오후 9:00
Habit tells me to still put in the time. Hahaha.
Writing… typing on the laptop right now. A very simple set-up for tonight: just the laptop, mouse, and then the mic. I was writing on my journal notebook when I felt the inclination to put my thoughts down here instead.
As I was saying: on one hand, I feel as though I should have done more today. Or more of: I don’t actually feel it, but the thought is there, like remnants of a burned thing. But when I think of neither the past nor the present nor the future, that seems to solve this dilemma.
And with that, the other hand: the one that tells me I should train myself not to ask what I did today. That it doesn’t matter what I had done… because those are all done already. What matters is only what is happening right now. What I’m doing at the moment. What’s the use of keeping track if it takes one away from what truly matters, that is, the doing, the Being? Why do I have to push myself toward progress when that seems to happen on its own anyway and much less when I direct my attention to it? For what purpose is all this striving that for long had left me feeling pulled in all sorts of direction?
I have been ‘doing well’ but, consequently, have also been forgetting how to ‘just be’.
One would think that social validation is enough to say that one is ‘truly living well’. That if people tell you you’re okay, or doing okay, you’re on the right track. But these days I’ve been going through days, weeks even, without that and I’m starting to feel more like myself again. Different from when it was obvious to others that I was ‘doing okay’; not it’s obvious just to me. That I can honestly say I am satisfied with life, with how it is right now and however it will be, and with my only agenda as ‘fully Being’, going with the flow of divine life—is that not ‘truly living well’ too?
It’s still hard to reconcile that whole thing with ‘commonsensical’ living. I’d like to go back to that part in Alain de Botton’s book1 that I’m reading: the section about Socrates. Apparently people back then thought him weird, thought him without ‘common sense’. And Socrates did not care about common sense. He lived like a… weirdo, I guess one can call him that. He was highly unusual. But… he had a point, right? That is why people still think about him until today?
I remember: Seth Godin2 says the same thing. Most people want to keep things as is. There are a few outliers who want things new, but those are few. They are not the norm. Jordan Peterson3 also said something about creativity: people just say this admire it, but most don’t really agree with its manifestations.
And then there’s Chuang Tzu4 with stories about sages preferring to be ‘useless’.
So, a reminder to self: who cares? No one. Not even you, right? I mean you do, but you also know very well that in the greater scheme of things, it’s as if nothing really matters anyway. What did Solomon say about that again?
Fear God and follow His commandments.5
I think you said something similar at some point prior (perhaps that was yesterday. Honestly, it feels like it’s been way longer but, yes, yesterday): the point of life is to learn the language of Truth. And what do we know about language acquisition: it’s a long-term, whole-lifetime thing.
And of course: gratitude in the process. It’s all about the process, in the end.
Journal entry, 22 October 2020
References
- The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton
- This is Marketing, Seth Godin
- 2017 Personality 19: Biology & Traits: Openness/Intelligence/Creativity II, lecture, Jordan Peterson
- The Tao of Nature, Chuang Tzu
- Ecclesiastes 12:13, The Bible