This blog is about figuring out the best way forward.
What am I struggling to figure out today?
These two problems have been on my mind, one is my material security and the other is my health.
This blog is (partly) for the purpose of birthing forth the perspective that remains hidden under all the other thoughts and concerns that otherwise occupy my attention-time. It's about the absolute cream of the cream of the cream of my thoughts. I love this line from some Buddhist vow, it's something like "Just as a bolt of lightning on a stormy night for a moment illuminates everything, so a wise thought rarely and briefly appears." It's such a striking way to open a vow, and a striking metaphor anyway, because that experience is so amazing when it happens. Especially when you really get a bright lightning bolt, those rare occasions, and you're looking out over some outdoor place, and all you can see is the silhouette of the trees because it's so dark, then suddenly and for almost no time, everything is illuminated as if it were day, you see the green of the grass, the green of the trees, the browns and all the colors, as if it were a bright and sunny day. And then it goes away. It's surreal. It's impossible. It's like you're being shown something that doesn't exist, like it's been imported from a distant time, except that it's real and you see it with your own eyes. If you've had the experience, you know how exciting it is.
Anyway, the metaphor implies that our normal perspective as we go about life stands in stark contrast to some other, much better perspective that only shows itself rarely and briefly, and is impossible to intentionally invoke, you just have to wait and watch. So what is that much better perspective? It's like all the thoughts I normally have rest on a certain set of assumptions, so I'm busily going about using my attention to solve problems that depend on those assumptions, but all the while the assumptions are wrong or at least not necessary and there are things I could change that would open up whole other avenues and change the meaning of things and make new approaches possible.
What is this other perspective? What is the lightning bolt that cuts through everything I'm doing and puts all my concerns into perspective?
It's good to optimize your health. It's good to find out if you're at elevated risk of cardiovascular disease and then try not to get atherosclerosis. It's good to figure out a diet that leaves your unique physiological systems in the best shape. It's good to exercise, it feels good goddamnit, unless you're doing cardio is a place with lots of air pollution, but goddamnit it feels good to exercise and to have been exercising recently. Well, could I approach the issue any better? I don't know. Maybe. Probably. I bet. Well, I'm still waiting for my test results to come in. That will probably change things, because then I'll have something actionable.
I don't have an opinion. I can only look at the situation and hold it in my attention. Maybe an answer will become obvious. Maybe what the problem is will become obvious. I don't have anything to gain from thinking about it, because I don't know what thought to think about it. I can only look at it. Just keep looking at it. Absorbing it. Taking it in. Maybe then I'll be able to approach it better. I mean, there is good information out there, and it's really worth doing. I mean, what's more wholesome than that? I'm trying to care about my long-term health. I think that's something that some deep, deep, truly deep part of me will actually be happy about. And thank myself for. If I do it right.

By the way, after that last post, I reduced my hours at the walker by over a third. It felt good, but also that's a hole in my income. So...it opens up a whole box about income, how dependent I am on income, and how I have to wrestle with the idea that there may be no way immediately for me to be 100% authentic and pay rent. Or like, just the fact that work is extrinsic. Like, is it wrong to do something just because you're getting paid to do it? What if I attempted to be totally real with my piano students? Well, think about this, would I be teaching piano if money were no object? Well, the answer is, sure, a little bit, like I sometimes teach my brother things about music and piano just in a social setting and I'm not getting paid for it, and sure, I love music and piano and I want to share the ability to play music, I love talking about it and enabling people and revealing the secrets of music et cetera, but what I really want to say to my students is "Why do you think that you playing piano is going to be such a good thing for you and for the world that it's the most important thing for both of us to be doing with all this time? Do you know how difficult and rare it is to have a musical practice that's in the same ballpark of being as spiritually nourishing and important as some of the other things we could both be doing, like meditating? Do you think you're up to the task of making this as personal of a venture as it needs to be for it to be worth our time? You know you're going to have to meditate too, since I don't know how else to make this work? Because if so, then I will actually devote an hour a week to you and anyone else who's up for it to working on making music make the world deeply healed with you here in this space, I'd be willing to devote that much time to this. But you've got to be as all-in as I am." See, I'd be willing to have a high time-commitment relationship with a student or many students if money were no object, if it were sufficiently open. Okay so what I'm saying is, it would be harder to find students I'd be willing to teach. if I were totally authentic. And I need hours. That's the problem. I wouldn't have enough hours. But maybe that's just narrow thinking, I mean who knows who would be interested in this if I inserted myself in the market in the right way? Like on the web or something? I don't know, who knows. But I can't like, start being authentic tomorrow because I'd be risking losing my students (if they find out they/re not interested in what I really want to teach) and I really couldn't even stand in the walker art center at all. Maybe I could have more faith that the market is there for what I really want to teach and it's just more of a long-term goal. I need to figure out how to reach the people interested in me though. Maybe that's online. Or maybe I need to get more involved playing and attending shows in the actual music scene, though again that only moves me toward anywhere fun if I'm totally authentic about it, and maybe the fact that I'm not playing and attending more shows already indicates that it's not authentic for me to do so. Hm. Well, I'll think about that.