...this is usually the sentiment of the modern human being...the one looking through a hundred jeans...and if u r like me...it's at the salvo, or at a thrift/vintage shop...and there may be a slight euphoria, momentary, after trying it out...after imagining the friend/s event/s...audience...you will wear it for, in front of...in performance...applause like electricity goes through your body...and then you come home, try it out again...feel sick... after looking at your closet...noticing how you have no space, noticing how you have jeans in every color... several in the same are peeking out of the crevices of your drawers, hangers, luggage... and you think maybe i should get rid of one...but then feel suddenly overwhelmed, as each goes with some outfit for the imaginary audience, for the spectacle... and then desire for the fix to fix the fix of shopping creeps in - a long island, a newport, porn, nicotine, sex, chocolate, sneakers, a netflix binge, fried eggs with cheese and gluten free toast dripping with butter...
...one fix leads to another, and another leads to another...so long as you keep looking to fulfill the beast of sensory burst, you are constantly on to the next, as the king of material and sensory lust, jay z, tells us... and we, his/their attentive audience, celebrate him/them... this... their words repeated in our tongues and approved by the shorties at the party who agree with our theatre of mimicry... enhancing our access to the fix of approval...
...approval and acceptance are after all what we are seeking... and potentially require, as humans who occupy ego... a sense of self...
...the constant cycle of spectacle and spectator is broken in the surrender to that which is neither nor, always and never...the space buddha referred to as equanimity, that jesus referred to as Love, that the prophet muhammad referred to as the 1ness, that krsna revealed to arjuna as atman (individual soul) connecting with brahma (universal soul)...
...can we do this and still maintain individuality? recognition? approval?...
...i don't know...i imagine it's a risk to truly be yourself...i imagine that the ones who are live in the margins of the spectacle, neither detected nor seen...and every so often, their lives become so undeniable, they appear in the spot light - gandhi...jesus...malcolm...che...
...ultimately...i imagine...it's a question of what it means to be yourself...what does it mean to be your self? to be you? for me, in the past, it meant having long hair, having clothes that no one else was rocking, having the right strut in walk and speech...
...ALLAH - time and space - has taught me that nothing in this material world is forever... your favorite jeans will tear, your skin will fold, your neighborhood will turn over, trends will come in and go out, so out that you will go from limelight to outcaste, brahmin to dalit...
...through this wisdom...gautama buddha gave us the technique of meditation...the prophet gave us the anchors of being a yogi while a householder, through diet, fasting, connecting (salat) 5 times a day, and doing good deeds - serving all beings... may all beings be happy, buddhist meditation asks, yogis repeat...
...so this is for me...this is for me to remind you - myself to be yourself - to find joy - to learn that joy can be conflated for pleasure if you are undiscerning, if you are operating from fix... that True Joy is something that grows you deeper in a Love Supreme - in your relationship to your maker - to the die before you die, that the prophet tells us of...
...what does it mean for me to be my-Self? it means to share these tools i've learned...as my mom does with her cooking...to live what i believe, and what i believe being grounded in You...to give of mySelf, to do my best... to be self-less, to breathe deep, to be honest, to be vulnerable, to work in/for what i believe like i knew the line of death was tomorrow, at dawn...
...what i believe is that all beings - humans and non-humans - plants, marine-life, land-life, air-life, rock-life - are all part of the 1ness - me - you - and you - and you... in believing this, i believe that i want to be respected, to be loved, to be cherished, to feel dignity, to feel worth, to be touched and cared for, nourished...and this happens with great balance - as cherishing someone may mean showering them with gifts...but if those gifts meant the torture and decimation of forests, of ecosystems for cash-crops, of elephants for ivory, etc...then i am being partial, being individualistic...
so it takes discipline...it takes work...more than just a feeling and jumping on that feeling...but work...
...been working at a vegan cafe in which i am the only one who actually has a plant based diet, where the entire management and owners are meat-eaters, in which employees are violated... on the one hand, the market of people like me, who desire plant-based, organic, earth-respecting foods...is served...on the other hand...at what cost?... with what intention?...
...align your beliefs with your work...and do it with focus, and let your focus drive you... let it be a mantra that you are completely in Surrender to, as the 1ness is the Ultimate Truth...
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