Blind to the Vivid Reality

If whatever I write, or draw, or make, or do, is to be fresh and new, and not simply more of the same, however pleasant and comfortable that same may seem, must I not make sure that I am myself fresh and new? Must I not be my own peaceful revolution, and free of my usual thought pattern, with all its familiar repetition and redundancy? Must I not be willing to dispense with the ordinary thought process altogether, and its constant recycling and rearranging of experience, memory, and the little I know? For how can I appreciate, how can I fathom, how can I relish this miracle of living, if I am bound by such chains? What good are words like Be Here Now, if I am, in truth, caught in the past and so enamored of what and who I think I am, that I am blind to the vivid reality those three words individually and collectively contain?

“Be Here Now,” Poems, Notes, and Drawings, Page 1353, January 23, 2022.

Isn’t it so? The future is a mirage, an assumption, an exercise in fearful or wishful thinking. The past, though it makes a compelling story, can’t be relied upon, because it changes according to interpretation, the whims of memory, and layers of added experience. Being is beyond time, place, or memory. Simply put, if I’m not here now, when and where else can I be? I’m already everything, everywhere; I always have been, and will be, even when I’m forgotten and nowhere to be found.

[ 2028 ]