The Whale Belly

I have no ideas. I don’t know what I want to write about. I simply am here, sitting with it. I keep forgetting that writing has nothing to do with me other than making sure I show up on time. It is the child waiting to be brought home from soccer practice. She has been living her own life inside my head, and I am merely the one that delivers her home, feeds her, asks her about her day. And she will only answer if I am reliable and loving. Or else she becomes sullen, withdrawn.

I can’t force anything. I simply have to trust. I have to be a good conduit. What happens inside my head I have little control of, though the control I do have is important. I’m only a dismal six percent of the chasm of thought going on behind my eyes. I must remember that. And I can’t hate myself. I’m all I’ve got, so I have to trust in it as one would trust in God.

And maybe that’s all God is. Islam, an act of surrender to the reality that I control next to nothing, including my self. I have to place my faith in something I can’t see or feel, but nevertheless know is there. And maybe that’s why art is so important, to all of us but especially the artist, because he sees a manifestation of this God inside him, appearing as a burning bush — the brushstroke, the penstroke.

And that’s why when we force God to do our bidding for us, or misunderstand our role, our hand in creation, then it doesn’t come out well at all. Instead it is garbled and frustrated, flawed, ridiculous. Our act is one of prayer, meditation, listening. Not so that we can create, but so we can place ourselves in communion with the creator who speaks through us.

God, the unconscious, whatever one wants to call it. Human history is the struggle with understanding and strengthening this psychological state, this relationship. Our drift over into scientism and atheism was ironically a good step, kind of like a reset button to break up the meaninglessness of religious dogma. As Milton argued in Paradise Lost, people must choose God of their own free will. It’s why The Fall was the first step towards a greater relationship with God, because from now on we wouldn’t be blindly following orders in the Garden of Eden, but instead we would have to choose every moment of our lives to humble ourselves to a greater truth, and be rewarded of this sacrifice with prevenient grace. And I have to say, whenever I’m able to enter into this state of consciousness, which is rare but does happen, as it is happening as I write this, it is a feeling of tranquility, of awareness of the moment, of intense but easy focus. Sometimes the thought of always submitting myself to this power sounds arduous and tedious, because when will I have time to mindlessly watch videos on Youtube or compulsively eat junk food? But it isn’t a feeling of stress when I’m in it. Quite the opposite. It’s only when I’m not in it that my selfish mind creates anxiety and steers me away from engagement.

The Buddhists and Hindus, and I suppose any religion divorced from its dogma, understand training one’s own mind to enter into this flowing state as a lifelong task. It’s the abandoning of the small selfish self to be brought by this invisible force to enlightenment and nirvana.

But now I’m starting to flag. At least I got a good six hundred words out of it. Or I should say, that I’ve gotten my focus to last for six hundred words. Maybe that is the way that I train, to see how long I can hold a state of meditative focus by the amount of words that flow from me.