Getting in over my Head
I've been thinking about things that are probably beyond me, in truth.
Life? Life. What is it? It's a span of time and space we are gifted to inhabit. We sustain it through intake of energy (food, breath, qi) and water, and rest.
So we have this time and space, and we can do, really, anything with it: join a motorcycle gang, work, farm, laze about, smoke pot, whatever. Our divisions of it, the way we organize and inhabit life, is all ritual.
Shiatsu is a healing ritual. Day Job is a money-earning ritual. There are family-building rituals, religious rituals, recreation rituals, romantic rituals, food rituals. Even communication is a ritual.
And here's the sticky thing, the place where our culture in general and my life in particular are off kilter. We spend a third of our lives (at least!) enacting the money ritual. I very strongly dislike my particular money ritual. It drains more of my time (which is life itself) and my energy (the fuel of life) than it deserves, maybe even more than it gives back in money.
But the money ritual is our cultural worship. I'm so afraid of what might happen if/when I stop enacting it. We're taught, often without words, that the money ritual is our definitive ritual. How does one disentangle from the money ritual, or make it a subsidiary of the healing ritual--as I hope to--and be safe? Be OK?
Life? Life. What is it? It's a span of time and space we are gifted to inhabit. We sustain it through intake of energy (food, breath, qi) and water, and rest.
So we have this time and space, and we can do, really, anything with it: join a motorcycle gang, work, farm, laze about, smoke pot, whatever. Our divisions of it, the way we organize and inhabit life, is all ritual.
Shiatsu is a healing ritual. Day Job is a money-earning ritual. There are family-building rituals, religious rituals, recreation rituals, romantic rituals, food rituals. Even communication is a ritual.
And here's the sticky thing, the place where our culture in general and my life in particular are off kilter. We spend a third of our lives (at least!) enacting the money ritual. I very strongly dislike my particular money ritual. It drains more of my time (which is life itself) and my energy (the fuel of life) than it deserves, maybe even more than it gives back in money.
But the money ritual is our cultural worship. I'm so afraid of what might happen if/when I stop enacting it. We're taught, often without words, that the money ritual is our definitive ritual. How does one disentangle from the money ritual, or make it a subsidiary of the healing ritual--as I hope to--and be safe? Be OK?
posted by kStyle at 6:28 AM
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