I Give Up

Post #200. Woot, woot.

Watching The Power of Myth series is totally worth it. Netflix has it. Just to see someone your grandfather's age saying "follow your bliss" with a hard-won contented smile is worth the price of admission. He also excellently recounts Nietzsche's story at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra about the camel/lion/baby. The lion battles the dragon with "thou shalt" inscribed on every scale. That's pretty good.

I usually meet fall with a fair amount of trepidation. Spring and especialy summer are my main times. I like the growing, not so fond of the dying. Although I know that growth requires massive and ruthless amounts of death. I just try to avoid it.

When I suffered from depression I used to dread the fall. I actually dreaded most things back in those days (that's funny--but true), but November did always kick my ass. I even wrote a story about it called November. Full of death, falling leaves, rain and ex girlfriends. And it was all true.

These days I'd like to think I go gracefully, if not always willingly. You play the cards you're dealt and if you've done your homework, and kept notes, you know that you're dealt certain cards so that you can be the exact person you are. And want to be.

I saw a painting the other day downtown at a church. It was part of a showing of visually impared (visual) artists.

The painting was a picture of a small figure broken down either in prayer or near collapse (on his knees) on a sunflower yellow plain. There was a huge sunflower-like sun and the whole energy of the painting was like a little bit more frantic, a little bit more raw van Gogh. There were four mysterious vertical black marks on the horizon on the right (watchers? trees?).

The focus of the painting was a ladder extending from the plain in front of the prone figure to the sun. It started off big and then dissapeared into a single line as it got farther away. The painting was called "Breaking Down Before the Climb".

Inside the artist's bio included some thoughts the artist had about the piece. He said that a whole bunch of bad things happen to him just before he grows and that as he's learned to recognize this it's helped him weather his storms.

When I read this, I realized that the figure was meant to be collapsed instead of on his knees in prayer. There was a red background coming through most of the painting that made it look like the figure could be in a pool of blood.

It was a gory painting in a lot of ways. Brilliantly brutal. And brutally brilliant. Like the best of van Gogh it showed nature in its own glory--which sometimes has something to do with people and sometimes not--but is rarely as tame and canned as the earlier, more pastoral painters would have us believe. Or even our minds would like us to.

The world quivers with energy. It is safe but it can also be stark. It is one thing to meet the world's eye, and an entirely different thing to hold it. Van Gogh knew he would die if he worked like he planned on working for the ten years he planned on doing it. In a letter to his brother he said, essentially, "I think I can do 10 years".

But I don't believe there's any reason to martyr yourself out like that. Why not enjoy it. If you're really a bull of a human. If you have the guts of a van Gogh, why not make the world come to you a bit? Why not stare god down and enjoy some of it? Why not take 20 and end up getting paid? (Had van Gogh lived another 10 years (to 43) he would have started to see his paintings sell). Or like Picasso, or Warhol get older and rich?

[Note to strugggling artistes: our culture moves so fast that most of the deal these days is getting momentum up and developing a technique whereby you can deliver high art quality and meaning at speed. The old myth of the genius starving artist is pretty outdated. And even so, there are many more ways for the universe to take care of you now, even if the public wont. Or I should say the universe has always taken care of us, although it's unlikely in our developed economy that we will be asked to chose between bread and paint as VG did.]

But the world is peaceful. Even if (especially when?) we choose not to focus on the peace in our lives. Or call it boredom because we are afraid to undertake the work we're dying to do.

But to feel the world as peaceful, you've got to come from underneath. You've got to have strong legs. And a relaxed dome. You've got to know everything and forget it all every second, as your laser-like attention sweeps the room/street/scene before you.

One of the things I've been struggling with recently is how to be at peace and charging forward. How to be happy with what I have and where I am even though I almost don't give a shit about it. And could all but throw it away in a second.

It's hard for me to remember that most of what I truly have--that is the peace that I do enjoy--was basically forced upon me. I'm not really a "god's grace" type of person, but in my middle age I'm coming around. I know there is nothing you can have that will make you feel like you think it will. Including love, money, attention, possessions, etc. These are all enjoyable, but to remain able to feel them, you must be firmly married, wedded, welded to yourself. Which is why it's so easy to enjoy the early part of a relationship. Or a new car or house.

Because you still know the person (of yourself) that didn't have it. You still feel the bounty. You're still humbled by its inclusion in your life. Realize it didn't have to be.

And you realize that the world is working. Your prayer worked. You met her just when you thought you never would. You were approved for a mortgage despite your spotty credit. You skipped down the street happy despite the chewing out your boss/spouse/friend/self gave you.

AFTER YOU HAD GIVEN UP! AFTER you had given up. After. You had given up.

You had given up.

After you had GIVEN UP. After you had broken down and given up. After you had been giving it up. You gave it up. And the universe responded in kind. You made your own dreams come true. You prayed and thought and schemed and focused and tried. You prepared and trained and made room in your life. You did the work. And then you gave it up. You could have gotten down, but instead you gave it up.

This painting, "Breaking Down Before the Climb" is all about this. If you want something you must be made ready. When I read the artist's description and realized I had seen the guy as praying--as humbling himself before god--I realized they were the same thing. That I could go hard or I could go easy.

That I could enjoy the whole thing or fight the whole thing. But that either way, there was both a ladder and a sun I couldn't ignore. And that even if I tried, there wasn't nothing on this boring old material plain/plane anyway. Except the four ominous and wierd black marks. And I think I already know what those are.

I've often wondered why, with a loving god of such power in charge, things take so long. Aren't I wasting my time buying and selling widgets when I'm supposed to be making music/writing the next great American novel, care only about beekeeping? Shouldn't I be pushing myself ahead in the area I choose to pursue? (That's got to be one of the dragons scales!) How can giving up possibly be used as a strategy to get what you want?

How can I fucking waste time being happy when I've got _______ to do!!!???

AAAAahahhhahhhahhahaaaahhhhhh....

The older I get, the more I think that all labor is just preparation for our success. That as soon as I could be the exact person I want to be with $100K a month coming in, or an absurdly beautiful wife, or 14 people reporting to me--whatever--it will arrive. Not by the work. But by almost magic. You get a better raise when you switch jobs--step into the unknown.

You can still labor under the old system. With diminishing returns of course. Put in the work these days and you end up not like Charlie Parker but an American Idol winner. (God bless them both). Not to mention that you'll end up hyper and exhausted.

You can push yourself long and hard enough to "become something". But I believe that the real love, the real enjoyment--and, ironically, the real money, is in learning how to relax creatively enough, lovingly enough, to be yourself. The turning around may take a while, but once you're straight, it's on. And you'll manifest like Nas (ever heard his FIRST verse? A guest spot on Main Source's "Breaking Atoms"! Unreal. His first album is regarded as one of the best hip-hop records of all time). Or the YouTube guys. Or LeBron.

You're still going to have to give up everything you've ever held dear. And you will labor. But not like you THINK. Never like you think. Usually like you want. Especially when looked at in hindsight.

Much love. God break me down in any way you see fit. I give up.