Timing is everything

I've been watching movies again.

I watched "Pushing Tin" and "Lovers of the Arctic Circle - Destiny Cannot Be Denied".

I've also been reading books - Zen books. It's amazing how it all ties together. Pushing Tin is really about Zen - of course, isn't everything? The Zen books says that we make up our own reality from what we see and "think" is going on all the time. Just watch Pushing Tin and you will see it in action. Every time t he main character "thinks" the other character is reacting to what he has done, it turns out that it has absolutely nothing to do with him. It is our own paranoia and wild minds that create our reality - both good and bad. I think back on how many times I believe that someone has done something TO ME and now, as it turns out, it may have had nothing at all to do with me, as most things don't have anything to do with me. It's kind of amazing. I am so egocentric. I guess we all are in some ways and some of us more than others. Anyway, I had to laugh when I looked at the cover of the movie and saw the quote" A High Flying Comedy." It's not a comedy at all. It's another Zen training movie. I suspect that the writers know that, but I don't know if the audience knows it. Some do, some don't. All depends on where you are, I suppose. See it. It's terrific.

I've had this epiphany this weekend. I was reading an article in the latest "Wired" magazine. (Read it - it's got great articles this month, as always - http://www.wired.com/wired/) and I read the article about the doctor who is using a new kind of anesthesia/pain management for the men and women who are in Iraq. All of a sudden, I realized that all being in the moment really means is that you see what is right there in front of you, and you act on it - or not. What I'm saying is that this guy sees a problem and is working on a solution. He isn't working on every problem in the world, just this one problem. And it occurred to me that that's what Mother Teresa was talking about when she said "grow where you are planted." See what is in front of you and do something about what is presented to you where you are with what you have to work with. That's being in the moment. It's not sitting around thinking about things or saying" I wish this was different," it's really rolling up your sleeves and doing something about what it right in front of you - or me. And that's what I think I have been missing in my life. I keep thinking that there's something BIG for me to do or something somewhere else for me to do but it might just be here right now in front of me and I'm missing the boat, as they say. I suppose it's another question though, to figure out if I want to do it - whatever it is. But, if I never take a look out there and SEE what there is to be done, then I won't even know what the choices are.

And therein lies the problem. The thing that has plagued me my whole life is that somehow I don't have any idea how to get started and a belief that I can really do anything. I need to go back in time and figure out how I came to that conclusion. Maybe I don't have to keep holding onto that conclusion? I know that it might not be that I need to go back and figure it out - maybe that's a waste of time, but I keep thinking that maybe that's the only way I can really figure out how to get unstuck. I feel really STUCK right now. Planted in the ground a thousand feet deep and going nowhere. I always feel like there is a lot of potential here, but nothing ever comes of it. I don't know if I don't have the wherewithal to stick with things, or get started, or if I'm just downright lazy, but I am really stuck in a place that is like being squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter.

And that brings up the second movie, "Lovers of the Arctic Circle." Timing is everything on this plane. One wonders if there is any way to change anything? Could it be that we are not in control of our own lives? Is it as Fred Alan Wolf talks about when he says that our lives are like a person riding an elephant through life and we only believe that we are directing the elephant, when in fact, life is moving of it's own volition and we are only here for the ride? I don't know. I just simply don't know. Maybe there isn't such a thing as personal responsibility because there is nothing that is personal? Maybe everything is non-local? If some things are local and some non-local, which is which and how can we tell? I think there's more to this whole thing than meets the eye, as it were. I don't want to give away anything from the movie, but I get it. That's all I'll say.

Timing is everything.