a different angle?

Maybe not. Actually, when I first saw it,

I thought it was a pig. If seen on a dark

night, it would probably frighten small children.

Wake me when the five minutes is over.

David Farnsworth   05/05/17

OVERTRAINING SHORTENS YOUR LIFE

Martin Jensen, author of How to Keep Fit Without Exercise ( the lazy man's guide to keeping in shape), lays it on the line. Physical activity is fine—in moderation. But running a half marathon every week is not.

 

Mild and consistent exercise can safeguard against hypertension, obesity, heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, osteoporosis, age related muscle wastage, cognitive decline and depression. 

But overdo it and you are in trouble.

The intensity of effort needed for health benefits is probably around 20 kJ per minute and significant benefits require a regimen using 4000 kJ a week.  This translates into 30/45 minutes of mild to moderate exercise per day.

Beyond this limit problems begin. Because exercise increases energy consumption which increases oxidative phosphorylation which generates free radicals not only from phosphorylation but also from extra catecholamine release, prostanoid metabolism, xanthine oxidase and NAD(P)H oxidase activity. In short, exercise increases free-radical production.

If you are an exercise binger or consistently overtrain, you can take anti-oxidant supplements - but don't expect them to do any more than slightly allay the damage. In fact, at high doses, anti-oxidants become pro-oxidant. In other words, they increase oxidization.

So beware. 

A study in women who exercised with varying intensity from 30 minutes to 60 minutes a day proves instructive. Health benefits were apparent in the 30 minute group.  But more exercise didn't help. In the 60 minute a day group, the increased benefit/fitness was marginal.

So you don't have to spend hours in the gym or run marathons. You simply need to move occasionally. And, if living long and dying fit is your aim, there are certain other basics:

Less food (including less sugar and meat). And more vegetables in the diet.
Enough sleep.
A cause or an abiding interest.
A positive outlook.
Little stress. (Try meditation or mindfullness.)
Good companions.

Sensible and simple. But can you live that way? Why not try.
Or do you prefer to die young and have a good-looking corpse? 

Read about How to Keep Fit Without Exercise on Buzzword.

The Nature of God

'Why,' say those troubled by religion, 'is God such a shit? Why does he permit suffering - cancer, war, paedophiles, painful deaths, corruption, poverty...?'  John Alexandra, author of The Wisdom of Being, examines myths and assertions about the Deity and concludes that, 'god' does not act. It simply IS.

First, why a god and creation at all?

According to Shri Anirvan, all life is born from the Void. From the original Void comes the urge for self-expression—'the thrill of joy breaking through into the irradiance of creation'.

He said that the passivity of the Immutable and the activity of the Demiurge are but two phases of the same reality. He explains that the Vedic seers saw reality as a whole—'a process of gradual illumination occurring in some ineffable neutral being of universal extension and infinite potentiality.'

He said, 'Even Brahman cannot keep for himself what he creates. Everything springs from him and at once flows out. Ten million gods or laws take possession of it.'

Here is a Zen perspective from D. T. Suzuki:

'Probably God was curious to know himself and created man and is trying to satisfy his curiosity through man.

'Being comes into being only when it is conscious of itself. As long as God is content with himself, he is non-existent. He must be awakened to something that is not himself when he is God.

'God is God when God is not God—yet what is not God must be in himself, too. And this—what is not himself—is his own thought or consciousness. With this consciousness, he departs from himself and at the same time returns to himself. You can say that Thought is Being and that Being has its basis in itself. You must say that Being is Being because of Thought, which is to say that Being is Being because Being is not Being.'

He clarifies this abstruseness by concluding: 'The world starts only when there is a mind that appreciates—a mind critically conscious of itself.'

According to Ramana Maharshi, God, like the sun, does not have the least volition. He said that God does not know anything because his nature is the ever real whole—other than which nothing exists to be known. That he has neither will nor desire. That he never acts—just is.

He said, 'There is no meaning in attributing responsibility and motive to the One before it becomes many!'

