Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I’m half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I’m not too hard persuaded.
2. The Worm’s Waking
(by Rumi)
This is how a human being can change:
there’s a worm addicted to eating
grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace, whatever, something
wakes him, and he’s no longer
a worm.
He’s the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn’t need
to devour.
3. Throw Yourself Like Seed
(by Miguel de Unamuno)
Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
That brushes your heel as it turns going by,
The man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.
Now you are only giving food to that final pain
Which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
But to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
Is the work; start there, turn to the work.
Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
And do not let the past weigh down your motion.
Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,
for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;
From your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. –Muriel Rukeyser
There is a world of atoms (the physical world or so-called objective reality). But that’s not the world we inhabit. It isn’t even possible for us to inhabit that world—at least not directly.
Even if all our senses are intact and our brain is functioning normally, we do not have direct access to the physical world. It may feel as if we have direct access, but this is an illusion created by our brain. –Chris Frith, Professor in Neuropsychology, University College London
And…
Asleep vision (dreaming) is perception that is not tied down to anything in the real world; waking perception is something like dreaming with a little more commitment to what’s in front of you. –David Eagleman, Incognito
The world we actually inhabit is made up of the stories we construct about the objects, events, and people in the physical world. Our stories are based on our impressions and perceptions of what’s out there. The problem is that we treat our impressions and perceptions—and the stories based on them—as if they are real and true.
The world of atoms constantly impacts us. And as it does, we are constantly interpreting, explaining, and assigning meaning to what happens. From moment-to-moment, we’re not aware of how much we don’t know, how much we’re missing, and how much high-speed processing our unconscious brain is doing to generate our impressions and perceptions.
We’re not robots or androids, nor would most of us choose to be. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lieutenant Commander Data was an android who inhabited the physical world and not the world of stories. He was superior to humans in a number of different ways. He didn’t make the kinds of mistakes people often make. Yet after spending time with humans, he opted to have an “emotion chip” installed so he could be more like us. He got a pet, an orange cat named Spot (who had no spots). There’s no logical reason to have a cat when you live on board a spaceship. Data’s cat signaled his entrance into the very human world of stories.
All of us, both individually and collectively, are driven to create and tell stories about our experience and then to believe that our stories represent reality. It’s how we make sense of life. The consequences can be amazing, amusing, or devastating. But whether our stories are good or bad, as long as we don’t recognize them for what they are, we’re imprisoned by them.
Believing that reasons are responsible for what we feel, think, and do is a habit of thought that has many characteristics of an addiction. We have to have reasons. We can’t imagine living without them. Coming up with a good reason for something is one of the most satisfying experiences we can have.
Even when we recognize–conceptually–that reasons don’t actually exist and that the reason habit is self-destructive and delusional, we still can’t just quit reasons cold turkey.
So here’s a 4-step program that may help.
Step 1
Admit that you can’t do (or not do) anything without having a reason for it.
I did (or didn’t do) Y becauseof X.
You can’t think, feel, or do anything other than what you think, feel, or do because reasons cause you to think and feel certain things—and do (or not do) the things you do. You are at the effect, and at the mercy, of all the causes surrounding you. You are powerless. A pawn in the Game of Life. (Too melodramatic? Not really.)
Step 2
Question the assumption that reasons have both an independent existence and a direct cause-and-effect relationship with what you think, feel, and do.
X happened, and so I decided to do (or not do) Y.
Take a deep breath. Insert yourself into the equation. When you take some responsibility, you also regain some of your autonomy and power. Notice your reaction.
Step 3
Recognize that no direct cause-and-effect relationship necessarily exists between what happens (or what happened–especially in the far distant past) and what you think, feel, or do.
X happened and I did (or didn’t do) Y.
When you stop habitually turning situations, events, conditions, encounters, and incidents into reasons, you reclaim even more of your power. Notice that far more possibilities exist than you may have previously recognized.
Step 4
Free yourself from the habit of creating reasons to justify and explain every little thing. Just do it. Or don’t do it.
I did (or didn’t do) Y.
Discover and exercise your amazing ability to simply act. Experience the freedom of being a cause rather than an effect.
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. –Muriel Rukeyser
