...and that's odd and great.
As my life continues - it's supposed to do this, obviously - with progress and regress and egress I've been told of my most recent trend. The most recent event/struggle that I'll continue to deal with for however it takes to get over it. Now, yes, it's weird that I said that someone told me this. That it didn't have anything to do with any real and direct thoughts or sparks to get me thinking, this was given to me rather fat-baby-on-a-lappedly; lappedly, it's one of mine. And yet, there it is, like a fat baby in the lap; see how that works, I enjoy happy, fat babies; they make me smile internally. Since I was given this gift - I'm calling it a gift for the obvious notion that the comment was made out of love, and was an indication that egress was soon approaching; or so I had perceived it - I've thought about it and realized a vicious train. This gift was recognizing that my immediate problem lies in productivity.
There was an extension, of course, of this in the idea that it stems from the concept that men are "supposed" to be productive. They're lives are measured by the things they accomplished, money they've raked in, children they've brought into the world, etc instead of simply being loved, respected, and admired for being men. This, it seems, is my problem. I'm stuck within that snake-swallow-its-tail (I like dashing words together. Dashing), perpetual motion of believing the world around me. Accepting its pitfalls instead of recognizing those pits, probably full of snakes trying to eat each other, falling.
Having something to do with me not having a consistent job for several months may also play a pivotal role as well, as a reminder of this issue. The kind of reminder that slides into your bed sheets on open-air nights, the sounds of animals was what lulled you to sleep in the first place. Another possible contributor might be family. As a half-Persian who was raised really, really Persian, those kinds of things are stressed. "How are you going to support a family?" "How are you going to be happy without money?" And, without having to say it: "How will anyone ever love you, marry you if you aren't being a man, successful, powerful, measured?" All right, so on that last one I ended up stretching and injecting my own structuralized vision of how I'm seeing things, but that's how things seem. A couple of those questions have been asked of me recently and I've crumbled. As if a part of me knows that they may be right, if only because it's been helixed into every DNA strand or woven into every story.
The painful part is the struggle involved right there. The Writings tell us that a detachment from material things is paramount to living a spiritual life; which is the ultimate goal. But the television and friends and the crux of our society hammers into us the "facts" that everyone wishes they were wealthy drove a BMW or Mercedes, slept with millions of "beautiful women", lived in a mansion on the California coast with stuff nearly falling out the doors. I've never wanted any of that. When I ask myself honestly if those things would make me happy, I keep coming back to a picture of a me popping my head out the front door of a bungalow or condo, inviting whomever I meet in for prayers, and mowing my lawn for myself.
I've always been a simple thinker in certain ways, and the most important of those ways has been living. I want that detached life. It's what my inner reality is built upon, the vision that if I want to live and be as Abdu’l-Bahá did, I need to strip my life down. Would I be happy in a giant house? No. I wouldn't. I saw people who lived that life in Texas and all too many of them didn't seem happy in the least bit. Some did and those people are wonderful and I love them, but those people are not me. I want to fill my soul with joyful, artistic, creative things and my home with my family. A HD-TV would make the outside world clearer, sure, but when did we start thinking that the outside world is right for everyone? It may be for some, but not for me.
Happiness, productivity, and the things I hope define me will be my deeds, the love I give out freely, and my unceasing devotion to Bahá’u’lláh message of unity and love. So, maybe with a few more of these types of entries I can unhinge that former clenched jaw of what makes others happy and reattach another that better reflects what exists in my heart. Him.
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