Shri Ramakrishna echoes the concept of an inchoate unformed entity. He said, 'It is immovable, actionless, unattached—without qualities or attributes—between existence and non-existence. It has form, is also formless and beyond both. Unlimited.

'Why should the universe be unreal? It is God himself who has become the universe and all living beings. The world is illusion. Brahman alone is real. The world is of the nature of magic. The magician is real but the magic unreal.'

Ouspensky talked of 'the absolute, the all—infinite, indivisible, one whole, primordial with full unity, will, consciousness.' And his teacher, Gurdjieff, constructed this invocation:
God the Holy. God the Mighty. God the Immortal.
God all. God nothing.
Unimaginable light. Unimaginable darkness.

Gurdjieff pointed out that the Void, the Unmanifest, is supreme Being. Unity. One. But that creation steps this state down. When the first worlds are formed, a mechanical element enters in. And the further the impulse gets from the source, the more automatic the process becomes—no longer subject to the guiding will of the Unformed. And, to reverse the situation, the One would have to destroy all the intervening creation.

Now listen to Meister Eckhart, the celebrated 14th century mystic:

'He is non-loving—being above love and affection.

'God is neither a being nor intelligence and he does not 'know' this or that. God is free of everything and therefore he IS everything.

'Being is God. The One at rest within itself, receiving nothing from without. The cause that has no cause.

'God is Being. Time does not exist because god, that Being, is not in time.

'...therefore I am my own first cause, both of my eternal Being and of my temporal being. To this end I was born, and by virtue of my birth being eternal, I shall never die. ...What I am as a temporal creature is to die and come to nothingness, for it came with time and, with time, will pass away. In my eternal birth however, everything was begotten. I was my own first cause as well as the first cause of everything else. If I had not willed it, neither I nor the world would have come to be. If I had not been, there would be no god. There is, however, no need to understand this.'


If  the Unmanifest is Being, how do we approach it?

The Old Testament's Yahweh, announced that I AM THAT I AM. And suggested, 'Be still and know that I AM (god).'

According to Eckhart, 'Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness,' and said, 'life cannot be perfected until it has returned to its secret source, where life is Being,' and advised '...gather together all your senses and power, all your reason and memory. These must be directed into your ground where your treasure lies hidden. Know also that to find this treasure, you must eschew all other activity and reach a place of unknowing within.' He advises us to '...sink eternally from negation to negation in the One.'

That, 'The Kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead.'

Krishnamurti, said, 'In the 'now' there is nothing. Nothingness is supreme intelligence. Learn to die to yourself completely.'

Near the end of his life was advising: 'It is only out of nothingness that creation takes place. You must be completely naked, empty, alone to see the reality. Be in a state of negation. Die to the known. See directly, without the thought.'


These sages point out that the only way to reach the formless, the Unmanifest, is incarnation. To know 'god' we have to resemble it, join it, become it.

Then, as Eckhart said, '...in bursting forth, I discover that God and I are one. ... the unmoved mover who moves all things. Here then a god may find no place in man, for by his poverty, that man achieves the being that was always his and shall remain his eternally.'

Jacob Bohme knew this well:

'But the soul's will, in this firelike urge, must ceaselessly sink itself in this nothing.

'When you leave all creaturehood, when you become a no-thing to all nature and creature, then you are in the eternal one—in God himself.

'It is a treasure above all earthly treasures to be possesses of the light of God and Nature operating in their spheres and to have both the Eye of Time and the Eye of Eternity at once open together, and yet not interfering with each other.

'Alas, how hard it is for the will to sink into nothing, to attract nothing, to imagine nothing. Let it be granted that it is so. Is it not surely worth thy while and all thou canst ever do?'

A final passage from the Diamond Sutra: 'Oh, let nowhere abide and generate the Mind.'

 And this:

‘God must act and pour himself into us when we are ready. In other words, when we are totally empty of self and creatures. So stand still and do not waver from your emptiness.

