I hope that my friend Josh will forgive me, but I am going to quote his recent correspondence with me. I was just sitting in a coffee shop, realizing that I forgot his letter in the car. I just received it and was really wanting to read it. I spent some time doing other things - I have some books and the computer, but the letter kept nagging me. Finally I went back to get it, and started thinking along the way that sometimes you just have to do what you WANT to do. I can read all the Rumi and Plato I want, but if what I really want to do is read a letter, I'll never be in the right mindset. This just clarified my whole experience of life since the summer. I have in that time decreased my outer responsibilities significantly. To the point where I might be considered a vagrant, but when one has nothing in particular to do, you find some interesting things. When all options are still options and therefore equal, I find that I desire one thing. It's almost always one thing. Today it was subsequently going to the bathhouse, changing address, drinking coffee, calling an old friend and acquaintance, walking Mt. Tabor, short meditation, picking up mail, and then meeting a friend. The funny thing about it all is that somehow my life gets ordered and taken care of exactly how I want it to. And here is the subtlety of it. It almost seems that there is one path for me to take. As I take each subsequent step, the next ones become easier. My mood relaxes - joy takes over. I eat when I want. Sleep when I want. Drink when I want, and most importantly dance when I want. It sounds obvious, but I don't think I've ever really lived my life like this. I always have these quiet mutterings telling me what I NEED to do. Blah blah blah. But everything becomes so much easier when I just do what I want.
And here's Josh:
[on travel] "I often do find what I'm looking for, but perhaps only because I usually am looking for something. many of us hit the road without any goal, or with what is the same thing, with a vague goal that is too large. Mine are always too large but never vague. I use travel. It is my tool, not me its. But of course, part of it is really getting lost. Even, for a time, losing sight of one's aim and letting the road control you. Otherwise it wouldn't work to travel, would it?"
It's funny that as I went walking to the car to find that letter I really needed to read, I found my own thoughts articulately echoed. Or maybe it's not funny (as I'm coming to suspect). The ironic element of all this is that as I free myself to my desires, I am actually constricting myself to something very demanding. The life I choose is set for a purpose. My goal is not "vague," so that each moment has a certain meaning. A friend commented recently that my dance is always getting better. I answered, of course it is - I work on it every moment. Whether this is in meditation, changing my posture, eating certain food, relaxing, reading Rumi, whatever - it's all for a very specific purpose. I never lose sight of this on a large scale. Everything starts to shed light on the philosophy of my life - something that will eventually characterize my dance. So to read poetry, yes I'm working on dance.
The other interesting thing about this thought of there being a true path for us to take is that we necessarily lose the trail. I must necessarily take wrong steps. In fact, much of my life could be considered a "wrong step," but it's really the wrong way of thinking about it. If in fact this path is determined by the eventual goal, every "wrong step" is actually helping to clarify that goal. Once that goal is set (will it ever be complete?) to then take a "wrong step" is simply to learn the error. Correction is the game. A life of corrections. Until finally the arrow will fly straight.
