I think I’m getting it
I sometimes flatter myself that I’m getting down to basics in the study of this wonderful creation that a human being is.
I’m of course flattering myself but more on that in a minute.
I say that as a result of noticeing something that existed entirely in what Werner Erhard called the background of obviousness.
It was so obvious that it totally escaped my attention.
It started out by my noticeing that I felt depressed and looking for the cause.
I then saw that I have two categories into which I divide events: (A) the ordinary and (B) the extraordinary.
I then noticed that I live for the latter and get depressed when I hang out too long or too often in the former (as in a year-long lockdown).
I see that I’m not alive in the ordinary moments. I’m not here. I go unconscious.
Then I saw that I’m unconscious a lot of the time. I was amazed to see that.
That noticeing directly addressed why I feel depressed a lot of the time when I’m home alone. I have a vasana against ordinariness, an intolerance towards it. If I spend too much time in ordinariness, I feel depressed.
I’m reminded of something my twin flame, Annastara, once said: “You are not a person where there is ever room for mediocrity. It does not exist within you.” (1)
I know what she’s referring to. I tend to move fast and get frustrated and annoyed when slowed down. I tend to favor graduate seminars over junior classes. I get impatient with people who put blocks in the road. (2)
To see this way of being, I had to notice what I was keeping hidden from myself. One part of me had an agreement with the Observer not to reveal to anyone that I walk around unconscious a lot of the time.
I had to notice what existed in the background of obviousness. Ordinariness is so obvious that I don’t even consider it to be part of my life or story.
What did you do today? I made myself breakfast. I had coffee. I picked up some lint off the carpet.
I’m left speechless. I’m “not home” in a whole side of my life. And whenever I’m in that space, I’m hungering for the extraordinary and depressed if nothing occurs. That’s the vasana, laid bare.
(To be concluded in Part 2, below.)
Footnotes
(1) Annastara in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Dec. 9, 2010.
(2) Something I made a career of, as the runt of the litter. No one went on a trip till I got what I wanted.