CURRENTS
Resting up
I'm resting up. I've been resting up for several years now. If this strikes you as an excessive allocation of time for an activity so...well, non-active, then you probably have never needed several years of rest.
Many of Western Civ's children (read: victims) believe certain grand falloons (a term coined by Kurt Vonnegut Jr) which means 'a relatively harmless lie'. Whether it's harmless or not is up for debate. But the lie I'm thinking of is:
We all have jobs to do, and we need to stay busy at those jobs all of the time.
Busy busy busy.
Another line from Vonnegut. Cat's Cradle. The Books of Bokonon:
Round and round and round we spin,
with feet of lead and wings of tin.
and...
If you want to see what's inside a grand falloon,
just peel off the skin of a toy balloon.
So, in regards to the busy busy busy style of existence, I believe something that is at odds with Western Civ. And that is:
Not all of us were meant to have jobs. Not all of us were meant to stay busy at any jobs any of the time. Not all of us were meant to be busy busy busy.
Point being, some of us need DECADES of rest. A few weeks or years simply will not effectively 'do the job'.
And we don't necessarily need to be able to explain why we need that rest. It may very well be that the explanations are hidden from us. Perhaps I was bust at work in a Malaysian sweat-shop for 59 years in my last life. Perhaps I was a guest in one of the popular Nazi death camps during the big war of the last century. Perhaps I was an African slave woman who was forced to work in the cotton fields of the South. That would explain my needing decades of rest.
We do this dance in Western Civ. We try to explain everything.
When we can't explain everything to our (or other's) satisfaction, we avail ourselves to the mechanistic yet mystical ministrations of the psychologist. Our modern-day tea-leaves reader, our contemporary Tarot pro.
I believe something else that is totally at odds with Western Civ. And that is:
Some things can't be explained. Some things just ARE. If everything had a reason and every question had an answer and every riddle had a resolution, none of this would be necessary (life, that is).
We could just read the manual, and not bother running the program. There would be no real reason to think, or wonder, or experience, or collate our experience into meanings. We are looking for meaning, not answers. We are looking for peace, not resolution. We are looking to feel GOOD! We are NOT looking to explain ourselves, every minute of our lives.
It's almost like Western Civ wants us to apologize for stuff it doesn't understand.
Well, no way am I apologizing for needing rest.
It is now 4.43am.
I should feel guilty about that, too, I suppose. I'll probably sleep half the day away tomorrow (today, actually) and not get one thing of substance done. I may not even make a dollar.
And this seems to be the whole kaboodle in a nutshell. If you aren't making a dollar (or a million of them) you aren't viable. You are useless as a sentient being. You might as well be a kitchen appliance. At least most kitchen appliances have a purpose.
Well, at least I wrote this...this whatever it is. It won't make me even one dollar.
I find it restful, though, and, as I said, I need rest.
I'm resting up.