St. Hugh's Rant # 6: "I still haven't found...

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

St. Hugh??s Rant #6

?¨I still haven??t found what I??m looking for??Æ

If only I had this or that great wonderful thing that surely would make my life complete and fill me with a sense of accomplishment. ?¨If only?Æ becomes the prefix of unconsummated desires. I insist on a life where I can finally get everything I want and repel everything I don??t want. I insist that all things in the universe around me must relate to me in those terms. I insist that I have a right to live forever in some metaphysically consoling way. If only I had that girl or if only I could keep this job. If only the universe/god/goddess/bob/[insert your own deity here] could see that I??m special and unique, thus deserving to spiritually live on forever in some form, even after I die.

I refuse to accept things as they are, while never even bothering to see just what the hell is really going on. Instead of being thankful for my small successes and letting go of my small failures, I insist on a melodramatic enactment in every engagement into which I can impute the importance of my self. My own desires are primary and I insist that the universe conspire with me in attaining the objects of those desires. I do this without ever once checking to see if that is, in fact, the way the universe works. I accept the beliefs which support this unsubstantiated insistence and reframe all my experiences which threaten this myopic view into further supports for my preconceptions.

What is really going on? Do I really want to know or do I merely want to impose my preconceived ideas upon life? I can choose to believe in this or that in order to console myself against the basic underlying, and usually suppressed, notion that my beliefs have nothing to do with what is really going on. The paradox is then expressed in a simple question: If I really don??t know what the hell is going on, how could I ever hope to achieve any goal or fulfill any desire? I should then crack open the eggshell of my ego and listen to an intuition which doesn??t fit any of my schemas of self-importance. Because otherwise, I am just blindly following habitual impulses without ever checking to see if they ever lead me anywhere.

If only I had this or that. If only I could attain enlightenment. If only Eris could roll Her golden apple across our modern city streets today. If only I could live on forever. If only I had done this or that. If only I were a little more this or that. If only others would see the real me. If only I could find peace. If only life wasn??t so hard. If only freedom could be a little more easily attained. If only I didn??t have to work so hard. If only I had more time to do this or that. If only my mind were not so damn clouded. If only I hadn??t done that. If only if only if only if only if only!

We have no choice about whether to engage life. We only have the choice of how to go about doing so. We can confront it and try to pay attention to what is really going on. Or we can get lost in our preconceptions and ideas and beliefs; thus becoming solipsistic fundamentalists. We tend to err towards that fundamentalism in our defense of personal importance. But the following question exposes that self-importance as the unsubstantiated fantasy that it is: If the self is so important, then why aren??t all the other selves that exist as important as mine?

And if I really do find out just what the hell is going on, why should I become fixated on that knowledge when everything is always changing? Paying close attention to what is going on all the time can help us to break out of our cocoons of self-importance. Our egos can loosen up. We can start to actually breathe in some fresh air. The realization that all things are impermanent can loosen our attachments to things, experiences, and thoughts. It then becomes possible to find out just what freedom really is. But we have to be tricky with ourselves. We have a lifetime of habitual preconceiving and living under the influence of ?¨if only?Æ which we need to unlearn and unthink. If our true nature is as Eris says ?¨free?Æ, then we need to investigate the circumstances of our lives to see why we so often are not free. I venture to say that part of the reason is social, and part of the reason is mental. We don??t even know our own heart-minds. How can we hope to know the heart-mind of society?

?¨I still haven??t found what I am looking for??Æ Do you know what you are truly looking for? Do you know what ?´looking?? is? Do you know who the ?´I?? is? In the tension of that agnostic questioning of the very construction of the thought lies a taste of that freedom we claim to be celebrating.

A liberating response to Cogito ergo sum  ?¨I think therefore I am?Æ is ?¨You are not what you think.?Æ

(Bureaucracy 58th, 3169)

[Penumbral]

If only I cared...
Good rant I have thought the same things many times over... (or the same point whatever)

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

You still haven't found what you care for? Or you still haven't cared what you found for? Or you still haven't what you cared to find? Or you still haven't what you found to care? Fear not! There is no tyranny in the state of confusion and no tension in the state of slack.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Bump.

muhaha

[AFK]

97% of me was sure this was a bump.  3% of me felt a stabbing pain at the thought that he had returned. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

97% of me was sure this was a bump.  3% of me felt a stabbing pain at the thought that he had returned. 

The bastard tries to make a grand comeback at EB&G every 6 months or so.

I am, of course, there to ruin it for him.

Let him come back.  Please.