WEEKLY WTF
01-27-25 Edition
How Nature Do
I’ve been studying lately. Not books or speeches, not words or theories. I’m studying the very fabric of nature itself as it presents to one particular reference point, as it shows up to an individual substrate for consciousness made of meat. Me… I’m just talking about me here. My process of observation goes something like this: I spy with my rusty eye- nature doing nature shit. That about sums it up.
Nature- she is a wonderfully strange and complex series of forces, some obvious, some subtle, some imperceivable to our limited sensing capabilities and processing power. One force that has been making itself well known to me these last 5 months, an aspect of nature that is often overlooked, is the force of resistance.
A tree resists gravity by pushing itself upward. Our meat tractors have muscles for the purpose of adequate locomotion whilst resisting being constantly pulled towards the center of our planet. The wings of a bird push against the air to resist falling. If you look carefully, without thought, you can see how objects themselves resist the emptiness.
Reality is an intricate dynamo of pushing and pulling. The Moon pushes away from the earth and the Earth hugs it tight, which is reflected in the ocean tides being cyclically pushed and pulled.
The same forces exist within us because- of course they fucking do, we are not separate from nature despite the apparent demarcation between skin and atmosphere. Without realizing it we are constantly resisting “what is”. While we most often think we are resisting our outer circumstances, in actuality, we are only resisting our inner judgements of those photons of light or waves of sound or pressures and temperatures, the data of which enters our sense organs and arranges itself within in our wrinkly pink meat computer to be categorized into one of 3 mind boxes: attraction, aversion or neutrality.
News flash: we are not actually affected by outer circumstances, we are affected by our judgements of them. One could argue that getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick affects the shit out of us, but for the sake of argument, the reason anesthesia works is it eliminates an experience of “I” and all of the subsequent categorizing and judging processes. In our waking state and in our dream state we define ourselves by what we like, what we hate and what we don’t give a shit about and so like a tiny cog in an infinite cosmic consciousness machine we spin and whir and wear the teeth of our proverbial cogs to smooth red hot nubbins against the dynamic force of our own opinions.
We create stories in our heads about who we are and we grasp anything that supports and embellishes that story. Reciprocally- we resist anything that threatens or denies it. The ego is an evolved construct whose purpose it is to prove to itself that it exists separate from perceived objects of the world. It does this through the push and pull of attraction and aversion. It has to use these fabricated forces because in actuality, objects have no real purchase, there’s nothing out there to grab onto without there being a grabber. We cannot truly connect with “outer reality”. Everything is a product of our own, very limited, ability to arrange data according to acquired paradigms.
Although our sense organs are governed down and our internal organizational processes are quite limited, they are also absolutely extraordinary in their collective ability to build an entire reality out of electrical impulses. The real magic though, the miracle itself, is the fact that there is a perceiver of said constructed electrical reality (that’s you helloooo). Consciousness is at the core of existence, we are beads temporarily strung upon the ineffable and eternal string of primordial awareness. In other words: the universe is awake for fucks sake, it is awake simply because- you are awake.
There is a gentle and perceivable harmony in the way that nature pushes and pulls, a harmony that we often seem to lack. Nature accommodates all things, just as they are, and responds harmoniously. An oyster turns an annoying piece of sand into a pearl. Drought creates more potent berries and buds. Life itself becomes death which again becomes life in ever more complex forms. But we, who have seemingly been sequestered from nature by a feeling of individuality, have a unique ability that sometimes seems to thwart natural harmony- we have will.
The reason we fuck shit up so badly is due to the fact that our primary biological regard is for ours and ourselves and fuck everything and everyone else. I’m not dissing humans, this impetus is something that was put in place through evolution for survivals sake and, clearly, has been very effective in terms of species propagation. I’m also not saying folks should go become crusaders or Mother Teresa’s or anything like that. What I am saying though, is that if we can learn to surf the forces of nature rather than swim against and get pummeled by them then we too can experience the tidal harmonies of a singular wakeful sea unbroken by separateness.
You don’t need a book or a plan, you don’t need a guru or a motivational speaker. You just need to learn to observe nature (human and otherwise) and a willingness to let go. You need a brutal sort of honesty to constantly scan your inner self for resistance. It starts by realizing that you are mistakenly blaming “other shit” or “other people” for your negative states. If you can see that then you can turn your attention inside out to try and determine what it is within you that is resisting. The shit that happens “out there” is just a catalytic opportunity to notice the resistant shit “in here”. And no, that doesn’t mean take shit from people or become a pacifist to life’s circumstances. It doesn’t mean don’t do shit in the world. I am offering a different more honest way of seeing things is all. And if we see things more truthfully, we can live more truthfully so take it or leave it I’m not the fucking boss of you.
