I am personally fascinated by the ebbs and flows of energy. I have always been a bit of an up and down personality, think: Yo-Yo. Thus the Dumps/Sunny dichotomy. My favorite beverage, coffee, tends to stoke the fire in my belly. I use that special brew to kick-start every morning. As a friend once said to me: Coffee is the Will to Live. Yes. It's true. I do so love to be stoked.
But, then, sometimes energy fails to surge. I recently experienced a Mojo-Deficit. It happens. "What goes up, must come down." It's true, we are all slaves to gravity in in various realms. There is a pattern, expend lots of energy, psyche up for a major task, or adventure, and, well, energy may be eternal delight, but it is not infinite.
As I get older, I realize I must pick and choose how best to expend my energy. There is a process of elimination: people, activities, concerns, worries, fears. I can let go many things to focus on the essential things. Essential to me. And although I always tend to want to be "lit," to turn the flame up high, I mean, it truly is my natural tendency, my nature, I realize it is a smart thing to try to find a healthy balance, to use my energy wisely.
I look back at my younger years, my earlier selves, and I am astonished and disappointed at how I wasted my energy on contradictory, silly, soul-killing things. I strongly dispute another of Blake's lines: "The Road of Excess Leads to the Palace of Wisdom." I don't think so. Firstly, too much excess "makes the baby go blind." Look around, and see all the casualties on the road of excess. Many of our fellow travelers never get close to any kind of wisdom, instead they end up drugged, broken, an early and/or simply sad, pointless death. Too many folks end up victims of the sex, drugs & r&r lifestyle.
Neil Young once sang, "Better to burn out, than to fade away." I say, bullshit. A great line in a great song, but so wrong-headed & wrong-spirited. So maybe not so great. That burn out/fade away idea is a false road. How about sometimes you turn the flame up high, sometimes you lower it? You find a balance to keep going. A better idea comes from a Dylan song: "He not busy being born, is busy dying." Right. Always be improvising. Find out what works, what is life-affirming. Don't get stuck with wrong ideas, bad habits. Lean to the light: renew, recharge, rethink.
Sometimes, as Nancy Reagan once told us, (yes, I ridiculed her at the time), often the smart thing to do is to "Just Say No." Right, Nancy. There is a big, fat, beckoning and seductive world of ideas that should be met with a resounding, soulful "No!" There is the Power of Yes, and the Power of No. The Wise Ones figure out how best to juggle those two magnificent powers.
