And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
How many times might Jesus ask us…why? What is He after? Is He after our answer as an un-knower in seeking out knowledge? That He might learn something if we have an informed enough response? (I’m persuaded most I know would chuckle at that proposition)
Or is it something else? Perhaps like “what is your standing, whence your standing upon?” From what and which do your actions take form and proceed? Do you know? At all? Along with all attendant thought processes by which action proceeds.
And not so He might know…but that we might.
O! my, how deep might this probing be? If I do answer, do I not de facto open the door to this “game” of pursuits and pursuing?
Can I pretend enough to not have heard the question? To not involve myself in this game?
Knock, knock…
Knock, knock…
Knock, knock…
OKAY! OKAY!…”Who’s there?”
Red pill or blue pill…do we “want” to know, or do we not want?
(Again) O! my, where might this lead…could it even lead to the “why” of want?
And who has right to ask that “why?” Does any? Do any? Is there any, are there any with right to know “our” why…to the point that they have right of answer? Who started this game anyway…?
(Who started this silly writing might be more the present question)
Just a silly child. Just a silly child that has found that even if in the valley of decision, where all appears up as option or optional for choice and choices, there is one undeniably off the table for consideration, and that made so, just by his being.
He had no choice in that, to be thrust into that place, this place…of deciding. Thrust of no choice of his own into that, this valley. He was made (created) and made (forced) in that making…to be here.
All around are choices, everything appears to call for it/them…appeal for them, make demand for them, so that his ears are now numb in their suffusing…and certainly to, especially to, that curious self help helper guru who states…”Remember, everything is a choice”. Yes, yes…okay okay okay…I get it, I get it. I get it. Everything hangs in a balance. Tomorrow will be the result of today’s choices. I…get…it. Even that each second following another will be according to choice made in that previous.
But…I didn’t choose to know…about choice and choices…it, this knowing of them, appears as surely thrust to me as my being, as though I can foolishly consider non-being as what being is not, like I have that horsepower in my consciousness. Or think I can even now choose not being. (And no, I don’t think(?) I have chosen to be a fool…but…)
What is the why?…the why, of why I both am, and find myself here in this valley? That I am, I do not doubt. That I am in a place laden with choice(s), neither do I doubt either.
I do find a prohibition against speaking for you, that you in particular that may read. I have no power to accuse, nor any power to enforce agreement. You are who you are. Who and what you are you answer in every moment with your being. And I can only say, I do so no less. It is not as though I am responsible to myself to be that who or what I am, it is simply that there is no escaping it. (Have you been able?)
And if we have at all common experience and might even say (as to ourselves) “but now I will be different”, even if born of a deepest longing, desire above or beyond all desire, and by which we supply and apply our will to effect…do we see it does not matter? It is still an “I”…just seeking to be different. It is like a child showing pictures of himself…”this is me in the swimming pool, this is me riding a bike.” This is me choosing, choosing to be different…or even, this is me choosing to not choose.
Whenever we touch our “I” (and, is that avoidable?) we touch the unavoidable of all, of no choice. Yet…now in a seemingly choice filled place. Red pill or blue pill? See how deep the rabbit hole goes…or wake up in the morning as though none of this ever took place? Does it matter? One cannot but make the choice they do…anymore than they can choose not to be…who they are.
Listen, I am not ignorant that these things can be discomfiting. Or, that if received as blithely written, it is simply a man by spreading words is trying to ameliorate some strange frustration(s), or matters springing from those. Does it matter, at all, what I am? To me it might (at best) be of some matter, but how any perceive me is as out of my hands as me trying to not be…me.
But, in regards to that, do you doubt that I have ever sought to be a something other? A “better” me…by whatever metric might be applicable…by me? A smarter me? A more successful me? A more knowing me? Go down any and every list imaginable of words that might be stuck in front of man…kind man, patient man, clever man, wise man, intelligent man, wealthy man, talented man, artful man, yes “better” man, as modifier…and I will not deny I have sought such modifiers to indeed modify the thing inescapable if left of itself…that thing which left unmodified I am both ill at ease with, and forever seeking to improve upon (by metrics I have had no choice in)… just a man. Yes, I have even tried on even the grandest of all (by metrics thrust to me) a spiritual man.
And by no means have I tried all on, I am not nor ever have been doctor man, lawyer man, President man, councilman, electrician or plumber man…in matter of career and seeming choices thereof. Those are not what I meant in list of modifiers…yet they are, aren’t they? And no less. I indeed was once a sales man (some may say, even now) but that was just as ill fitting (though I tried, I think I really did, at least to the extent I was moved by wanting to be a wealthier man that it seemed to hold some promise of). The modifiers are always ill fitting as hard as we may seek to establish them, and I am convinced, it is not because of themselves, but because of how ill fitting the thing is they seek to modify. Or better, we seek to modify by them. Man. And the very why of why we do…seek them. Yes, I do know what impostor syndrome is.
I have met none but one…content to be…man. And he only speaks…to man. Even as…for man.
Now, there are a billion and more words waiting to be said in regards to that, and I am not at all convinced I should have time for them…but they are there, surely.
And I know there are those who have said, might say, and yet do say…”But you have met him only in mind, even your own mind!” That is true, no doubt. But where else is any man “met”? Even in this instant…you are measuring me. At least the me you are able to perceive. In your own mind. And I am at the same issue, and no less, in this writing. I perceive…a reader. How do I perceive you? The same way you perceive me…in mind.
And what pursuits might be additionally called for in that, that is, if we care to know in some sense…beyond mere perception? What experiments done to “see” if somehow, at least to ourselves, perceptions align with what each of us may call reality? Or, can we never…know anything? One would think reality must be established first in and to each…before any holding against it as for determining truth might be recognized. Do perceptions make the reality, or are perceptions to be held against a real (if one concedes such a thing as “real” self exists) for their determining of actual alignment or spuriousity [sic].
And at least in this I know I am spitting into the wind if thinking I have any ability to communicate with any who do not already know how easily they either are, or have been, deceived by their own mind(s). No, I’ll easily admit to no ability at all. None that extends past the man who knows he has lied to himself.
He alone do I have liberty to address…being just like him.
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