Another trip to the UP, almost 5 days with just myself, which always leads to something. This time I had simply gone with no plan; it seemed enough that it was summer and I wanted a good place to swim, miles away from the green gunk that grows in the lakes around here from the agricultural run-off. I got what I wanted - steamy weather and the lakes, but also something not wanted - too much time. With no TV or computer, how could I fill those long days of summer that stretch far into the too-hot-to-sleep nights?
I had my books, and read them; I had my guitar, and played it; and there were always the lakes. But for the first few days I found myself again and again sitting alone in the near complete silence, played and swum and read-out. Empty time? How could that be? That is never a problem around the ol' homestead.
Nor is it usually at the cabin, for always I have a plan: build a shed, fix the water system, paint or stain or whatever. But this time I just sat, and what I was thinking in that empty time gradually came under the more analytical part of my mind. It was then that I found that I was simply waiting for the next "kick," the next thing I could do. A cup of tea in one hour, lunch in two; a swim after that, and then some reading and a nap, if it would come in the sweltering heat. A bike ride at five, supper thereafter, and then some guitar. Then, at eight, beer time and more reading. Still, there were stretches of empty time, time where I was only waiting for "something."
It came to me then that I was like a monkey, swinging from one vine to the next. The vines I had made in my life years before, from reading to drinking, and now they hung like bananas, or the proverbial carrot on a stick. In effect, I was acting like a well-trained animal, with little self-control. In fact, I saw that I was behaving exactly as the Buddhists - and the much less fun behaviorist psychologists - tell us that we do. They tell us that we are not free, but programmed to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Buddhists, the 'more fun' of the two, warn us that this leads us in a cyclical route of karma, signified by the theory of endless reincarnations (behaviorists simply tell us we're animals, and we'd better get used to it). We swing from one vine to the next, vines that perhaps we had chosen at one time, or more likely had been placed by the biological accident of our heredity, and there we swing. Unfree, or at best, like silly, pointless monkeys in a forest.
I finally discovered some projects to do, as this monkey always does, and got to work forthwith, but still, the vines of my indulgences hung before me. With work, I was able to take my foremost thoughts from them, but still they lay as rewards for my hard work. Just as all of us do - we wait for lunch time at work, for the beer afterwards or the TV show, for the weekend, for the vacation, for retirement, for another time in the future, meanwhile filling the empty spaces in between with work - work that is sometimes essential for our livelihoods, but sometimes not - only to grab again at our pay-off rewards. Again and again.
This is what the wise men mean by our lack of freedom. It is not just whether we are required or not to work long hours at a demanding job. More, it is about the time when we are not so involved with the necessary. It is here where we reach for the same vines that will take us round and round, again and again. If we get anywhere in life, then, it would be more by accident than design. This "anywhere" is anywhere but in the jungle of vines, of desires that pull us about to no final advantage. If life, as many say, is a learning experience, then we are learning at an impossibly slow rate in this jungle that is determined by mere fate, by chance. This may indeed take us somewhere in the eternity of time, and might win us freedom, real freedom - but only after an eternity.
Can we break from the pleasures and their opposites, those things that keep us on the eternal loop? At the cabin, I simply filled in that hanging time with work, masking but not ending my addiction to those daily pleasures. But it was in that uncomfortable emptiness that carried not pain or pleasure or work, in which I understood my condition. And so, idleness is not only the devil's playground, but also, possibly, the font of wisdom - if we are in, say, a cabin in the wilderness with no more pleasures or work to distract. It might just be, then, that the devil's playground is also the fields of the lord. The difference would be if I were to act on the intuitions that were given, to get myself off he loop and aim, at last, for freedom - freedom to do as I should, and as I was born to do. Which I might just accomplish, after another look at the news and my next cup of tea. FK
I had my books, and read them; I had my guitar, and played it; and there were always the lakes. But for the first few days I found myself again and again sitting alone in the near complete silence, played and swum and read-out. Empty time? How could that be? That is never a problem around the ol' homestead.
Nor is it usually at the cabin, for always I have a plan: build a shed, fix the water system, paint or stain or whatever. But this time I just sat, and what I was thinking in that empty time gradually came under the more analytical part of my mind. It was then that I found that I was simply waiting for the next "kick," the next thing I could do. A cup of tea in one hour, lunch in two; a swim after that, and then some reading and a nap, if it would come in the sweltering heat. A bike ride at five, supper thereafter, and then some guitar. Then, at eight, beer time and more reading. Still, there were stretches of empty time, time where I was only waiting for "something."
It came to me then that I was like a monkey, swinging from one vine to the next. The vines I had made in my life years before, from reading to drinking, and now they hung like bananas, or the proverbial carrot on a stick. In effect, I was acting like a well-trained animal, with little self-control. In fact, I saw that I was behaving exactly as the Buddhists - and the much less fun behaviorist psychologists - tell us that we do. They tell us that we are not free, but programmed to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Buddhists, the 'more fun' of the two, warn us that this leads us in a cyclical route of karma, signified by the theory of endless reincarnations (behaviorists simply tell us we're animals, and we'd better get used to it). We swing from one vine to the next, vines that perhaps we had chosen at one time, or more likely had been placed by the biological accident of our heredity, and there we swing. Unfree, or at best, like silly, pointless monkeys in a forest.
I finally discovered some projects to do, as this monkey always does, and got to work forthwith, but still, the vines of my indulgences hung before me. With work, I was able to take my foremost thoughts from them, but still they lay as rewards for my hard work. Just as all of us do - we wait for lunch time at work, for the beer afterwards or the TV show, for the weekend, for the vacation, for retirement, for another time in the future, meanwhile filling the empty spaces in between with work - work that is sometimes essential for our livelihoods, but sometimes not - only to grab again at our pay-off rewards. Again and again.
This is what the wise men mean by our lack of freedom. It is not just whether we are required or not to work long hours at a demanding job. More, it is about the time when we are not so involved with the necessary. It is here where we reach for the same vines that will take us round and round, again and again. If we get anywhere in life, then, it would be more by accident than design. This "anywhere" is anywhere but in the jungle of vines, of desires that pull us about to no final advantage. If life, as many say, is a learning experience, then we are learning at an impossibly slow rate in this jungle that is determined by mere fate, by chance. This may indeed take us somewhere in the eternity of time, and might win us freedom, real freedom - but only after an eternity.
Can we break from the pleasures and their opposites, those things that keep us on the eternal loop? At the cabin, I simply filled in that hanging time with work, masking but not ending my addiction to those daily pleasures. But it was in that uncomfortable emptiness that carried not pain or pleasure or work, in which I understood my condition. And so, idleness is not only the devil's playground, but also, possibly, the font of wisdom - if we are in, say, a cabin in the wilderness with no more pleasures or work to distract. It might just be, then, that the devil's playground is also the fields of the lord. The difference would be if I were to act on the intuitions that were given, to get myself off he loop and aim, at last, for freedom - freedom to do as I should, and as I was born to do. Which I might just accomplish, after another look at the news and my next cup of tea. FK
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