Existential Memoir: What the F&%k Now?

(07/18/2003)

when you wake up in the morning
and you walk outside the door
do you ever wonder
what the hell you’re livin’ for

just wanna get a ride
sit on the side
at the bus stop of life...

I don’t remember where I got this notion, but I have always believed that as we age closer to the turn of another decade big changes in our lives are just around the corner, waiting to happen. At ten I started wearing long pants to school. At twenty I graduated cum laude in college and landed a job in Andersen Consulting. I saw the U.S. for the first time when I had my training in St. Charles, Illinois. The experience had a big influence on me and soon I decided to move and work in Chicago. In a few more days I’ll be turning thirty. As early as a couple of months back I started wondering about what’s going to happen next. I felt dread and excitement at the same time—and now I understand why.

Three months ago I had a severe case of “infectious eczematous dermatitis”—more commonly known as “eczema.” I had blisters all over my body and I can only describe the pain and itching as pure hell—imagine hundreds of ants crawling all over your body and biting you at the same time, and the catch is, you can’t scratch it. Lucky for me it only lasted four weeks. I was forced to file for a short-term disability leave. As soon as I recovered, I called my employer to let them know I was ready to go back to work. They showed their appreciation by laying me off.

I didn’t feel bitter on the inside, but I kept cursing on the outside. I never liked my job anyway. It was a real drag—lots of unpaid overtime, including weekends. I was only in it for the money—the only thing I’ll miss.

My first impulse was to look for another job, pronto. But a big part of me wanted to lay low for a while and enjoy the hiatus. Against my principles, I subjected myself into a spouse-funded sabbatical, with my wife’s approval of course. For the next few days I didn’t get up until after eight. We have no cable so I was tortured watching Oprah, Jerry Springer, and those courtroom judges while I count the scars on my poor dark skin.

Then one day I had an overwhelming feeling that I was so useless. I stopped watching TV right away and looked for more productive things to do. I read the scattered books on my bedroom floor, books about career, books about philosophy, and books about mystical traditions. I studied Adobe Photoshop and Flash MX and created a web animation in response to Integral Institute’s call for an Integral Artwork. During this time, Integral Naked went live so I immediately signed up and participated in the discussion forums—I have met some really cool cyberfriends and enjoyed chatting with like-minded people for a change. In the afternoon I would pick up my lovely “Ebony”—my jet-black acoustic guitar—and play blues until carpal tunnel kicks in. I was so inspired I composed two blues songs within a week.

I got tired of staying indoors so I flipped through the Harper College Summer Schedule and looked for classes to enroll in. “Existential Memoir Creative Writing… hmm… now that sounds cool!” It turned out that the writing class was about reflecting on the four existential givens: death, aloneness, freedom, and meaning. It was my first time writing essays, and the profound reflection required made it more difficult for me to capture my thoughts in writing. Then we had to share our essays with the rest of class and do some sort of group therapy—this scared the hell out of me. But after reading the experiences and insights of my other classmates, I felt blessed. Compared to them, I have the lightest load. “I don’t have a freakin’ problem.” So in most of the discussions, I just sat there and kept my mouth shut, because I had nothing to say that could be of any help to them.

“Hmm, interesting… all these experiences… I have my eczema to thank for… still, I want these little bastards off my skin!”

The writing class is almost over, but our teacher asked us to write one final essay: What’s our next plan of action? How are we going to apply the insights we discovered in the essays?

I have always been serious on the idea of transformation. I used to do regular meditation but I’d often backslide after a while. My experiences in the past three months motivated me to take Integral Practice seriously:

“There are many ways to talk about integral practice. ‘Integral Yoga’ was a term first used by Aurobindo, where it specifically meant a practice that unites both the ascending and descending currents in the human being—not just a transformation of consciousness, but of the body as well… The idea is to simultaneously exercise all the major levels and dimensions of the human bodymind—physical, emotional, mental, social, cultural, spiritual… In short, exercise body, mind, soul, and spirit in self, culture, and nature.” [1]

During my sabbatical, I outlined my own Integral Practice (see Table 1 below [2]) based on the Four Quadrants model (see Figure 1 below [3]). The list looks overwhelming but I intend to accomplish them at my own pace. Ideally, I would like to scratch all of them off the list, but I know that I don’t have to be that rigid. This list only serves as my working guideline. It will continue to be a work in progress—adding and removing items from the list as I see fit. I intend to practice what’s possible starting today. I don’t expect to reach a certain end-point. I just believe that a little bit of wholeness is better than none at all.

I have faced the horrible reflections of my angst—now it’s time to break the existential chrysalis and fly on the wings of insights. I am now free to soar to the skies, for I am no longer a maggot. So much to do, so little time… they are all distractions—divine distractions to be exact. And if I can just take a glimpse of the Infinite, by immersing in the distractions of the relative and the silence of the absolute, then my life, the life we are given, would be worthwhile.

tired and growing old of waitin’
wanna keep on ridin’
wanna see what’s comin’
wanna know who’s playin’
you just gotta learn to die.

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Notes:

[1] One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality by Ken Wilber , pp. 121-123

[2] Table 1: My Integral Transformative Practice (see table from original essay)

[3] Figure 1: The Four Quadrants

/XM-coolmel