After I decided that I was, indeed, going to stick around on this ol’ earth to see what the fuck was going to happen next I woke up the next morning with what I can only think to describe as an ‘emotional hangover’. I drug myself out of bed and started my coffee, let the dog out, and found myself staring into space on my couch. My head hurt, I felt dehydrated, my stomach was in knots, I wanted to vomit. I still felt my mind plagued with thoughts on distaste for my current situation, anger, and loneliness. You might say that I was only choosing to focus on the negatives.
I’ve been studying a lot recently on how the brain works to process emotions and how it creates thought patterns. Essentially if you consistently live in a certain state, the neural pathways will exist to keep you in that state as it is familiar and what it craves. The whole concept reminds me a lot of addiction, was I addicted to being miserable? I didn’t think so as I could tell you what made me miserable. But was I choosing to be miserable about those things?
I have also been studying on the idea of ego and the most intriguing to me was emotional ego. As I sat on my couch feeling like shit, I took a mental step back. I observed those feelings I described in my body, my body’s reactions to the emotions. I let them be for a minute and then consciously removed myself from them. My consciousness is both entwined and seperate from my body. I felt the part of it that was observing the body and the other part that could see the thoughts and the subsequent reactions only for what they were, thoughts on a situation from the past. It is no longer my present moment.
My present moment was here, on my couch, drinking coffee. I looked around at the different colors in my home, the environment I had so painstakingly crafted. I like it here. The art is meaningful. In fact, how can I forget how loved I am when so much of the things in my home remind me that I am?
I choose to ignore it. I choose misery.
What happens if I choose to only live in the present moment? The right here right now which consistently unfolds into the future? The concept of past, present, and future is truly a perplexing one to think on as neither truly exists. But if the present only exists second to second does it exist either? Even as I typed that present moment is already gone. Are we living in a constant state of both past, present, and future as our seconds unfold into all three states simultaneously?
I meditated on this concept for a part of my afternoon, probing my memories and my present moments. Trying to truly expand and experience the layers of my own consciousness and how far it went. What were its limits? Where did these thoughts come from? What was the source? Why could I think on all of this and also still have a song from earlier playing in the background of my thoughts?
I actually fell asleep for a few moments and when I woke up, I felt a very strong sense of peace. Here I was, in the now. The past was not now. It could only affect me if I chose to ruminate on it. The unknown of the future can only affect me if I choose to ruminate on it. But in the present now, what was there to experience other than contentment of my own company?
I poured myself a nice little glass of soda water and continued a book by Elkhart Tolle that I had been reading off and on on my vacation and very soon it dived into this very concept that I had been exploring in the afternoon. The synchronicities of the universe make no mistakes.
I spoke with my sister before I left about the idea of ‘letting go of the rope’ in life. There’s a common mindset I find myself in where I feel as if I am on a dock holding onto a rope with all my might that is attached to a ship in the water. As the current tries to take it, I sweat and struggle. I get pulled along inch by inch even as I turn around and heave to continue pulling it backwards. But it keeps forcing me forward. In my own fear, I want to keep it with me and docked where I can see it. But there’s no bigger sense of relief than when you let go of the rope, feel it whip through your hands, stand back, and watch it set sail.
The letting go of the rope is truly the only time life can set sail. There is no true control but only an ego’s desire to arrogantly decide its and others path. There is no story to unfold but instead a series of just right nows to continuously choose to experience and how.
I like it, Picasso!
