You Do Not Want to Go Down that Road...

We bumped up against one of those doom-sayers yesterday. Someone who is stuck on the bleak-side of things. A pro. An accomplished, and quite successful, Human.  A person who knows his shite, but who has descended into the hell of his own mind;  a hall of mirrors of unhappiness, a man seemingly out of time. Maybe his accomplishments have sort imprisoned him in a reality that no longer exists? Maybe it happens to many? Seems that as the decades unfurl, the accumulation of experiences can sort of handcuff and blind you to the reality of the present?

It seems the years can make some folks bitter, fearful, super-aware that they are out of step, lost in the past. 

Hard to say, hard to see. We were locked in a room with this guy, and he flailed and railed. We were there for a very specific task. We just needed to get a few things done. We walked in trying to cultivate an attitude of graceful neutrality. Tempers flared, it all got a bit heated. 

Funny. My attitude of Zen easily melted in the face of a smouldering-hostility. I pushed back pretty hard. There was a blistering, buzzy, tension in the air. My partner and were sitting side by side, she texted me: "Don't have a heart attach."  It was an iPhone autocorrect miscue, she meant, "attack," but you know, from now on this will be known as the "Heart Attach Session." There was a moment where it seemed it could all blow up and get really nasty. 

Tick, tick, tick.

The moment of fury passed. Cooler heads prevailed. And then we got down to the task at hand. We did accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. After a couple hours we walked out thinking: "what a so very unhappy Human Being." 

What was that all about? I chalk it up to ego, grievance, a certain arrogance, and fear. Yes. Fear of change, fear of the moment, fear that life is rolling on, fear of losing control. And that fear feeds a bitter disappointment, and a wide-ranging hostility to the present.

Hell, that was instructive. It is much easier to see the flaws in someone else. Much harder to look into your own soul. It was an awesome demonstration of a deeply unsatisfied mind. You do not want to go down that road. 

Instead: Alive. Aware. Awake. Open headed, open hearted, eyes wide open too. Be here now. Meeting the moment to moment. The better way forward. Onto the next thing. Yes.