Ideally vs Really

I am strong. In both body and mind.

What people say as I leave a room does not matter, for I am my own worst critic, not them. Not any of them. Yet people remember me. They appreciate that I am strange because I have the ability to convey. I feed them little morsels of truth, of feel good feelings, of light. I see all the hungry people around me.
I have taken the time to discover and the river has taught me to laugh (Hesse 107). I am at peace within and without words. I am learnèd. Meditation has taught me to focus. Cut out the crap--there is not any crap, everything is beauty. One is all. We are all. We are full. I am full.
       I hear in the alliteration of emotion, larger than simplistic syllabic slurs. I listen to the assonance of love. To the onomatopoeic rage. No matter how many ums fill my ears, my voice is breathing the holy om. My voice--louder than that of Mother Culture’s (Quinn 26-29). Thus I sing everywhere I walk and romp and strut. Humans listen. Humans dance and sing. The birds echo. And the fish. I have a message and need to share it with you. I have something to say. You will listen.
I will, because I can and if I don’t, so be it.
This is me ideally.

*

Despite my dysthymia1 I am optimistic. I think. Believing that anything--past or future (especially the future)--is better than this moment right now is much easier than accepting. I don’t want to be anything. I want to be anything other than this. I don’t want to do anything. I want to do anything other than… I sleep too much. Complain too much. Ache too much. Look right now, I’m ranting too much. My greatest fear is myself. I will tell the world I am looking. I want to discover my Self, my Me. But I spend all of my time destroying my mind, my body. Am I a temple or a wasteland?
       I look around and see nothing.
       So what am I really?
       Who I want to be and who I am (or who I think I am, maybe all three) are constantly clashing. People do not help. I am much like Siddhartha; though I genuinely love people, I do not generally trust what they have to offer in terms of knowing. It is why Govinda’s character in Hesse’s novel is so important. His is the voice of reason, the voice of the people. When I admit my truest thoughts often what I hear is, “do not distress your friend with such talk. Truly, your words trouble me” (Hesse 15). Reason encourages silence and repression and people are continually trying to reason with me. I am often interpreted as a negative ninny.

*

         Ideally I would have Siddhartha’s motivation. Or even Julie’s more achievable motivation in Daniel Quinn’s novel, My Ishmael. The simple motivation of completing her homework, of seeking out a teacher, of speaking up for herself. But homework seems so boring in comparison to discovery and travel. Even prayer and meditation are more appetizing actions. Yet, how can I expect myself to meditate if I cannot even start (never mind finish) my homework? So I read books with motivated characters and think oh if only, how amazing would I be? I know I have potential. It feels good to have potential. It feels like death not using it.
I see potential everywhere. I think it is one of the most beautiful flowers; all I do is yearn for its blossoming. Too often, I watch it shrivel. Whether in the name of progress or that of ignorance, I am saddened.
        I too am dwindling, though in my dreams, I am only beginning to bloom.

*

        I do not know what people say when I leave the room. I can hardly even imagine, what goes on in the minds/lives/hearts of others. Though my interactions with others have indicated to me that if I am ever brought up in conversation, it would not be very interesting. Not to say that I am a dull person. Others just tend to dull me until my edges have rounded.
        But I am sure that I am not so strange, that conversation about me in my absence would sound a lot like conversations I conduct about others in their absence. A judgment, either negative or positive. But I’ve noticed that people remember the negative much more than the positive. I seem to receive much more advice than I do acceptance. Still, I am not remarkable enough to have ever caught anyone talking behind my back. No one bothers to spread rumors. Their greatest complaint of me, is that I complain too much.
        I will admit, I do complain. But I do not see how I complain more than others, or louder than others. I often refrain from speaking out loud for fear of sounding whiney. Most of my complaints are trapped up there in my brain, stuck in the airtight tupperware of my skull. There are so many trapped in there, I can’t figure them all out. I only know what is said to me, I cannot fathom what is said of me.

*

        What the gorilla, Ishmael, has taught me is that reason teaches us that our ideal selves would have had to live ideal lives in order to exist. But nothing is ideal, and so we have every excuse not to be our Selves. But what I define as reason is whispered into my ears by Mother Culture. (Quinn 42). Leaver culture must have another word for reason altogether. Maybe it is simply life and thus it can go on.   Through Ishmael, Quinn has put many of my fears of self at rest. I know now that my nature is not wrong. There never was a drop of poison (Quinn 35). In Buddhism, Damien Keown describes an Indian creation myth that unlike the Christians and the Greeks does not blame women for the fall of mankind (32). My nature is not derived from a mistake at all. It is instead a hunger that needs to feed. We must consume something, but what? How important is the answer to this question?
        I want to consume passion. To feed off of the dance and raging pits. I want to get high from belting C notes, blasted on rhymes. In reality I focus on consuming sleep and oatmeal pies. I consume anger. I try to brush away hate but am consumed by grudges.

*

         Buddha teaches anatman; the self is not real (Zornado 1). At first this scared me. If I am not real than why am I doing anything? There is no point. So much of my time is spent in madness for what?  Earlier this year I was confronted with the term derealization, a condition in which one believes that either they are not real, or that they are the only real being in an unreal world. I could not decide which one I believed.
Maybe in Buddha’s language the words were defined more clearly. English tends to lack in many areas, despite its rawness in beauty. After contemplating my self, I realized how selfish I was being, because I thought I was only seeing me. Now I know that the world is not a projection of me. I am simply a small projection of the world. Everyone is a small projection. Everything. We make up a whole vision of entirety. I am not real by myself but we are all real together.

*

        Sometimes I know I’m special. Not any more special than anybody else, but there is something I need to tell people. It sits on the tip of my tongue. It squirms deep down in my cerebellum. I am not quite sure of the words exactly, but I know my self to possess the idea.

Works Cited

Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. New York: MJF Books, 1951. Print
Keown, Damien. BUDDHISM: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.
Quinn, Daniel. My Ishmael: A Sequel. New York: Bantam Books, 1997. Print
Zornado, Joseph. Buddhist and Hindu Terms, Sutras and Assorted Background Information. Rhode Island: English 263, 2014. Print.