Perhaps most revelatory was the way in which Out of Your
Mind made me (re)consider myself. Specifically, although I would long agree
with the assertion that I am smart, perhaps, depending on the topic, even
wicked smart, I would never have agreed with the statement that I was in any
way a deep thinker or philosophizer. I have always held the butterfly effect as
a self-evident truth, and so to see Watts argue for the same idea as a type of
philosophy (“if a given star out in the universe didn’t exist, you would be
different from who you are now”) was startling. This is not, it seems, a given
for all. Likewise, although I have tried six ways to Sunday, I know with every
fiber of my being that there is pure veracity in the succinct assertion that
you “can’t love on purpose.” Seeing so many of my beliefs printed in black and
white by a man known for the quality of his thoughts, I am reconsidering
whether the various friends who lean on me for advice might know something
about me that I did not.
Watts also provided the anecdote that largely solves for me
one on the enduring mysteries of self I’ve never understood. For many, many
years, Americans and foreigners alike have proclaimed me “not really American.”
Given that I have tendencies to be opinionated, forthright, loquacious, and often
a bit loud, I’ve never quite understood…and no one has ever provided me a satisfactory
response. Watts, though, ah, he has given me a response. For he writes of the
Zen koans for exploring questions like, “if your parents never met, would you
be here? If your parents met other people and had children, would one of those
children be you?” And questions like these, well these are simply my favorite
rabbit holes of all time. Since no one else I know falls down the same holes, I
figured I was just weird or crazy (or both), but then to see in print that this
is actually a thing….the lightbulb went off and I finally understood why so
many people have declared me not really American. Closer to home, this one anecdote
illuminated why life at home was such a challenge:
he cannot stand when I ponder such questions, but such musings are an inherent
part of my nature. Suppressed or explored, one of us always felt the tension. Or,
as Watts writes elsewhere, “people who are interesting are people who are interested.”
(Touché?)
When I read that we spend an awful lot of energy trying to
make our lives fit images or what life is or should be, I nearly cried: would
that someone had prepared me for that reality 20 years ago. Likewise, when Watts
asks “who said you could get the better of life,” I was dumbstruck by the
simplicity of a notion I have spent most of my adulthood fighting – you can’t outwit
the universe. And although it’s easy to wish I had known and understood these
pearls of wisdom years ago, I am wise enough now to appreciate that only the present
is real, and grateful that I’ve figured this out at 40 rather than 80.
For many years, I was too focused on the front of the
embroidery – that neat, tidy picture, to consider how the back of the
embroidery was eating away at me. As Watts might say, the messiness required
for the beautiful picture was a game not worth the candle. My one disagreement
with him, though was where he urged his reader not to be caught looking at the
back of the embroidery. It seems to me that such close examination – of a
duration such that one is almost sure to be caught – is a necessary precursor
to being able to “claim your life and proclaim with gusto, ‘I’m responsible.’”
For, yes, I had created the beautiful embroidery, but it wasn’t until I was
willing to take ownership of the mess underneath that I could even begin to
extract myself from it….even at the cost of unmaking a goodly chunk of that
beautiful and much-admired image on the front.
And when you’ve a lot of messiness underneath your life,
regardless of whether others see it or know that it’s there, it’s hard to have
fun. I laughed out loud when I read that “people get terribly compulsive doing
things they think they have to do” because that revelation, for me was
the revelation that set me on a new path. I needn’t divulge all the gory
details here, but suffice it to say, from setting a quota on the number of
books to be read in a year; to miles to be run, swum, or biked; to calories to
be consumed (or not), I’ve known my share of compulsions. All have one thing in
common: they suck the fun out of whatever activity is in play, so that each new
outlet becomes a new chore, one more task to be marked off the long list of
daily activities.
Watts writes that to spread joy, you need to have joy, and that
is the emotion that leaks from each page. Out of Your Mind is not
written to be humorous, but again and it again, Watts’s approach filled me with
warmth and appreciation. He’s not advocating “being flabby.” It’s “taboo to scream
in a hospital.” (Someone should have told me before I did just that the last
time I was in one. Admittedly, through the fog of many sedatives I did notice mine
were the only shrieks rending the air.)
It was his closing that seared me though. “When you discover
that there is nothing to cling to and there isn’t anybody to cling to them,
everything is quite different. … You feel almost that you are walking on air.” In
case anyone is confused, America is a bit of a dumpster fire these days. And
yet, personally, I’ve never felt lighter or happier. This feels like a
dangerous admission, but I somehow feel Watts would understand.
Five stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment