Cessation of suffering

Cessation of Suffering

"You think you're a deep-sea diver while in fact you're drowning. Don't pretend you care little for anything in this world whereas you're a burning churning throb of desire and yearning. Please, make your outer appearances reflect inner realities, otherwise you create nothing but suffering for yourself. Stop playing games with yourself and others. Be authentic."

That was what I told my protégé last week at the hospital when I thought I was going to croak and die of some mysterious flu-like illness. But I somehow recovered. Shit, I'm only sixty-three after all. I'm too mean to die young. I'm gonna live until the ripe old age of ninety-nine. I'm gonna be a mean, crusty old man when I finally kick the bucket. The doctor who was young enough to be my grand-son told me this morning that the worst was over and I could be released in two days.

When I told my protégé over the phone this morning that I was coming home on my own power, and not in a body bag or in a coffin, he shouted with joy. I was not sure if he really meant it. I suppose I'm gonna put him through a test soon.

I'm not sleeping much anymore or they stop putting in the IV the sleep medicine, I don't know which. I know I'm more alert. This morning I took a short walk to the cafeteria and back just to get my circulation working again. I saw the faces of people on the way to the cafeteria and back and inside the cafeteria itself. It seemed to me that everybody had a look of attrition on them. They all looked tired, worried, and preoccupied. The élan, the zest for life was missing. It was funny, to me, they looked that way. They were not as close to death as I was. And here I am feeling overjoyed and bursting with an irrepressible feeling of relief and happiness that I am going to live a few more years. For years, I have been flirting with suicide and filled with homocidal impulses. No more. No sir. No más danzar con la locura. And it seems to me this weight of suffering that I've carried on my shoulders and in my heart since late adolescence miraculously vanished into thin air. I'm feeling light-headed, giddy, buoyant, happy, and carefree. The feeling is better than sex, more intoxicating than booze and pot, and even more intense than falling in love. I suppose I'm savoring the sensation of being granted the reprieve from the definite, unalterable cessation of life, of being cut off from feeling and thinking and other senses of being alive. For the first time since childhood and early adolescence, I have regained the joys of living. To live is to experience choices whereas to die is to be forever shut off in darkness and oblivion.

If I'm sounding like I'm preaching, hell, so what? We're all preachers and lecturers in one way or another. The best preachers are those who only preach to themselves, and not to others, even when they appear to preach to others, they do in fact preach to themselves. To live is to confront one's loneliness and sense of insecurity and precariousness. One thing I know for sure is that I'm no longer fucked, fried, and lied to like so many slaves I see walking like zombies into offices and plants every morning to earn a living wage. At least I'm an independent hunter, free of imposed---as opposed to internally generated---rules and regulations and the daily politicking in order to survive. I hunt whenever I want to. I'm using my intelligence and imagination to find food. There are always some fools out there who think they know the game of hunting better than I do. Little do they know they are preys to real hunters like me.

Let me share with you several deeply held but barely concealed facts and secrets and truths:

1. I've been a hunter for almost 14 years now. I've been the master of my fate. I've stockpiled enough provisions to last for at least 20 years. So economic concerns no longer affect me. Health issues do, however. Thus, I've been exercising and watching my diet. I have 15 lbs to get rid of to get back to my fighting weight (161 lbs).

2. I've a very strong disdain for ignorance and laziness "fortified" with stupidity. Thus, I've held in contempt folks who harbor superstitious beliefs which have no grounds in reality and logic. Those people are emotionally weak and fearful by nature. And that warrants pity and contempt. Real humans live with strength and and without trepidation. They know they have only life to live and ironically that gives them the strength to go through life with a gusto and fearlessly whereas the stupid and cowardly folks fancy that there is an afterlife and yet conduct themselves with timidity and cravenness.

3. It's wonderful to know one's place in the universe. Lately, I have managed to talk little, keep my own counsel, go about my business with stealth and discretion. I no longer commit myself. I hedge and I listen. I am now not going strong anymore. I go gentle, play it simple, and don't convince anybody who I am and who I am not. I just have to convince myself and act the part.

Three secrets are more than enough to divulge, don't you think? Anyway, the more I live and interact with ordinary folks, let alone scums of the earth, I laugh at their lies and poses. Let me tell you something: it's hard to find a genuine, honest, unpretentious but conceited guy like myself. It seems to be most humans fucking try hard to pretend somebody they are not. They always give themselves too much fucking credit that they don't deserve, believe in the bullshit peddled by the religious and political merchants, and go to the grave thinking they are good, decent people whereas the reality is that they are stupid, vain, insecure, superstitious, and fearful of death. Compared to them, I am much, much fucking better. Sometimes, I just wish I had the temerity to blow up all of them to smithereens. Humans are largely detestable because they can't overcome the animalism inside them. If I have a patent weakness is that I am too fucking sentimental. I have a stupid notion that I am sweet and adorable and that women would fall in love with me. I have been fucked over so many times that I finally and belatedly realized that while I may be indeed nice and lovely, that does not all the cunts out there would really love me because there would be some sickos who would be out to get my blood and my wallet just to get over some past, distant, long gone hurts and slights. So now I am wise up. I am a cynic, now. And I feel strong and good about that. Of course that does not mean I don't feel lonely. You see, loneliness comes from the failure to trust anybody. I don't trust because I was hurt. The memories killed my ability to trust.

Life is a journey to be true to oneself and others.

Truth is everywhere. All it takes is an understanding heart. All our problems stem from ignorance and false pride. Ignorance is easily remedied. False pride is the child of insecurity and dishonesty.

Everybody needs to have a long, hard look at himself at least once a day, preferably in the morning right after waking up, in order to start a day anew and awash with understanding.

Most life's problems are self-inflicted and the results of failing to follow the golden rule which includes the following observation:

"What do I or my interlocutors gain from what I am going to say? If nothing, then I must keep my stupid mouth shut because if what I am going to say is only to make me feel good for hurting the feelings of others then I must be an imbecile, idiot, cretin, retard, dumb ass. Sarcasm is cheap wit and earns nothing but lasting enmity. People don't usually forgive as they pretend, no matter how much apology we offer after the damage is done. The hurt is always there. The emotional scar is always there. The ugly and painful memory is always there."

An overflowing river and an angry sea

Meandering storms of the heart will forever gently bend around obstacles that stand on their paths.

(To be continued)
Wissai
October 26, 2012