I remember when we met, young and naïve, together we trodden around hoping to never grow old.
Our problems were minimal, only the day at hand, and what was to become of it was our only real concern.
Friend’s forged brothers.
Years later, after so many smiles and moments of joy, but dependent on our parents plans, we had to pave way for alternate routes.
By now, our problems had become more, but not by much.
We vowed against the distance, that we would maintain the brotherly connection; We swore that we would still be best friends.
As we drifted further into adulthood, time prevailed.
There have been many times where I wanted to reach out, or to make arrangements to catch up on old times. But, our problems had now blossomed further.
Our present day has developed new relationships, different attitudes, different perspectives. This bound us to our own present place, and we could not step away from it to rebuild a past.
Technological advancement has made it easier to maintain friendships, but so much time has passed. The closeness and familiarity of the past has slowly transformed itself into the obscurity of the fast paced future.
Living day by day, our paths were now too different.Time has made us, moulded us into different people– two different men.
Despite all the difference, I still feel the love of two brothers at heart.
But, all is meaningless now. And as I wasn’t paying attention to the time that has passed, I couldn’t realize how precious life can be.
Even more so, and in the difference of the moment, where I stand with friends you made since parting ways.
Standing– remembering the days of old.
Standing–before the time comes to carry the casket where you lie.
Standing– as all these thoughts race through my mind.
If I could only fathom that your time on earth would have been so short, would we have drifted as we did?
Old friend, always in my mind next to questions as meticulous as these.
I wonder how things could have been different.
Despite my wandering mind, forever, and always you will be considered along with the best.
With all I could muster, old friend:
“Farewell, take care, so long.”
~G.K. August 17, 2011.
At 23, an old friend took his own life. There was a lot ambiguity surrounding his passing.
And though losing touch with this friend over the years, it was a death that struck a very funny chord with me.
23 years young myself, my own momentum shifted. I suddenly didn’t feel so “untouchable” anymore.
“Could I be life’s next?”I thought,
“Instantly dropping out, with no ‘apparent’ reasoning at all?”
What was I to do, but write.
This written expression dates back to August 17, 2011– 3 months after the fact.
It was written in an attempt to make sense of what had happened.
Perhaps, a subconscious attempt to “debrief”this seemingly reasonless, yet very mysterious departure.
Mindfulness Is Nonsense Once It Becomes Self-Defeating.
For the sake of this post, and how I am feeling in this particular moment, I will say it and spell it out again: mindfulness is nonsense.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for appreciating the mindfulness of a moment as I practice some form of mindfulness, awareness, and meditation daily. Likewise, I purposely try to incorporate it into every facet of my life to capture more of the moment.
Well What’s your f*king problem then?
My issue is that when we set the intention to be mindful in our experiences, we may become expectant to achieve a specific state for ourselves. Inevitably, things get lost in translations with our own skewed expectations.
Mindfulness is nonsense when our focus is aimed at being mindful, as opposed to the experience itself.
In other words, labelling our actions as mindful can limit our experience in observing things the way that we intend to experience them.
I have talked about labels before, but to spell it out mindfully,
“Once you label me, you negate me”
As soon as we call it something, it is limited to nothing more than that.
This is true to experience as well.
As soon as we intend to be mindful in our experiences, we limit our experience to whatever preconceptions we have of a mindful experience.
Some of MY OWN LIMITING preconceived attachments to mindfulness:
Road to Happiness
Zen
Slow controlled breathing
Easy, neutral state
There is more to experiencing the moment than this, but can you see how the ego’s intentions can potentially trap us with such an inhibited experience?
A crude labelling example:
Let’s imagine ourselves going out to an event, any event, and we suddenly find ourselves experiencing it negatively. We find the event so bad that we put a label on it, let’s call this “a shit time“.
Once we put our mind to those words, we limit ourselves to nothing more than what a shit timestands for in our mind.
We can try to force our way out of it, to be happy about it, but it’s still going to be a shit time.
In walking away from the event we will say:
“Today was a shit time out”
And the next day at the water cooler we will say:
“Yesterday was such a shitty time.”
And later on down your life line, you will say:
“I went to that thing once, It was…” Well, you get the point!
Conceptually speaking, mindfulness can completely immerse us in our moments.
But things can become rather skewed when our mindful practice conflicts with our urges to be more mindful, which only takes away from the experience itself.
We can become tooself-aware, where we may try to control our perception of things in the moment, when the whole basis of mindfulness is surrendering to that moment to experience it.
The ego steps in with its own pre-conceptual contributions to the experience in how it wants things to turn out for itself. This is self defeating, as the original intentions of mindfulness, is to dissolve the ego, and surrender to the moment.
Mindfulness is nonsense when our intentions aren’t clear enough. Therefore, it is important to understand why we choose to practice mindfulness in the first place.
For example:
Someone who experiences a lot of negative emotions may finds themselves frequently depressed. Such a person may then turn to mindfulness training in hopes of becoming happier. Truly, this is great, to an extent.
Take that crude example again; You remember, right!?
That “shitty time”:
We receive negative feedback from the experience during the event. For Example:
We’re at a restaurant, and the waitress accidentally dropped a meal on our lap; “Grr, it burns and my clothes are stained!”
We’re at a festival, and there is too many people here; “Grr, large crowds make us uneasy.”
We’re at a bar, and the music playing isn’t up our alley; “Grr, this song sucks.”
We’re having breakfast in a cafeteria, and someone just pissed in our corn flakes;“Grr…”
etc…
The issue can come in play when we experience this negatively and try to change our experience to suit our goal…
So,
[Insert Sh*tty Experience Here]:
“This is a sh*t time”
Turns into:
“This is a sh*t time– But…
I’m going to paint this smile on my face,
Because I just want to have a great time, and be happy!”
Fake It Till You Make It?
In this instance, we steadily assume a controlling aspect over our experience in order to achieve a result for happiness.
As we try to bring an awareness or focus onto a more “positive” light, we neglect the negative. And in this example, embracing the negativity is generally the heart of the moment.
True mindfulness is letting yourself flow from moment to moment, and if it calls for it, through contrasting emotion. Awareness is being able to identify this process happening within ourselves in our immediate perception of experience. Being mindful then, is taking it in and accepting it how it comes. And if you find yourself rejecting it, doesn’t mean it to be mindless.
Shitty experiences can still be mindful.
Mindfulness Is Nonsense: If It’s Shit, Let It Be Shit!
Ultimately, our INTENDED practice can hang us up. Actually, It is better practice to simply bring awareness to recognizing a moment for what it is how it finds us.
Keep rolling with that shitty time!
Even if it means living in it all day and night. Live in the shituntil it starts to change on its own. And if it doesn’t, keep trying new things until it does.
Mindfulness is nonsense otherwise, when we find ourselves purposely tainting, or forcing our experience to illicit a particular result; a feeling, emotion, or state.
Of course, mindfulness is appreciated most when we experience it alongside some state of bliss, however, we can’t shy away from, or avoid our negative emotions in hopes of instantly transforming them into positive ones.
The human experience means balance, whether it’s basking in the beautiful sunfor hours or rolling around in the shit for a few days.
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