This is the first bit of silence I've had since the weekend began. The first chance to just sit down in a silent room and to just be. I can hear my breath. Feel the moment. Feel the calm. Decompressing.
On my commutes home last week I would sometimes listen to the comedy of Louis C.K. He's often foul and offensive and lewd and perverse, but many times he's spot on in his observations of life. He talks about the realities of having children. He says things that many people think, but wouldn't actually say. There's a kind of honest courage in that; in just being able to say what you really think even if others will then see you in a bad light or think negatively of you.
There are many things to having children that truly suck. You no longer live for your self. You become secondary. It's just the way it has to be. It's a necessity of raising a dependent little being. These little people come into our worlds and demand. They strain marriages, they strain your patience, they strain your sanity. And yet we still love them. Of course we love them. We love them, but why can't we just say, "Man...sometimes having kids really, really sucks."
I sometimes guilty think about all of the other things I could be doing if I didn't have to tend to this little person under my care. I could be pursuing my Masters in Fine Art. I might not have to work so far away, because there would be less necessity. I could go out on dates with my wife and spend more quality time with her. I could draw more, paint more, read more. But alas, these are all things that will have to wait until she's older and more independent.
There's this really depressing commercial on TV where this guy sits down in his office to start writing a novel. But then he has a baby. A time-lapse thing kicks in and now the guy's office becomes the baby's room. Then the baby is a little girl in a ballet outfit, then it's all these milestone moments: prom, graduation, going off to college. Then at the end, all gray-haired and weathered, the guy gets his office back and once again sits down to finish that novel he never got to start. How freaking depressing is that?
Anyway, what is the point of me saying all this? Nothing. I just need to decompress. Isn't it healthy to say, "Hey, I need a break from this demanding, irrational little person"? I think it is. We all need silence. We all need quiet time. We all need to reflect and ponder and question. And those are all things that don't happen when you're wiping butts and getting snacks and playing princesses.
It's so horribly easy to get caught up in the maintenance of life. The daily ins and outs of just taking care of business, whether it's work/career-related or family-related or whatever. We become these mindless automatons, just going through the motions and running in the proverbial hamster wheel. At some point we have to step back and say, "What is the point of all this?" Sure, it's a noble thing to just be a decent human and to take care of your family and their material needs, but beyond that, what really is the point of it all?
I'm all to aware that my days here are numbered. My success in life cannot and will not be measured in material gains. I will never attain all of my material goals. That's just a fact. The reality is this place, this world, is a place of misery and suffering. There's no escaping it. The goal is not to try and stop the suffering, it's figuring out how to transcend it, to ignore it, to not let it consume us. That requires full absorption in something higher than us, something outside of us. I've only had glimpses of it, but I am far from living in it.
The tracks here could quickly switch to my self-pity about what a crappy devotee I am and about how Krishna Consciousness often times doesn't seem real. But it's late and that conversation is a circular road that goes nowhere.
I don't know what's real anymore. All I know is this moment. And in this moment there is a wonderful silence; a wonderful decompression.
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