Working hard or hardly working?

I keep thinking that I'm working hard but the truth of the matter is that I am hardly working. I am not very efficient these days. I'm mostly spending time just horsing around and watching how I cling to thinking that I should be accomplishing something, but I'm not. Suffering is clinging, as the Buddhists say. Clinging to anything. Any attachment to anything. But how can I let go of everything? I guess that's the trick, all right.

I've decided that for 50 years I have been too serious. Everything is serious - this - serious that. What's funny about that is that I have a fairly good sense of humor but lately I think I've been depressed or something because I just can't shake this feeling of gloom and doom. Perhaps it's the election, perhaps it's the change of life, perhaps it's the "City Slickers" syndrome, as I call it - knowing that at some point in your life, you're the best you are ever going to be, you look the best you are ever going to look, and you are pretty much settled into whatever job you are ever going to have. That's it - in a nutshell. This is about as good as it gets and that's somewhat depressing in my view.

Anyway, I am starting to think that the gloom and doom is probably a waste of time. Why not just have fun with all of it? I mean, we're all dead in the end so why not enjoy the ride? It's hard to do that sometimes because my damn EGO gets in the way and mucks things up a lot of the time. I have this theory that sometimes we are actors on the stage (which means you don't see anything including most of what it currently going on) and sometimes you are the director sitting in the audience watching yourself as you interact with the people in your life while on the stage, and then there are times when you are in "meta" position where you can watch yourself watching yourself while you are on the stage. How many times do I see myself later and know that while I was on stage, I was totally unreasonable, grouchy, and generally just plain ornery? Can I catch myself while I am on stage being that way? Not often. So, life seems to be a series of moments of unconsciousness linked together by moments of consciousness. I don't know why that means I life should be funny and I should enjoy the ride particularly. I've discovered that most things are not that important in the long haul, so why get all hot and bothered about them now?

If it's funny later, it's funny now.

I hope I can remember that the next time some damn thumper drives by and disturbs the peace.

Could it really be that silence and noise are the same thing?