Lately ...

Lately… whatever that means. It could mean, for the past several months, or for the last week or so, or for the last couple of days. If one factors in the Information Revolution, aging, and the possible onset of that disease whose name I can never remember, it could be this morning or just a minute ago.

However it may be, lately…, I’ve been experiencing myself in a new way. I mean ‘experiencing myself’ not in the biblical sense, but that my actions, thoughts, and feelings are all in alignment and working together. There is an identifiable sense of self.

This sense of self may strike you as something that should be obvious, or something to be worked out in the second year of college, or something completely incomprehensible. To me, it is something willfully created, struggled for, hoped for, but which can only come about in its own time. I have been looking for the switch, with determination, through the years and have never found it.

I always tried to be whoever they wanted me to be – good son, well-behaved student, businessman, employee, but I could never really get the hang of it. I spoke inappropriately, my biorhythms were out of sync, I worked too much or not enough. I knew I was not fulfilling my potential. I was not buckling down to the job at hand. I was not taking the whole thing seriously.

I tried but, inevitably, each time, I would fail. I was like an incurable alcoholic. I had, with shame, hidden some facet of myself in the bottom desk drawer. I had a couple of those small airplane bottles of longing, stuffed behind my socks. I kept saying I would quit, but never could. The voices in my head were too insistent, too distracting.

I had to face the truth: I was an imposter. A sheep in wolf’s clothing. An Emperor with no clothes. A guy who hadn’t done the laundry. Metaphors popped up unbidden. Bad puns disturbed perfectly reasonable sentences. My visions were not remotely similar to the Strategic Marketing Plan. I was a cause of disappointment to my parents. An object of worry to my sisters. A failure in the eyes of my friends. And, I was unemployable.

This left me with few options. There would be no title – Captain of Industry – for me. I would not figure in the Alumni News column. I could never become a CPA. Somewhere, back there, I had my Occupational Aptitude tested and, though it was exciting to contemplate, I knew, even then, that I would never become a television repairman or an astronaut. I’m afraid of heights.

Now what?! This is a question I have repeatedly asked myself. And, that was exactly the problem. Me and myself were on different sides of the fence. I could not figure it out and, myself, try, as it might, couldn’t make me hear the answer. Time, in general, age, in particular, the state of the world, and the economy, in many ways, wore me down. I gave up all of my ambiguous ambitions. It seemed, as if every possibility had been exhausted or wasn’t interested. To continue the metaphor from before, I gave up and said, dejectedly, “Make it a double. And keep ‘em coming.”

But metaphors are only that. They break down, at some point, and it’s hard to keep things straight. Are we talking about philosophy, psychology, or psychosis? Does drink represent desire or de-opposite?

What has happened is one of those ironies, upon which many major religions have been founded: Surrender to what is and peace will follow. Stop looking and you will find it. Wherever you go, there you are.

The only thing to do has been to take the advice of the masters – Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. Go with the flow. Turn, turn, turn. Keep on truckin’. It seems those guys in the 60s were onto something.

Lately… I’ve just been trying to do my best.