‘Therefore, discard the form and be joined to the formless essence. For the spiritual comfort of God is very subtle. Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.’  (Eckhart)

Perhaps one day, for one second, we may be empty, dead, impartial enough for the Unmanifest to flow in and drench us with its force.

You can find The Wisdom of Being on Buzzword Books. 

Idiot sailor tackles the Bahamas

Inspired by a personal tragedy and plain dumbness, this intrepid fool and neophyte sailor set off from Florida to the Bahamas - and found that things don't automatically go right. Read his account here:

They say that after a personal tragedy, you should wait a year before making any big or important decisions. The wisdom of this is both obvious and self evident. That being said, three days after my wife died, I decided to: quit my job, sell my car, sell my house, give away all my stuff, buy a sailboat and sail the carribbean for a year.

I would become a "Sailorman".

For the next month I pondered this decision deeply. By which I mean I didn't think about it at all. I was too busy being desperately unhappy, missing my wife, and trying to think of a reason to continue what looked to be a long bleak lonely life. Eventually I began to once more consider this vaguely formed idea to head for the "Islands in the Stream", and I immediately leapt into action. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped a DVD into the player, and plopped down on my recliner. I would watch a movie and then think about the future. The movie was a musical called “Mama Mia”, and as I sat there rocking out to ABBA cover songs I realized something; There was a dude in this movie that sailed his boat around the world to exotic places, and then wrote books about them!!!

It was fate, destiny, kismet, some other word that means something similar but that I don’t remember! I could do what he did. I mean, he was a man, I was a man. He was a writer; I wanted to be a writer. He had a sailboat; I could probably get a sailboat.

Only two things stood between me and the realization of my dream. I wasn’t sure I could write (or even spell), and I was completely sure I couldn’t sail a boat.

This book is not about sailing, although I do sail (poorly). It's a book about a clueless dweeb, who dreams of trying to accomplish something that he is not trained for, is constitutionally built to fail at, and is so abjectly terrified of, he cries himself to sleep thinking about it.   Him, not me, real men don’t cry. They whimper softly, then fart from the effort of holding in the sobs.

In The first seven sailing days on my boat I: got a concussion, ran aground breaking my $4000.00 rudder, caught a flesh eating disease, almost losing my foot and my life, had my identity stolen, sprang a leak and began sinking, was rammed by a multi-millionaire in a huge yacht, was almost run down by a humongous cruise ship in the gulf stream between Florida and the Bahamas, and got a blister.

After that, it got a little hairy.

I wrote this "Diary" as a series of E-Mails to family, and friends I met as I traveled. I am told that they would often take them to bars with other friends, or just have a party. Read them aloud, and laugh their asses off.

Because disaster can be really funny, when it happens to someone else. 

(90,700 words)Check out this new book here

Child molestation, mayhem and murder

True crime relating to children - detailed, searing, forensic, incredible and totally researched.

Introducing one of our newest and most disturbing books - Suffer Little Children - cases of child molestation - a record of man's inhumanity to man.

The stories covered in the collection range from historical to very recent. There is a chapter about the 18th Century torture-murderer Elizabeth Brownrigg, the racist 1955 slaying of Emmett Till and the 1965 Alice Crimmins case.

Other cases include the “Burn Boy” case of David Rothenberg, the famous Polly Klaas case, the murder of child actress Judith Barsi, the molestations committed by “Father” John Geoghan, the torturing to death of Sylvia Likens, the 2011 water-deprivation murder of 10-year-old Jonathan James.

And there's the 1973 case of Poor Little Rich Boy, Jean Paul Getty III, grandson of the wealthiest man on earth.

Denise Noe is relentless in her research and most of the stories appearing here have been previously published. Finally, they are presented together, collated into an ebook. Highly recommended.  (78,000 words.)

To find this book on Buzzword Books - click here.

WHAT CAN I REALLY KNOW?

John Alexandra, author of The Wisdom of Being, tells it like it is. What can I really say I know? And what is the difference between knowledge and being?

