You are Fortunate
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You are fortunate.

To be human, but also during this time and place in the history of creation: when the great societies are shifting toward a freer peace, away from brutal simplicities.

I don't know what humanity will do with its time in the universe, whether it will be invested softly and eagerly or if perchance the light will burst like a firecracker and not spread.

It's not up to me to know such distant facts, ones which we all now living play a part to change.

On the near I shift more: It's a hazier game but at least somewhat fruitful.

While the long-term trajectory of humanity is at the two ends, either brutal and short or long and majestic, the short-term situation crafted now is almost silly in comparison.

Who are we to decide our fate?

We can't: The Mystery of the universe does that, and the illusion we give ourselves of the short-time here is absurd.

The concern you have for today, tomorrow, the next week and probably even the next decade will pale in comparison to Humanity's Total Achievements, or even more starkly, the Universe's Total Achievements.

We have no trouble getting locked into the short-term future, or at least, dear perceiver, I have no trouble.

When the pressures of life build, you should channel yourself into the growth of the soul, the mind.

It is there that refuge exists, not in the external world.

If a hostile threatens your life, you cannot defeat them by playing their game.

You must play a higher-level game, a better, purer game.

The hardest fact I have to keep in mind is that there is no highest-level game.

With every level you add, more nuances and strategies can be played, to whatever end in life you want to play them.

It's like the vibrant ecosystem of a rain forest.

While the nonexistence of a perfect strategy can be disorienting, there is no better cure than actual play.

Knowing that can give the hope to continue to improve your own systems.

There is insight into existence here.

You can always find a better way, so stop trying to find the best.

When you have settled, you need to shift.

You can't build a castle out of a house: You need more fundamental bricks.

I get locked into a mode of thinking, trapped in a timeframe that holds no reasonable meaning.

Feel the sounds of existence for a moment, and say what you are glad for.

I'm glad for light.

I struggle with the question of action, yet action does not give meaning, thought doesn't give meaning.

What's true is not necessarily so.

Maybe it's the rebelling against authority, the vain struggle of the ones who give up power to the ones who snatch it.

You aren't free when there is an enemy within you.

Of course this is true, of course the divided mind cannot stand.

It takes not only hard work but also time, the most precious resource, to break apart the chains within you and realize the absurd cosmic joke of it all.

That won't set you free either, because the mind alone soon withers.

No, friend, you need to feel the universe, the Mystery of reality, agree with your newfound chainless being.

That doesn't come easy: You can never reach perfection, but you can reach toward it.

Do you want to do the work?

You can't know how able you are: the Mystery must decide.

That's quite a long way from now, anyhow, perhaps.

Give it a try though.

There is no right way, there is no fast way.

There is no easy way.

There is only one way, but it's different for each of us.

We never travel down the same path twice, not physically, temporally, emotionally or mentally.

It's hard for me to grasp, but no one has lived my experiences before, or at least no one I could communicate with.

That means that no matter how bad you think you screwed up, it's not half as bad as last time.

Stop.

What do you think the reason is for your life?

No, it's probably not that, no matter how sure you feel.

No one can tell you, doubtfully can you even tell yourself.

It may not be for love, or beauty, or goodness or honesty.

Those things are nice and all, but they swiftly lose their interest, on a certain high-level.

I'm not saying ignore them, because of course your mind is for your body, but the body is sometimes easily distracted.

The body has deep wants, too.

Let me show you something.

Imagine a clear blue sky.

Did you see only that, or did you quickly fantasize and imagine new trails?

I get lost in some of mine, and the body becomes frustrated at the mind's inability to create with precision.

That's me, at least.

You have to change your physical remembering, if you want to progress.

What is in your line-of-sight you will remember, so you must shift your location to suit a free being.

Not doing so can be the most costly mistake of your existence.

I warn and know it's not easy, at least for me.

Why not do it?

Anything you have now could be taken away later, and it's better to use it while you can.

The greater joys must be imaginary: They won't come to a person seeking them.

They come to the person who seeks themself.

What do you hope to find?

You will find something worthwhile.

What could it be?

It's likely not to be what you think, else you would already have thought it.

Is it peace, hope, passion?

These are likely byproducts of the quest, but you probably cannot reap them from the plant without first growing it.

I'm sorry I feel so inadequate.

It doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't, really.

Think of the first introspective animal, think of Mystery peering down on you.

Seriously friend: Stop comparing yourself to those who sought themselves.

What are you looking for?

What were they looking for?

I'm looking for the solution to my animal, the union of mind and body, spirit and soul.

It's that awful connection that gives pain, that gives suffering.

When your mind wants, but the body does not, how distraught we can become.

I am looking for how to please my body and my intellect, my morals and my interests.

Given the first axiom---life can always be played on a higher game---I'm both sure there is an answer and that it is not the final one.

I don't care where the difficulty is: I want to explore.

It's this conscious/unconscious divide, the Human/animal dilemma that bugs me.

It's not that I place Human on a pedestal, higher than its creator, but because I intend to place them on equal ground that the differences become meaning, disconcerting.

If neither the emotion nor the intellect is in charge, who makes the rules?

Not that rules are necessary, but neither is design by committee.

I have a gut feeling in the Higher-Level-Game proposal, so what is the higher level to this mind/body duality?

Of course it can't be answered simply, I know.

Given time and work, enough inroads will emerge.

That's how it has always been.

See, Plan, Do, Check: the Polya answer.

What are you trying to do?

What is the aim, what is the question?

Uniting mind and body, holding neither above the other: finding the viewpoint where they are on equal levels.

When they are equally important, one's life can be more balanced and the existential angst of the mind will be satisfied by the body.

Or something?