As I lay down awaiting the call of the Sandman, I realize that the stillness of this room creates an environment I can declare as fully suitable for rest...
...And thoughts. Usually at around this time I catch myself doing an informal evaluation of myself. My results have not been good as of late.
Let us rewind to December 2005. I was contemplating out on a porch, sipping on some hot spiced tea as a cool, suburban Los Angeles breeze persisted in pleasantly penetrating my desperately insulated skin... Forgive me. It's just that it was a rare instance my life where I can say I felt truly happy, and more to the point, at peace.
I have always thought that we are in our most human, reckless selves while we formulate and determine why things happen. The length between an actual event occuring and the time we let it go - or the length of time it takes to understand - defines how capable we are from keeping things from getting more fucked up than they already are.
I always thought anticipation played a part in covering for possible bouts of contemplation derived from events. Based on that, you can say that I can worry up a storm, and that detrimental scenario was more frequent since I got a job.
Worry, in its own way, is down there with fear. And let me tell you, if you feel any of these two, or if possible both at the same time, we lose our chi, our scales get tipped, natataranta tayo, call it whatever you want to, it pisses the hell out of us.
Well, out of me, at least. But I hope you get the idea. It takes a lot for a human being to say he or she is at peace, considering that point of view.
When one is at peace, he or she has no immediate worries. The disillusioned and responsible person who claims he is at peace has two reasons for saying so: he has all his concerns covered, or he's six feet under.
That being said, you can conclude that peace can be defined as the freedom of the mind to exert effort on thoughts on a grander scale.
So I was at peace back then. And I recall that my mind was devoted to completing the piece regarding the difference of faith and reason. That faith goes beyond reason, in the sense that that way of thinking acts as servitude to a higher power as opposed to prioritizing self.
And at the time of this idea's conception, it seemed like a good thing to follow. Little did I realize that time was the true test of the potency of following faith.
It has been approximately 10 months since my initial thoughts on this matter surfaced. Sad to say, the peace has gone, the freedom has gone. I am now back to concentrating on more immediate things. But somewhere along the way things turned out a little bit different from what I expected to return to.
Experience has taught me that a day fulfilled is a day with satisfaction. It sounded like a good principle to uphold, until its caveat was realized: there are factors involved.
Stress is one factor. Let's not start. I cannot begin to describe the torment derived from a place that I am forced to go to 5, if not 6 days a week. I shall have another article prepared for this; not unless you need a blue job (see previous article).
It lowered my expectations regarding the spiritual legitimacy and quality of what an accomplishment is. Now, a day with satisfaction is a day fulfilled.
This is because I'm losing my patience. I'm losing my patience because I'm yielding to pride. And damn it... I'm yielding to pride because I'm back to bowing down to reason.
God... help me. Please.