Why? Why go on?
In playing get to know you, somebody asked me a similar question, what motivates me, what moves me.
What motivates me? I do. Fear, occasionally, and not when I can help it. Desire, sometimes. Curiosity, often. "I wonder if..."
What moves me? Things that surprise me. Emotions that surprise me.
In many ways, it's the same as, why be good? Why, anything?
Have you ever tried to not go on? To have not moved on when everything around me has - that is hell.
Isaiah goes on to suggest a few motivators; family, friends, careers, stuff. Hm; nope, nope, nope. The experience. That motivates me. Love of the experience. Like this, right now, the sound and feel of the keyboard; city spread below me, wind, hum of the air conditioner, a little tightness across my back, aftertaste of grapes and soy milk, desk surface under my forearms - all this, incredibly rich, for just a moment's thought; I could go on, in wonder. Solitary, to be sure, except, perhaps, where one solitude touches another (or appears to)... but, so full and so complete in itself.
I enjoy living, and so I go on.
Not to say that this has always been the case; this spring was not so fun. A bad practical joke that could never end; I continued to exist because I couldn't cease to exist, but was aghast at how to comport myself toward a world that doesn't. Weeks of waking nightmare.
Questions wander by, catch my eye; I pick them up, look, "huh," let fall from my fingers. Will I ever move beyond this apparent world if I keep enjoying it? Is something more important than the enjoyment? Or am I, already, (as I suspect), seeing what has always been there, just the things that most never notice? Is there anything more? The questions are nothing, rhetoric hoping to catch a hold of the real. (And what is real?)
Does it matter, to us, the living? So I pose my counter-question: why not?
8 comments:
"Why not."- Well, of course, why not- why didn't I think of that?
I will revist your post soon(my head really hurts after posting such dribble.)
Off subject:
I tagged you. I'm apologizing in advance. See my blog and follow orders (just do it, OK?)
"I continued to exist because I couldn't cease to exist..." That sounds very much like what I've read about Ramana Maharshi's breaking through the veil.
The game is here because heaven is boring. Brahman said, "let me be many." We go on.
Real or not real? You know what is real, your mind is real, the mind that is in the body that sits in the office and has those experiences, etc, whether in the 'now' or not, you are there having the experience, one way or another. That will never change.
So, Why? or Why not? What? Be there? Go on? Even outing would be being, just a bad way of being, you have to think. Why give up?
Good questions but aren't the answers already there, if so then it is a matter for consciousness, what do you want to be conscious of? You are your heart, is your mind, is your soul, is YOU. The body is its' helper.
"Or am I, already, (as I suspect), seeing what has always been there, just the things that most never notice? Is there anything more?"
Julie- this seems to mirror what Jim observes,"...but aren't the answers already there, if so then it is a matter for consciousness, what do you want to be conscious of?"
This is also in keepig with what my friends Meredith and Aki remind me of often ("what is it that you are aware of... what holds your awareness?")
"I continue to exist because I couldn't cease to exist."
That's awesome!
Why not?- I believe (and I could be wrong here) that people would tend to find more reasons why not go on that why go on....it's a shitty, violent, cruel, unforgiving and cold world to a large percentage of people who have no one except themselves.
If you can love yourself for who you truly are, then I believe you can suffer most anything.
There is nothing wrong with not going on.
There are probably about the same number of reasons for going on as for not...
Maybe no one knows the real reason...
I'd once have been inclined to go with your reason - experience itself. But at this point I'm 12 years into an incurable progressive illness featuring widespread intractable pain and being too fragile to leave the house anymore - literally not for a year and a half, never will again till I'm carried out.
Definitely not living for the experience! Maybe I'm living in spite of it.
"I enjoy living, and so I go on."
That statement says it all. For me, that is the only reason I need.
I have found a place in my life where contiplation of why, who, where, when, what, etc. etc. Is a privalage. I enjoy doing it but the reality of it is the vast majority of the world would answer, "Because I have to; my very survival depends on it."
As far as I see it, the contemplation of why is a nonissue. The answers will vary from person to person and culture to culture.
We are the lucky ones. We have the time and place to wunder on such trival subjects.
Although I do not subscribe to any organized religion or faith, I do enjoy reading the thoughts and opinions of this little cyber clique.
I perticularly enjoy your writings.
Thanks
PS I am Isaiah's brother in-law
I simply go on. Even when I didn't want to.
Isaiah; because the other half of the equation had to show up someplace.
Jon; I've never read Maharishi... but this doesn't surprise me. Does there have to be a reason? We do go on.
Jim; good response. I'm just playing, per usual, by writing the post in the first place. Anything to confound logic!
Isaiah... good. What more to add?
Darius; is the question as important as the answer? More? Less?
Experience is a nice human thing to have - even pain, I'm finding, is still incredible, for being able to be experienced. I think it's possible to let the same old thing be fresh and new day after day, minute after minute, every moment new.
I'd come visit you in a moment.
Buford; welcome, and glad to see you. "why is a nonissue." - I like that. I'm honored that you enjoy my wandering thoughts.
Imemine; at times, that's all I have, too. At the bottom of the stack, still is all I have...
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