Wishing to be a scorpion in Israel
I spent the night questioning my decisions. Why am I turning this trip into pondering about my time spent? It feels ironic. Developing myself as a person by trying not to develop myself as a person, but returning to the same routines, now from other people’s homes and random stranger’s couches. I write this from a fold out bed. I spent the night opening and closing and reopening my computer. Typing a single line. Erasing an entire page. Rephrasing a sentence I have no idea how to begin, let alone what I’m trying to say. This is a bewildering time of life. I fall into the simplest of days, chasing the view of sunrises from new perspectives, and trying to comprehend the differences in cultures I just now visit. Adding three more countries to the list this time. Begrudgingly, I leave each. Excitingly, I enter the next. The consistent and drastic change in scene gives a mind clearing effect. Though my mind seems always cluttered.
I rearrange the buildings in this city to match those I have seen. I compare them to my hometown. I contrast the daily realities. A man came out this morning with a shovel and a wheel barrow. He picked up a dead Ibex. I swear I heard it being killed last night. My window, open for fresh air, allowed something more in. The sounds of a fight for life where something had to lose. It is hard not to feel special here. My personal experience is unique. But should it feel that way? Everything I watch has been seen before. Not all by a single person, but by a few, and realistically by thousands upon thousands. This land upon which I stand is mentioned in 3000-year-old texts. Astonishing, to be so miniscule, and yet somehow feel so important.
It is hard to let go of a mindset built into me throughout twenty years of socialization. Maybe socialization doesn’t describe it well, but acceptance. I chose to live unquestioning of the generalities that made up my daily life for so long. I lived the moment to moment chase of entertainment, like a golden retriever with too many toys. The forced discomfort that I live now feels exactly that. I have to indulge in the lack; instead of rearranging my schedule, I have to delete my schedule; instead of committing to change, I have to change. Of course no change happens overnight, and after a dogged attempt to be a new person, the concept of being whoever I want may be lost. I am who I am, and can change some pieces while others are like rocks buried deep under the sand of the moveable. A river of change can pull layers of sand off, and displace them somewhere far away. It can drop new sand. The water can carve odd paths. But the rocks deep underground are lodged in place, away from the meandering effects of a stream.
I do not feel mistaken for wanting change. I am merely curious if wanting change is the best option. They who can commit get more done. Those who accept themselves can move forward with the rest of life. I just need to learn what that means.
There is no time to be timid, says Carlos Castaneda. The billowing of trees act in such a way not for a particular reason, only because it must. The Ibex fights because that is life. The bush dies because that is what it does. No wondering if that is the correct way to experience life, and no doubt in its effectiveness at being a bush. I am living a timid existence, and experiences seem to overwhelm me in unrealistic ways of thinking. I want to live in every way; as a tree, as an Ibex, as a bush, as a man. But this is not realistic. I press myself to dream, then to hold that dream and sweat that dream and live that dream. Some days I attempt to, and succeed in brilliant fashion. Other days I fail. It is good to fail, for the reality that you can’t win everything. It is good to realize that I can’t be everything. The universe echoes the abundance of wants that I have, only that echo sounds like a laugh. It does not mock me. It is only laughing at a joke I am telling. Maybe I don’t realize that I’m telling a joke when it laughs, but looking back it is easy to see the humor in my words and my wants and my actions. What Ibex yells to the sand that it wishes to be a scorpion? Better yet, what Ibex wants to be an Ibex, and a scorpion, and a tree? It is no doubt ironic. Wishing to be something new.
I rearrange the buildings in this city to match those I have seen. I compare them to my hometown. I contrast the daily realities. A man came out this morning with a shovel and a wheel barrow. He picked up a dead Ibex. I swear I heard it being killed last night. My window, open for fresh air, allowed something more in. The sounds of a fight for life where something had to lose. It is hard not to feel special here. My personal experience is unique. But should it feel that way? Everything I watch has been seen before. Not all by a single person, but by a few, and realistically by thousands upon thousands. This land upon which I stand is mentioned in 3000-year-old texts. Astonishing, to be so miniscule, and yet somehow feel so important.
It is hard to let go of a mindset built into me throughout twenty years of socialization. Maybe socialization doesn’t describe it well, but acceptance. I chose to live unquestioning of the generalities that made up my daily life for so long. I lived the moment to moment chase of entertainment, like a golden retriever with too many toys. The forced discomfort that I live now feels exactly that. I have to indulge in the lack; instead of rearranging my schedule, I have to delete my schedule; instead of committing to change, I have to change. Of course no change happens overnight, and after a dogged attempt to be a new person, the concept of being whoever I want may be lost. I am who I am, and can change some pieces while others are like rocks buried deep under the sand of the moveable. A river of change can pull layers of sand off, and displace them somewhere far away. It can drop new sand. The water can carve odd paths. But the rocks deep underground are lodged in place, away from the meandering effects of a stream.
I do not feel mistaken for wanting change. I am merely curious if wanting change is the best option. They who can commit get more done. Those who accept themselves can move forward with the rest of life. I just need to learn what that means.
There is no time to be timid, says Carlos Castaneda. The billowing of trees act in such a way not for a particular reason, only because it must. The Ibex fights because that is life. The bush dies because that is what it does. No wondering if that is the correct way to experience life, and no doubt in its effectiveness at being a bush. I am living a timid existence, and experiences seem to overwhelm me in unrealistic ways of thinking. I want to live in every way; as a tree, as an Ibex, as a bush, as a man. But this is not realistic. I press myself to dream, then to hold that dream and sweat that dream and live that dream. Some days I attempt to, and succeed in brilliant fashion. Other days I fail. It is good to fail, for the reality that you can’t win everything. It is good to realize that I can’t be everything. The universe echoes the abundance of wants that I have, only that echo sounds like a laugh. It does not mock me. It is only laughing at a joke I am telling. Maybe I don’t realize that I’m telling a joke when it laughs, but looking back it is easy to see the humor in my words and my wants and my actions. What Ibex yells to the sand that it wishes to be a scorpion? Better yet, what Ibex wants to be an Ibex, and a scorpion, and a tree? It is no doubt ironic. Wishing to be something new.
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