Tired

HOTS is tired. There are too many things to talk about, rant about, and muse about. There are too many daily atrocities in the world and our country; there’s too much political and religion arrogance and ignorance begging to be countered; there are too many sensual reflections mixed into each day.

All of these things are experienced subjectively, passing through the myriad of fears, filters, biases, judgments, opinions and conceptual views that inhabit my mind. My perspective is mine and mine alone and it provides a world/life view that no one else can see. It’s a fool’s game to hope or expect that anyone else will share it to any significant degree because everyone else’s mind is inhabited with their fears, filters, biases, judgments, opinions and concepts.

The end result is that a million people inhabit a million different worlds, each of which gives the appearance of being real and none of which are, in fact, real. They are nothing more or less than our one-of-a-kind view; a view that would be better labeled a dream. We long, at some level, to wake up.

If we were to awaken and to become genuinely aware, we would realize that objective reality and absolute truth are “out there”. But, in our walking dream world, reality and truth remain buried under layer upon layer of fears, filters, biases, judgments, opinions and concepts. Each of us is being held captive by and in our own heads. We long, at some level, to be free of those shackles. We wait for our Moses to confront the Pharaoh in our head and demand that s/he “Let my people go!”

At the same time we seem to sense that there’s a long journey through an uncertain and seemingly empty wilderness that awaits us if we’re freed. That wilderness appears uncertain and empty because it isn’t filled with our obsessive, compulsive thinking. After all, we regard being “thoughtless” as a pejorative. Who in their right mind would want to be thoughtless? Ah, if only we were in our right mind. The rightness of our mind is just another illusion we cling to like the handrail between us and the Grand Canyon.

Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to lose.” Indeed. Freedom comes in losing all the fears, filters, biases, judgments, opinions and concepts that are scattered like roadside litter along the pathways of our mind.

Sometimes I grow weary of exposing my litter just as I grow weary of seeing the litter tossed out and about by my fellow travelers. Like I said, HOTS is tired.

But, HOTS is also a pressure relief valve and on any given pressure-filled day it serves a worthy purpose as it vents the steam and occasionally the magma that builds as I watch, listen to and absorb the collective illness and insanity exhibited each day by the other captives around me. I’m sure that many of them feel the same way about the illness and insanity that I contribute to the roadside mess around them.

So, what’s the point? HOTS is going to try a different tack – more but shorter entries. Pop the relief valve and move on. Post the reflection quickly and await the next one. There have only been one or two occasions in the last 15 months that I’ve posted more than one entry a day. That’s likely to change because there are too many things to talk about, rant about and muse about.