Enlightenment Is Obscuring

Since the pandemic, I feel as if there has been an uptick in “enlightenment seekers”.  I put this in quotes, because I do not think any self-respecting individual sincerely devoted to doing the “inner work” would ever admit that their change to a more conscious lifestyle and manner of “being”, as their being an “enlightenment seeker”.  At the same time,  “self-respecting” holds the same irony of ego attachment to the journey, I reckon. What is being sought with the hopes of being found?  

Whatever it is, I know I haven't found it. Neither have I sought it out either.  I would say that I have done the opposite.  In my reluctance to grow and let go of bad habits and limiting beliefs, I have been trying to avoid any sense of “illumination” that might cause me undue depression and duress.  Growing up sucks.  It is not fun and it is definitely not glamorous, unless you are one of the rare few who can “pretty cry”.  I know that I am not.  

I still have bills that lie unpaid, books unread, yoga mat furled in a corner and an omnipresent God that I apologize to daily for my many transgressions. Fear keeps me stuck.  Fear of poverty, success, dying of dementia in my bathtub having choked on oatmeal, failure, never knowing the love of another man, and a papercut in the eye; really has a way of distracting you from getting to those more present and pertinent responsibilities that would ensure that those fears do not come to fruition.  

Honestly, I do not know how other middle aged folks have made it to “adult” status - in the fullest meaning of the word - to then be at the point of “refinement” (read:enlightenment seeking).  I have friends that sit with so much environmental discomfort for fun and the sake of bio-hacking the most fundamental parts of themselves that alert them as to when danger is lurking.  The depression that we felt in earlier stages of development was surely a warning that we should never grow up.  

I believe “enlightenment”, that was ushered in by the bored and unemployed during the pandemic has dulled our senses.  It is the opiate of the masses.  At least the "enlightenment" that I have come to understand it; a race to an ever increasingly attainable goal.  It is an enlightenment born of privilege, not of struggle.  It is seeing campers load up all their expensive gear and drive out from the parking garage of an expensive downtown highrise in an electric vehicle, and right past the throngs of homeless and otherwise unsheltered individuals that live outdoors regularly and involuntarily.  

Enlightenment felt, not performative per se, but ‘performative purview’.  Everyone was having a go at it. And while I can sit for a few agonizing minutes at a time in a cold tub a la Wim Hof, I much prefer my bath to be a Baine Marie for the coffee I drink in it every morning.  By what ruler are we measuring this finish line?  What will eventually kill us? 

The more we compromise to make our standards for enlightenment a 3-D concept, the more we move away from its true essence; its multidimensionality and its ultimate unknowability, subjectivity and more importantly, its relativity.  These last two terms are a beautiful interplay between what is yours and what is mine, and while holding on to them both detachedly, simultaneously form an “ours”.  

Call it Yin Yang, quantum entanglement, non-duality, the great infinite orgasm, or whatever other term you want to apply to the eternal resonance of all things.  I know that I have heard wisdom from the mouths of babes and monsters, knowing all the while that any misguidance of the former could lead to their becoming the latter.  But still, a monster is very easily relatable given the right context.  And, given the right context, they can be lovingly persuaded, subdued, renewed, and made whole again. 

I realize that this is more of a confession as to my failure to cultivate enough of a curiosity to “seek”, knowing I would never find “it”.  I either have “it” innately or I do not.  “It”, being the capacity to expand.  It is that simple to me.  I would hope that I do.  I would not put money on it, because I would never attach my spiritual worth to such a 3-dimensional value system, sarcastically or otherwise.  Still, I would like to think that where I begin and where I end are not the same, despite my mother’s tendency toward codependency.  He bosom has not been a warm and nurturing place for some time.

If enlightenment is something you can have “some” of, I reckon I have a pinch of it.  However there are hints of a "whole" higher self in my carefully curated home environment (save the stack of bills and spliff butts in the ashtray).  She just has not fully arrived, but I am readying a place for her.  I will not be ashamed of my failure to receive her fully as yet, and anyone who dares judge me for that shortcoming surely loses some of their enlightenment to me.  Or is that not how this works? #nofilter