The Abandonment Of Reaching Out

Ben came over kind of early today. I pissed him off right away so we could that over with, and then he talked me into going for a walk to the back pasture. I know I need to walk. Especially to physically see some different scenery. I get locked to ignoring the sameness of the environment of my house and yard, then my creativity gets in a rut. It doesn't take much of a change, but I usually have to go somewhere to get it to happen.

I've been writing and talking about a particular event recently more than ever. I used to use having an encounter with a snake to describe my intended me-and-thee-ing (meaning). Lately, I've started creating metaphors about nearly drowning or being threatened by nearly drowning. The point I'm trying to get to really has nothing special to do with baptism by immersion (or submersion), as much as it does with the panic one experiences when threatened with death by drowning, real or imagined.

I'm attempting to describe an abandonment of one activity in order to reach for another. Total abandonment. I was raised in the coastal plains where they have several kinds of poisonous snakes that children are taught to avoid at any cost. There are even more non-poisonous snakes around that look enough like the poisonous ones, that encountering any kind of snake unexpectedly can accomplish the kind of abandonment I'm referencing post haste. The result is that when I encounter a snake the first thing I do is freeze. Then, and only then, I look to see if it's poisonous.

Whatever I might have been entertaining mentally when I run into a snake is gone away running. I don't care how noble my thoughts might be or whether I'm just a cunt-hair away from solving a problem that would earn me the Nobel Prize. If I run into a snake, I'm gonna abandon my current quest into abstract thought immediately. Boom! It's not even a consideration any more.

That's the same thing that has happened to me when I've almost drown. Nobody has ever rescued me from being almost drowned. Nobody knew. Apparently, I don't need any help almost drowning. I seem quite able to do it all by myself. Each time, there was a point at which I suddenly became aware that I was going to have to do something different than what I was doing, or I'd get dead soon.

Right damn now was the only time I could do anything about what was happening to me right damn now. Every time I've almost drown, I was already drowning when I realized it really was true. Abstract strategies was the first thing to go, and was usually the only activity that might have prevented this situation. That was then. This is now. My abstract strategies have never saved me from drowning. My instincts did.

I'm attempting to describe a ring-pass-me-not moment in which something is abandoned in order to reach for something that will save me from myself. My abstract constructs are what have to be abandoned, and my urge for life is what has to be reached for. Sort of. Maybe...

I'm not writing about deliberate abandonment so much as I as trying to describe the "fight or flight" response. I don't consciously decide to inject adrenaline into my blood when this fight or flight response kicks into play. It's my opinion that some time I'm reacting to the adrenaline pumping into my blood stream before I ever see the snake. I'm always already drowning before I realize it. I only realize I'm drowning when I observe myself going into instinctual mode, and watch my unconsciousness spirit act like it's been around for a few billion years.

This is the ticket healers use to ride. No blame. Healers attempt in their various ways to get some facility within us to make things right again. Scary masks, death rattles, the boogie man stomping up to come and git you. Chemotherapy. Radiation treatments. Hocus Pocus. Rainmakers. All selling hope. Hope is the only product anybody got for sell.

It's all to produce that one moment when we abandon what we cling to in order to reach for what we ain't got. We abandon the stuff that's making us sick. We abandon all the wrong-headed-ness in one fell swoop. Anybody who can help you do that is a friend, and anybody who tries to stop you is not. If you're sick enough and dying anyway, and won't listen to nobody because you're stuck in the past, why not ask a top to waterboard you. Really! If all else fails...

Maybe doing it for nothing and without asking for gratitude is what many religions are actually about. Why would anybody charge money for something they can do as an aside without anybody even noticing? "How can this be done. It takes two bowls." You have to do it "for-them-for-yourself" It's the bit about getting the plank out of your own eye before you attempt to get the splinter out of your neighbors. Getting the splinter out of your own eye is what heals your neighbor. You don't even have to know which neighbor healing yourself, physician, will cure. Healing is triggered from within.

At least, that's what I tell myself some time. I have to do something to entertain myself. I can't afford professional entertainment. Sometime I get the feeling that if I could just attend a profession sports event it would cure my arthritis. Hell, even seeing one on TV used to help. I don't see many games of any kind on TV anymore. I can't afford to sign up for satellite or cable.