At home
in the amazing
Cowboy Cottage
here in the
Napa Valley
in California's
wine country
where I live, there's something I would like to say, having just
returned from Cape Town
South Africa,
the city I grew up in, noticing how it has evolved to the point where
parts of it are now almost completely unrecognizable,
South Africa
having undergone one of the most memorable political
transitions in the history of
the world.
At the same time, there is also something I would like to say about the
common ground
of all paths to experiencing
God
in one form or another, in a way which omits (which is to say in a way
that's really bigger than) all their individual
righteousnesses and religious prejudices
(listen:
it takes big men and big women
committed
to their particular religious faith, to admit all of our religions,
which are arguably some of the most cherished
conversations
in our entire lives, are fraught with petty individual righteousnesses,
religious prejudices, discrimination, and
ego).
At the same time, there's also something I would like to say about
having
committed
myself through the
rite de
passage
a man experiences when he
speaks
with
his motherface to face
for (what may be) the last time, a
commitment
which has a certain finality to it. At the same time,
there's also something I'd like to say about the experience of letting
go - about letting go of anything really, but in
particular about letting go that which isn't easy to let go: letting go
of a great
love,
for example.
I don't have four different things to say. I'm not going to say
something different about each one of these four experiences. Rather
I've got only one thing to say, one thing apropos of all four of them.
And this one thing is in fact apropos experience itself, one thing
apropos the transient nature of experience itself. Here's
what it is:
Each experience we have (including my four which I've alluded to above,
but not limited to them) comes on us newly. Then, once we've
experienced it (whatever it is), the experience itself is
immediately in the past. We have no ability, zero,
zilch, none whatsoever, to prevent this
happening.
We have no faculty to keep the present in the present, and stop it from
devolving
into the past. On the other hand, what we human beings do have a
faculty for, and what we're actually very good at doing (in fact it's
what we're built to do) is holding on to the experiences of the past
by recalling them into the present, and then using them as
building blocks for the
future.
On paper at least, that sounds like a good idea. It sounds like a good
way to survive. There's only one problem it bodes for
living (as distinct from surviving) - and as it turns out,
it's a big problem. The problem is, while it may be a
good way to survive, living and
life itself
don't
work
best that way. Surviving the
future
may
work
best when based on building blocks from the past. However
creating
the
future
of our own choosing, doesn't
work
best when based on building blocks from the past.
Creating
the future
works
best when based on
nothing.
Choice is only ever truly
free
when it's based on
nothing.
Any experience from the past, no matter how dearly it's held, no matter
how treasured it is, only serves to skew
creating
the future based on
nothing.
And the thing is if I don't
create
the
future
from
nothing
(in other
words
if I don't exercise choice in the matter of my
future),
my whole
god-damned
life is all based on the past. Then it's the
circumstances, not I, giving the
future.