I know, for instance, that I exist. And, apparently, so does everything around me. Including the endless, staggering profusion of galaxies that reduces my existential self to less than nothing.

However, it usually doesn't occur to me that this infinity extends in two directions. To the microscopic creatures that live in and crawl over me, to the individual cells of my body, the viruses afflicting me, the load of bacteria in my gut, the colonies on my eyelids.

In other words, I rarely if ever comprehend that I am a miniature universe—perhaps a mirror reflection of the immensity engulfing me.

Then, beyond this microcosm, a further infinity dances—the still incomprehensible mystery of particle physics.

So what, after all, do I know when even the greatest minds are stumped and can't, for example, locate most of the matter of the universe?

I know that I am here?

But what is 'I'?

A tree is here, but, deconstructed, becomes a collection of leaves, an accumulation of cells, a chemical combination, a seed that becomes a tree which seeds again and dies.

Anything reduced to its components vanishes into nothing.

Am I any different?

If I observe my psychology, I find a collection of emotional reactions which in turn prompt associative thoughts and physical tensions. Each potentiates the other. My so-called personality is simply this random collection running in habitual groves, entirely without supervision.

As such, I am an automaton. There is no 'I' to monitor this process—this pinball cavalcade.

Just like the tree, if my psychology is deconstructed, it becomes little more than a process. My 'I' is fictional—self-delusion.

So what can 'I' know when there is no I in my mechanism at all?

Which brings me closer to the truth of myself. I know nothing. Except, at times, vaguely, that 'I' am here.
But even this 'here' is uncertain.
In the midst of my multiform reactions—external and internal—am I aware even for an instant that I am surrounded by a body with sensations?

Are you aware, for instance, now, of the impressions coming from your left foot? Perhaps, of a moment, now that you are reminded. But then the sensation is gone. Because you are back thinking about it. Thinking your life away. Back in your busy head, a function of random thought which has no consistency or weight.

I know nothing. Least of all myself.

Now let's change the question.

What is this universe, that I am apparently a miniscule part of, for? Why is it here? Why does it exist? Why does anything exist?

And, as I am here, to what purpose? Is there something I am expected to do? And, if so, why is my lifespan so trivial? What on earth can be accomplished in a fleeting 75 years?

And does this limitless miracle I inhabit have a purpose? Or is it all just insensate clockwork—a vast, empty, terrifying process?

What, after all, can I know? Why think about such things?

Certainly, we'll never find answers by 'taking thought', because thought is a mechanistic process—an agitation of the mind.

So, if I'm really serious, I need a finer tool for observation.

As Jacob Bohme put it: 'If thou canst for a while but cease from all thy thinking and willing, then....the eternal hearing, speaking and seeing will be revealed in thee.'
Is it true? Or simply the ravings of a medieval mystic?

The answer to all questions comes when we abandon our habitual linear thinking and enter the arena of Being.

If I can abandon myself entirely—equivalent to psychological death—something new appears. The energy, previously consumed by my churning, reactions to life, is freed. Free attention. Suddenly, I begin to BE.

Some call this shift entering the NOW. I no longer think in the old way. Thought becomes a watchfulness that does nothing but observe. A finer energy infuses me that resolves all contradictions.

All questions are resolved at that moment. Suddenly, I have everything I need. Nothing is absent, wished, required. I simply, inclusively, AM. But not I. Because there is only one thing, not two.

Of course, next moment, the vision is lost and I am back in the process of myself.

But if I can find the door to this once, I can find it again.

What remains—is offered—is to open the life to this quest. Or, in other words, to this inner tuning, alignment, listening. To the unmistakeable, revolutionary certainty of becoming.

But I can't do it. 'Doing' is the old. A process in time.

And the NOW is not in time at all! NOW stops time.

Therefore, all I can 'do' is BE.

As the Zen sage Baso put it:
Miraculous deeds and acts of wonder.
I carry water. I fetch kindling.
In short, I join the universe. And fulfil my destiny and purpose.

You can find The Wisdom of Being on Buzzword.