Suffering is simply resistance to what is, that’s fucking it. Giving up resistance is an ancient concept that has been conveyed in many ways but we don’t seem to really get it until… we do.
Life has a way of heaping things upon us as opportunities to expand. One may argue that the more difficult aspects of life aren’t opportunities they are just terrible happenstance or bad luck or shitty Karma or some such. If that’s how you see it then that’s what it is. A person is fucked, who thinks himself fucked, for he will see in the world, through bias, all the ways in which it fucks him.
The more we choose to see life’s every circumstance as an opportunity, no matter how fucked, the more it will become so- up to the point in which it even starts to feel contrived. You start glimpsing the green scrolling code of the matrix more so than the illusions it creates. Opportunity abounds- fire burns us and purifies so that we may rise anew from the ashes. Pressures break us so that the light of consciousness can be finally seen through our cracks and we can thus rearrange our pieces in better ways. And if we get that far then more pressures arise and compact those fragmented pieces which then will either turn to dust and are incorporated elsewhere or become squeezed into rough diamonds. A person who has not just endured, but collaborated, with this process then spends their life carefully cutting away more of their outer edge to become the kind of diamond that is clear enough to reflect light into the eyes of those who are inclined to look.
We seem, by default, to be adrift upon an emotionally turbulent sea in which we constantly slide from a happy wave peak down into the miserable trough. Over and over, up and down we swim towards happiness and away from suffering. Sometimes this sea is calm and at other times we’re getting our ass pounded by a mother fucking hurricane. Swimming towards or away from anything is not the way, you’ll eventually tire out and drown.
Take a breath, look around and ask yourself: “how do nature do?” Don’t try to answer said question, just notice and try to feel it, nature doesn’t speak in words, duh. Learn how nature speaks to you- in appearances and synchronicities perhaps? Or maybe you can feel its subtle pulsations? Figure it the fuck out. The only way to live in accordance with nature is to let go of the bits of ourselves that resist nature, I mean specifically the story you tell yourself about who you think you are. It’s good to pan out, I mean way the fuck out, every now and again in order to feel our smallness as compared to the greater cosmos. Go outside at night and gaze up into infinity and be humbled. And who knows, shits getting weird up there these days, mayhap something will look back. Soak your wrinkly pink meat bean in the salted water of humility a while, then get to cooking.
Outer freedom is not really a thing. We can’t actually do whatever the fuck we want. We can’t go live at the bottom of the ocean if we want because we can’t breathe water. We can’t fly to the dark side of the moon to have a wank because we don’t have wings… and then there’s the whole lack of gravity, and freezing and decompressing thing. You can’t go around plunging your thumb into random strangers bums and many other assorted desired or ridiculous things because if you do then your freedom to move through the world will be halted by prison bars. You can choose not to pay taxes but then you lose the freedom of being visible. You can choose to be an asshole but will loose the freedom of friendship. These are all really dumb examples but if you escape the prison of other people’s opinions then you are free to express whatever the fuck you want. Outer freedom is an illusion, don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Inner freedom however is, or can be, a reality. Not as a promise or a newly fabricated construct or paradigm of any kind, it’s a thing revealed by simply letting go of that which binds you. It’s a happy homecoming after a long and difficult incarceration.
How do we manage this? Just stop resisting. You are not in control of anything other than how you respond to the uncontrollable. Use every single shitty thing in your life to attain your inner freedom. You can be completely oppressed or trapped by circumstance, responsibility, moral obligations, laws, injustice and all the while attain a freedom more liberating than any outer circumstance could ever provide. No bullshit- I’m telling you, it’s a fucking thing.
As incredibly awful as some of the experiences in my life have been, I’ve never felt as deep of an anguish as I have around my Daughter Maisie Mae breaking her spine and becoming a quadriplegic. But one thing I am if nothing else- is adaptable. That’s the gift we get for being part of nature, adaptability, and its utilization is why we are such a successful, albeit destructive, species. Watch the way a blade of grass yields to the winds. Observe how tree limbs both resist and conform to gravity as they branch off like neural pathways in an endless reaching to drink in the light. That’s why branches are called branches, it’s cuz they branch, duh. See how water is always defined by its container. An ocean, a lake, a river, a puddle, a glass or when surrounded only by the pressure of the atmosphere- a drop. In the same way that all forms of water remain wet, everything in your life is awareness, because you are aware of it. Don’t think too hard about that though, you’ll break your damn head.
