“Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life.“Hunter S. Thompson

Last Sunday, I was sitting cross legged at the end of the pier at Waimea. It is a favorite motorcycle ride, for two reasons. The most obvious is its sheer beauty and second, it is has the only place where I can get Spicy Bloody Marys in a can. The store reminds me of NYC’s bodegas. It’s right across from the movie theater. I hang a left and park my bike close to the ocean and walk back for my reward.

So, there I was, at the end of the pier, looking out the almost ghostly image of Ni’ihau, just thinking. My pre-cocktail is always a bag of “sea-salted” cashews, grossly over-priced and very salty. Aside from a minor  transmission leak in my 2000 Lexus and a bald, rear motorcycle tire, I would have to admit to being in fairly good psychological shape.

I am always thinking, not like some crazed, obsessive person, just a guy whose mind works, kind of like my heart. It is always there, doing its thing and the more you try to get hold of it, the faster it runs away. I think the trick is in its rhythm and how you dance with it. As far as I can tell, it always leads and fighting it just increases the speed and it will step on your toes.

It is a handful of days since the pier episode and I have been thinking about it. No, you’re no genius for catching my obvious dilemma. Its language is absolutely unique to each of us, so how the fuck am I supposed to make this into a story? We all do this thing, but how often do we  try to objectify it? I am not talking about what we think about. I am talking about how we think. I know there is a difference, like the difference between “what?” and “why?”

It’s like we each have a vein of our own and all our thoughts emanate from it. No, I stopped doing drugs a long time ago and I am not lost, rather I am trying to find my way. It’s like our mental finger print, unlike any other, unique to each of us. At the same time, we are all clapping together, making one sound that each of hears as if it is ours alone.

I know I have mentioned it, probably too many times already, but I am officially a writer. This has been and continues to be a huge adjustment for me and maybe that’s behind the mental, mind-maze experienced on the pier, but I don’t think so. Well, that’s not really true. Imagine there is something you really enjoy doing and you fit it in to your life when you can? What would happen if you could do it whenever you wanted? These days, it sometimes feels like a dream, because I keep thinking there is something else to do and there isn’t. 

I have also repeatedly mentioned I am the world’s worst Zen practitioner and nobody comes close. I don’t know if the Buddha is to blame for it, but something called mindfulness has become a spiritual industry. I suspect it is even being practiced in corporate board rooms by now. Christ, the Mayo Clinic even has pages devoted to it. I am not a fan of movements, unless it is bowel related. In a way, the Buddha’s whole shtick is about a kind of awareness, opening your eyes, seeing things as they are.

I am a word hen, sitting on my stories until I hatch them. So far, I have never done one I wanted to throw away. I’ll just sit on it a little longer until it can at least pass for an egg. I was probably a little bit hard on the mindfulness business, the cynic escaping its cage. We don’t seem to let anything alone, improving it, renaming it, perfecting it, etc. Listen, I am not a complete idiot and I understand that it is in our nature to always make things better than they are. We also have to be good at anything and everything we do, striving and never arriving.

I gotta go back to the pier now. Through the magic of hindsight, I want to revisit what seemed like an impossible idea. The word I was really looking for is awareness, taken to its extreme, an impossible state of mind and I want to tell you why. It also applies to virtually everything in our lives, but let’s sit on the pier together, for just a minute.

I want to revisit the Buddha, if you don’t mind. Denying our undeniable impermanence, makes us create this idea of perfection as an attainable goal, kind of like an antidote to the inescapable truth. How often are you told to just do something to the best of your ability and be happy with it? There is no perfection, only your finest effort. I guess that is what bothers me most about the incessant “latest and greatest” labeling.  

The best I can hope for me in my life is a sincere effort to achieve imperfect awareness. What that means is you never stop trying, being as present as you can be at any moment, without driving yourself nuts in the process. Ass parked on the pier, I wanted to disappear and become one with that moment. I didn’t feel bordered by my body and my only thought was how the hell can I write about this to you? 

Those kind of moments are really not meant to be explained with words, but it’s the only tool I got. Being alive as you can be at any moment is God’s gift. I also know it can’t happen unless you think about it, because your thoughts are your antenna. My thoughts are my stories and you receive them with your antenna. 

I know I have said this before, probably too many times, but I am truly grateful for those of you, who take the time to read or listen to my stories. There are infinite distractions out there and I have never for a minute taken you for granted. We are living in such divisive times and if I can bring a few of you together for a couple of minutes, how cool is that? 

Very cool.

PS: Sorry, I can’t help myself here. The devastation in Gaza defies description. A recent survey of more than 500 children there, showed that nearly half the children want to die. 96% of them fear imminent death. Yet, we are criminalizing pro-Palestinian advocates in this country. I am still publishing the story, but just reading this news makes me feel a bit foolish. I read this and I don’t give a fuck about global warming.

LISTEN TO IT HERE:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16276710-thinking-about-thinking