Believe

Believe

Pretty much, everybody has one thing. One true thing you believe in.

Pretty much, everybody has one thing. One true thing you believe in and that you can believe in. There is a teaching somewhere that says just because you believe it doesn’t mean it’s true. You probably know that already.

Yesterday, I had a vision I was back in 1976, or so it seemed. I was exhibiting the proper rolling technique of an aluminum beer keg. I was in Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia is where the University of South Carolina is. Thus, the beer keg. I was a feral child and already possessed great worldly knowledge. Knowing how to properly handle a keg of beer qualifies, for a 17-year-old, up there with particle theory, just below ascended Master.

Anyway, in my vision, we were talking about the turn of the 21st century. In 1976, that was 24 years away. 24 years! We took off our shoes, remember it’s South Carolina, and figured we would be like 42 or 43 years old in the year 2000. Would be if we were on the planet. That whole thing was too hard to contemplate. 43 was a truly unimaginable old age and who wanted to be that old? So, old the music would have stopped by then.

This past Halloween, I turned 58 years old. I hate to think about it, but I know I can’t change it and having it in my head isn’t going to help my already fragile grip. Read a few books, take a knee and think about something just a moment and suddenly, you’re a wisdom teacher. You don’t know the day. Can’t know. That’s when your one true thing becomes the truth that you don’t know. You know nothing. Same day you also recognize the pinnacle of your intellect is back there in 1975, age 16. Boy, I was smart as shit at 16, brilliant.

As the years roll by like that nasty Natty Light keg, you begin to weave the story. Everything relates to thus and such and causes this, or that. Just because you don’t quite believe it has no bearing on the story. The story is kind of a fire and forget thing anyway. The story is beyond your control, often in ways you probably never get.

So then, we think we are defined, or trapped, by our personal story, our history. That stuff exists as thoughts, stuff in our heads. The truth is we can redefine ourselves, make a new story. The personal history, the story, will not get any better nor will it have a happier ending, no matter how many times we tell it. Instead of wasting energy, maybe we should seize the day and start a new narrative. That is, let go of the thought form, the ideas you believe define you. Just because you believe it does not make it true. The next step you take will result in the new now, the first bit of a new story. We have the pen and paper. What we write is in us, not the other way around.

Modern society, at least in what we call the West, is largely, if not completely, based on a consumer driven materialistic idea. Indoctrination is called school and advertising. We are largely domesticated to think right, or wrong. Not only that, almost everywhere are subtle, sometimes not so subtle, messages that show us what we can be if we had the car, the shoes, the whatever. Do not confuse this with a political statement. Capitalism is no the subject matter and it’s an idea, a thought, in itself. The subject here is talking in the head.

In our public lives, our politics if you will, we have what in fancy school is called a duopoly. Again, left or right; wrong way or right way. I happen to like politics myself but that is a different story. But, I will admit a lot of politics is largely message management, content control, the projection of ideas using the exiting matrix. You know, the same way you see Matthew McConnhey in that Lincoln.

Take it to the next logical step and what you end up with is this idea of “happy” as nothing more than the acquisition of stuff. The stuff projected in front of us virtually every moment showing what would happen if only. If only then we would be skinny, smart, happy and content. My idea is to say that there exists no “if only”. If only is just a thought. The if only can take form, like that Lincoln. Then, what we have is this deeply ingrained, constantly reinforced, thought pattern that there exists our fullest expression of who we are only in form, in rich Corinthian leather.

Now, I will certainly admit that when I see Matthew driving that Lincoln, I think how cool that would be. If only I could watch it rain while sitting in a café looking at my Lincoln looking all badass, well, that would be it. I mean, I would have it. I don’t know, maybe. I would certainly have the Zen of Madison Avenue. Look around. See everybody head down on that phone in their hands? They are seekers and they are looking in the wrong place. Then again, what is right, and what is wrong? Can’t always know.

I make jokes about what I call the fast, new, new, new world. The world of head down on phone, Bravo Channel, bathroom confusion and Bruce Jenner is a girl. Being born in 1958 makes the new cubed world more than a bit baffling. My grandfather was born in 1914 and I was lucky to have been around him a lot, particularly the last 10, or so, years he was here with us. He filtered what he perceived as reality from a view point of the 1950s. I say 50s, I don’t know, but you get the idea. Thing is, it worked good for him. Sure, he missed out on the internet thing, the head down thing and, far as I know, he didn’t even know about the Bravo Channel. But, humans haven’t changed much, if at all. The things they carry around maybe, but no huge fundamental difference. The present brain gear, upright posture and all the modern human style is likely around 30,000 years old, or so. In Earth time, you couldn’t even get a good creek, much less a canyon, going. So, blink and gone.

My point here is to ask the question, “Why?”. Of course, the school room answer is the industrial revolution and, later, Henry Ford. And on second thought, who cares? This is where even I get that Henry Ford didn’t flap butterfly wings that blew my way, probably not. But, can’t know.

Which brings us to the point. The point is that this ain’t the dress rehearsal. Turn 58, your parents have left the planet along with a good many other folks you spoke with in this dimension and it has got your full attention, or however much attention you can whip up on an idea that leads to an inevitable conclusion you completely want to ignore. Now, that is something you can maybe know.

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BelieveJ Carey Scott
5 Comments on this post.
  • Randy
    27 March 2018 at 12:19 pm
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    In the world , not of the world. Soujourners meet and say, “you too?” Keep hammering

  • Ken Fuller
    26 March 2018 at 7:51 pm
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    Thanks for making me think and chuckle. Laughter gives you a natural high and releases feel-good chemicals, like the brain juices behind the “high” cyclists feel after a good ride.

    • caret
      26 March 2018 at 9:18 pm
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      You Rock!! Yes, it changes my world! Yessss….Cheers!

    • Carey Scott
      27 March 2018 at 3:19 pm
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      Yes, the pleasure seeking never stops! Know any good shrinks that can help us fight that Devil? Oh boy!!!

  • Nancy Healey
    29 November 2017 at 8:59 am
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    I totally enjoyed this!

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    J Carey Scott