And so we adapt- sometimes in healthy ways and at other times not so much. You might think that my daughter’s injury would be the singular misery of our laden hearts but amazingly we adapt and through adaptation we create new normals. And while Maisie’s suffering is definitely the hot burning center of our lives, it’s the little things that orbit this terrible sun who, by their mere proximity- ignite.
I would have done anything to prevent Maisie’s accident but it was not in my control to do so, nothing is. We can influence the world, but not control it. After incredibly white hot lamentations I have learned acceptance because feeling regretful or vengeful or any other kind of “ful” does not serve her, my family, my community or me. All of the dark and shitty planets that previously orbited silently, unresolved and unseen in the cold void around my heart are now, not only illuminated and visible, but have become ignited and are burning bright with a terrible and sickly light, gassing noxious black emotional smoke as they blaze in an apocalyptic orbit, like planet sized burning tires.
An extraordinary thing happened to me the other day. I was standing alone in the kitchen at my in laws, where we’ve been living for the last 3 months awaiting an elevator to be built for Maisie’s return, and I suddenly and poignantly felt the eruption of this debilitating universe of fire within me, hitherto described, burning every cell of my body and every neuron in my brain, lit off by uncountable and alleged “outer” this’s and thats. Big things, little things, all the fucking things. Not only were my orbiting bits on fire but the mental oxygen of my internal atmosphere ignited and I, for the first time, felt that I could finally no longer contain it. The pain at last became too much. I could resist it no longer, no dam however strong, can hold back an entire ocean. So standing there in that sun dappled kitchen alight with pain and reeling, arms spread outward in a final gesture of defeat, I let go.
I don’t know exactly how I did it, I didn’t speak any magic words or actually do anything at all. I don’t want to say that it was acceptance exactly, because acceptance inadvertently implies too much in the way of grasping and I don’t want to mislead even for simplicities sake. It wasn’t a pushing away either because pushing, I subsequently realized, was entirely the fucking problem- pushing away is the epitome of resistance.
Somehow, wordlessly suffering whilst standing in that kitchen with every molecule in my body a hot and smoldering coal, somehow- I simply stopped resisting. Then the extraordinary thing happened. I stopped resisting and that horrendously overwhelming burning pressure disappeared, just like that- poof. It vanished in the same way a shadow does as soon as a light is shined upon it. I felt a tangible tingling rush flood into this new void that cascaded from the top of my head down into my toes and I was suddenly and inexorably freed from this absolute mother fucker of an inferno of… resistance.
It was such an amazing feeling that I instantly wanted to re-create it. I went looking for my misery, simply for the sake of letting it go again- but it was no where to be found. What a strange feeling looking for something that no longer exists within you. I am well acquainted with the feeling of driving the shadows deep within through suppression, but this was definitely not that. I’ve only spoken about this a couple times and a friend suggested it was a sort of inner alchemy, that I transformed it into something else, perhaps, but my sense is that it just ceased to be as I cannot find anything in me that it may have been transformed into. My best sense of the thing is that there was nothing of substance within me to be transformed in the first place, it was solely my own resistance that caused the heat and subsequent suffering. Can it really be that fucking simple?
Through this great tragedy in my life I have already been gifted many things, the most significant of which, is a tangible and practical path to true inner freedom. My every moment is tied to both Maisie’s care and my family in one way or another, more deeply than ever before. My thoughts of the future have, by necessity, dissolved, and yet whilst being more bound by circumstance than I have ever been, I’ve never felt so free.
That being said, please have no illusions that this is a one and done state to be achieved and to rest within- that’s not a thing so far as I can tell. This discovery I have made, I intuit, is a continual process, a way to live in order to attain ever greater states of internal freedom. It requires no dogma or belief but you can certainly utilize one if you like. This protocol, this way of living, call it what you will, can be run through a very simple and pragmatic scaffolding- a wish to live in accordance with nature by accepting what is, the mechanism of which, is ceasing to resist. If you need to attach a belief system to it then that is easily accomplished. I now understand aspects of Zen like I never have before. In other Eastern philosophies it is perhaps clothed as a releasing of karma. In Western theology it is portrayed in many ways utilizing surrender to a divine force as an intermediary to dissolving resistance “let go and let God” for example. The Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers figured this shit out quite succinctly and is probably one of the more grounded approaches. How extraordinary that through such a terrible ordeal- I am learning to actually become free… wtf.
