This is how I see things. I see that everyone is hiding their emotional lives so that they don’t get hurt more than they already are. America is hiding their sorrows under a rock and hoping that no one will notice what our culture has become. A nation of Kardashian-loving, Caitlyn-watching, selfie-taking robots. With emphasis on the word “robot.”
I write the truth of my own life. It’s bare and it’s spare. There is little padding or stuffing in my notes. You get your money’s worth. It’s free. I have no contract that will put me in designer duds like Caitlyn. I prefer to be invisible anyway. But I do like to write.
Cancer has ripped my nuclear family into shreds. Nonduality says that is just a story. Holy shit, nonduality, get a life. Don’t you have anything better to do than act smug and enlightened? Don’t you see that there are about a bazillion books about waking up and few of them are interesting? When I wade through amazon, I see new titles by the bucketload with covers that yell “Look, ma, I’m enlightened. I don’t have a story anymore. Buy my story!” Can you say oxymoron?
I am getting off the point. Stop pointing at the moon and write something about how much you are hurting. About how you haven’t been happy in years. Or that the holidays are nothing more than a hole in which to dump your money. If amazon could buy Christmas, they would. And the old world keeps turning.
I don’t care if you like this or not, if you like me or not. If you like yourself or not. We all have stories. Translation: we are all at the mercy of being mortal. We are born and we will die. Just don’t think that dropping your story will solve your problems. You have to go much deeper than that.
In my case, I had to grieve over losing a child lying in a casket with a loose tooth. The irony of that never fails to move me. She had a mouth full of baby teeth and a body full of cancer. And my family lurched forward into years of recovery. We all paid the price. I am still paying the price. I am not nondual. I am human. End of story.
I write comedy. I was on my way to being a prose humorist like Erma Bombeck. Until the baby got cancer. So I became a spiritual writer. And now I am growing old and see that labels don’t mean a thing. Losing a child still hurts. Losing a spouse still hurts. And I can say I am proud of going on without them. Introverted, decimated and in it for the long haul. What is the “it” of which I speak. I don’t know. But that is the direction in which I am headed from now on. There is no map to I don’t know and you can’t take a Selfie of it. And you can’t sell it on amazon. (But it is in development, I am sure.) Drones are the future. I’m running towards I DON’T KNOW as fast as I can. Before there is a Starbucks on every damned corner.
Vicki Woodyard
Always enlightening, Vicki. Your story is reality and non duality is a farce. When will the robot drones realize this. My awakening is the reality that I quit dumping money into the self proclaimed gurus who are themselves robots and started looking at the beauty of this amazing planet. Hows this remark grab ya? You know how much I love your writing. Keep the essays coming my dear Vicki.
The law of levels is absolute, as they say in the Fourth Way. Everyone gets the teacher they deserve. 99% of them may lead you astray, yet the 1% are out there. They just don’t show themselves easily. Tests must be passed but we will never know what they are. 🙂
Your ‘it’ is your truth and your words rest softly in my mind and heart. You are able to say what I am unable to because I am not a writer, but I feel your pain because I have walked in your shoes made of cement…dang shoes. You are brave and fierce and I thank you from the bottom of my grieving heart for your essays–they make me think, hurt, grieve and yes, smile. God Bless you, Vicki! Keep on keepin’ on—there are days you help me do the same. xoxo
Shoes made of cement. Yeah. I am always on the edge of the cliff. No security to be found. And yet I would really like a nice heapin’ helpin’…..
Excellent writing. Of course good writing comes easier when you’re being honest, as you know. You get kudos on both. It’s a shame that so many don’t feel anyone wants their honesty.