Maybe we are all lucid dreaming, when we are "awake" and walking about. This life has such a dreamy quality, except when we are in a painful situation, then its like a nightmare, but we can't just wake up, with the relief that comes when we realize it was just a bad dream and the painful situation wasn't real. The only way out of our waking dream is to walk through that door that is always there, just waiting for us to open it and pass through.
Perhaps, this life adventure is what we imagine while in the waiting room, so to speak, before we make the final leap into the dark mystery that we know awaits us. Maybe its just a clever way to pass the time, "living" this dream. Because some of us might be in here as long as 100 years and that might seem long if there is nothing for us to do. Some of our brothers are spending their time in a locked cell in solitary confinement with no stimulation whatsoever. How do they pass the time. All they have is their imagination.
Some of us may be spending at least a third of our days at a tedious job while others might meditate the same amount of time and its hard to say what a good meditator experiences, it might be no consciousness, like 8 hours and nothing happened, choosing to pass up the experience of experiencing for the experience of not experiencing. There are many ways to use this time we have before we go through that door over there.That door so loathsome, so horrid, to some however to others, nothing at all, innocuous, even beautiful. We all carry this cross, this existential burden. We all are aware of our impending demise.
I have noticed that i constantly fill my time with as much pleasant experiences as i can, such that I am never "bored". I can always just sit and try to meditate or simply reflect, just to be in the totally effortless and undriven mode. One could say that I am constantly "distracted". But then one might ask, distracted from what? What exactly constitutes a "distraction"?
dis·trac·tion
dəˈstrakSH(ə)n/
noun
- a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.
But then, what is that "something else"?
It is our 5 senses that gives us the possibility of "experiencing", of being aware of the "outside" world. It is probable that when we leave through that "door", we leave our sensing apparatus behind. We have the life of Helen Keller, the famous woman from the early part of the last century who was born blind, deaf and dumb and had only the senses of touch and smell. Yet through her teacher, she developed into someone with exquisite grace and intelligence. Her consciousness flourished without 3 of the 5 senses, implying perhaps, that consciousness could exist even without the ability to sense. Which takes us back to considering the advanced meditator. What is he experiencing when there are no thoughts?
Does our consciousness depend on our thoughts? Animals have consciousness, do they have thoughts? Somehow they can figure out where to find food, a mate, a place to sleep, and how to avoid danger. What would thinking be like without language? Babies seem to have desires without the need for words or thoughts. Animals and babies have a way of "knowing" without the need for words. One might imagine the time before humans learned to speak, how they got along without words. Was it better in some ways to be living without abstractions to help us? It seems quite certain that one can "understand" sometimes without the need for any words. We have become so dependent on words, similar to our ever growing dependence on the internet. It is obvious then that it is possible to have consciousness without words.
I remember when living in another intentional community on the border of Holland and Germany, 3 volunteers came riding up on bicycles, as they were traveling across Europe in this fashion. We were informed that one of them was unable to speak and he spent the entire time with us, never speaking. Later they informed us that actually he could, but that this was only an experiment.
It is through conversation that we can connect with one another, though perhaps we might connect on another level, perhaps more profoundly, if words were not used at all. Language could be similar to many of the "gifts" humankind has received, that are mixed blessings, like fire, or the printing press. We have gained a lot to have books, but we also have lost the art of transmitting knowledge and stories through speaking, and it seems that our memories have diminished in some of its potency, since we learned how to write thoughts down. The iphone with all of its technological wonders is a fascinating device, so much so, that face to face communication has lessened and we see trainloads of people transfixed on them. It seems that everything comes with their pluses and minuses.
But setting aside these peripheral questions, which could be considered as mere distractions from our central theme, which might be, what are we being distracted from? If there is nothing in particular, then maybe it would be unfair to consider any human activity as a distraction. One might imagine that the business of survival is our main purpose, like any insect. But we like to think that we are special and that we are not here merely to survive for as long as possible.
If that were the case, we would not feel bad for someone like the brilliant Mumia Abu Jamal, confined to a life of solitary confinement for a crime he is accused of committing when he was 16 years old, of which he may be innocent, as a young Black Panther, since he is fed and kept alive. But we feel sad for him because he is kept from so much of what life has to offer, living alone in a cage for so long.
Then what is it that life offers? So much, endless possibilities, It could take forever answering that question. If I had to choose just one word, that answers the question, what could we be distracting ourselves from, it would be .... ? "distraction from feeling the void", or death, or from fulfilling our highest possibilities.
Learn and discern and discern and learn, spurn false information, spurn personal criticism, discuss the merits of ideas, of course, some ideas may imply that the author is an "idiot" or racist, but its best to lay aside any quick judgments and focus on the discussion. You don't know me, only through this discussion (a monologue until someone is moved to comment) which are only passing thoughts of which i lay no claim, for better or for worse. They are not me. You can see some of my passions, some of my interests, and that is all. We are walking mysteries. We have a story, but its only a thread, its misleading in its incompleteness, like all of written history.
We all share the same desire for the manifestation of all the glorious possibilities and at the same time, we share the same sense of our lostness in the vastness and complexity, and we share our common hope for the best of all possible worlds. It is in these commonalities that we can find unity. Manifesting unity through organizing. Perhaps beginning with organizing groups to gather together to discuss, find, and implement ideas that serve by making the community more self reliant and self sustainable, and maybe richer in spirit, as in the model of Transition Town (http://transitionus.org/transition-town-movement).
Imagine, 7 billion people in the "waiting room", all waiting for our turn to go through the "door". For some of us its a 100 year long wait. There are no magazines on the table for us to pass the time with. Instead we all share different parts of the same dream and we can participate in it any way we can. It is completely absorbing. It is the most incredible dream, far beyond anyone's imagination. For some, it is a nightmare, for others it is the richest experience imaginable, it surpasses anyone's ability to fully appreciate. At the same time it is replete with immense challenges that cannot be handled alone. Their solutions can only be found through the cooperation of all of humanity. But how to unite humanity?
Meanwhile, time is running out, the degradation of the planet could reach disastrous proportions and with the release of methane gasses from the melting ice fields, could heat up and vaporize everything, the "Venus effect". There seem to be forces that want this to happen, keeping us divided, lost, hungry, fighting, programmed. It seems almost hopeless.
Then clearly dear dreamers, it is imperative and incumbent upon humanity to set aside all perceived differences and to collaborate. Otherwise things will only get worse, our "freedom" will be replaced by naked tyranny, being divided and chained as we are to the dollar, we all know that we have zero strength to resist the brute forces of "authority", the controllers. Rich must come to the poor, and all contraries united for the sake of a more just, kind and equitable world that will be beyond all imagination with abundance and freedom with respect for all. Yes, we dreamers share the same dream, the unmanifested dream of liberation, justice, joy, and abundance for all. We must not be distracted.
ps. To be honest I rarely do any distractions, but then again I believe that when i am taking a nap, I am busy. I like to think that everything I do, serves me in some way in my unfolding.