I've been thinking about restraint lately. The kind that is individual and universal. Internal discipline for the self and external discipline, reactions to the world. Little world, big world.
For me, it isn't easy to discipline, but once the aim has taken momentum, it changes everything. I am a daydreamer. It is crucial to me to daydream daily, intentionally I alpha state myself (useful tool for choreography). So earlier this month, I daydreamt that I could literally cease thinking erratically/habitually. I decided I'd try just for kicks to check my cynism (I'm too young to be cynical) so I am restraining myself from general negative thoughts. Disciplining the mind, not through control, but unjudgemental surrendering. It's like an active meditation. The solo, sitting meditation is useful preparation, but it is the action of opening up to moments of spontaneous response that transforms moments into LIVING meditation.
This has me looking at the world very differently. Now I am just feeling baby shifts, and all the while the vultures still enter in, the daily suffering continuum. (It's not like I consciously said, I don't want to suffer anymore," that's just impossible). Somehow, I'd become bored, just BORED of living life in the same way, in my mind. Having the same thoughts recur about the same things. I also started more teaching. That will give one discipline, because if you don't have your own, then you cannot give it to your students. Dancing requires an abundance of both discipline and daydreaming. I think most corporations would benefit from mandatory daydreaming siestas for their employees.
This experiment may only be a few weeks old, but the capacity to deliver the opposite reaction to absurd life moments is gaining hold over the usual habitual reaction. This allows for events to unfold with a wild sense of unpredictability.
And this is very amusing.
I think it is important to reinvent one's approach to the world (consciousness), otherwise, I find it more difficult anyway to try to maintain that which I know. Or think I know. Because those things change anyway, without my consent, usually.
What is it to LIVE anyway? Do we ask ourselves enough, or even too much: How are we LIVING? What does that mean? To live? Are we in control? Are we surrendering? Are we in conflict between the two? How is a human really ALIVE with their LIVING?
The intention of purely asking these questions has me aware that I am still a woman in search for the cosmic drop of meaning, but am capable to surrenering up to the designs of an incomprehensible universe of chaos. Mostly, I just summon a curiousity, that usually sets me out of my fear. I want to play with life. Play with it. P L A Y .
In either case,
It's a peaceful night here. Sunset is lasting a long while. The blue is just
finishing leaving.
I think I'll sleep early tonight...outside on my porch. Pretend I am homeless. When my husband goes out to try to find me, he'll trip over my sleeping bag, maybe offer me some food or throw me on the street, not knowing who I am. What would be his expression when my head turtled out of the bag?