Speaking of Stoic philosophy there is a Latin term that I have recently discovered both in meaning and experientially- it is: “Amor Fati” which basically means: “love your fate”. This fundamental practice of non resistance that I just spoke of is not the end all be all. As with all things in nature there is something beyond that. Amor Fati is representative of this next phase. It’s one thing to give up resistance and to accept “what is” but to actually learn to deeply love each moment no matter how it presents, no matter how shitty it is, is a state of existing in this world that is completely indescribable. I realize that without having known what to call it I have experienced this state on before, on more than one occasions. Not as a sustained thing but as something I have slipped in and out of.
By understanding this principle I can also see many instances in my life where I didn’t slip into it but I was right there, at the precipice, ready to step off into, not just acceptance, but into love and I can see how some mental paradigm or other stopped me from stepping off. Through guilt we don’t allow ourselves to feel love for terrible circumstances. We weave stories of the inappropriateness of feeling good while someone else is suffering. We create mental prisons for our ourselves when others aren’t free or at the threat of our own outer freedoms being removed. No matter how bad something may seem, there has been a time in history that was way fucking worse. Pressurized times seem almost contrived to turn bits of coal into diamonds while turning others into dust. Will you let circumstance crush you to powder or compress you into a jewel? I feel fortunate that my life has been filled with so much suffering because without it I would never have been able to see the way out or have the experience behind the meaning of “Amor fati”.
But as I mentioned before this isn’t something you attain and rest in as far as I know. If it becomes that I’ll let you know… maybe… ok probably not because we have enough carrots on enough sticks as it is. But for the sake of practicality it seems to be a continual and never ending process simply because: thats how nature do. It’s impossible to comprehend how many layers we have until we start peeling, they are never ending it seems. Peel one off fast and another wants to slowly grow back like a scab- it’s the way of nature. It’s a strange wrestling match in which we surrender to the forces of nature and yet, at the same time, fight our own human nature. Life is weird like that once you get really deep into the weeds.
Since that extraordinary and weird kitchen incident, the same thing has happened only once more, albiet on a slightly smaller scale. I don’t even remember the details because when the resistance I was feeling got flushed it took whatever troubling turds that were within it as well. Flushed to, who knows where, the quantum sewer perhaps. I like to think of it as the “River of Forgetfulness”, thats where I direct all kinds of unwanted shit. It’s one thing to somehow release such an obvious density but it’s a much different story trying to downscale this process to adapt to the day to day annoyances and stresses of normal living, but that is my endeavor, that is what I am currently up to- I’m figuring it the fuck out, distilling it into words and then offering it to you, because- thats how I do.
In order to stop resisting we first have to notice that we’re resisting, that’s actually the easiest part. That easy to see smoldering annoyance or sharp disappointment that occurs within us when nature doesn’t conform to our expectations, that is resistance. By the way, in case you weren’t aware, in terms of neuroscience our brains, among other things, are predictive meat machines. This is a good example of how nature works both for and against us. The way in which this works for us is that it models a potential future so as to appropriately prepare us for action. No one likes to get caught with their pants down, unless that is, you’re doing it on the dark side of the moon. Sadly, thats just not an option.
Ok, for example, if we pay attention, we will notice that when we are going to be going somewhere new and unfamiliar our minds will at the very least do a rough sketch as to what it will look like or its possible configurations and whatever potential occurrences that may go down. Have you noticed that it’s always a patchwork of other places we’ve been to or things we’ve already experienced? There’s no problem with this impetus for predictive modeling unless it becomes twisted by trauma or if we become attached to our predictions, that’s how disappointment occurs. The better method is to be aware of the sketch but instead of attachment and expectation we can use curiosity to see what actually occurs when the imaginary future becomes the now.
This predictive modeling can also fuck us up if the patchwork of memories we use to stitch together our future quilt are made of traumatic memories. Stress, anxiety and panic attacks are a blanket of terrible memories being subconsciously woven before us for the sake of trying to prepare us for danger and to keep us safe based upon memories of times that we felt we weren’t. Our predictive meat computer also tries to be a damn time machine when it ruminates upon unfortunate past memories- the result of which is a story of “now” sewn together of remembered woes, that’s how we become depressed. The past and future are actually non- existent electrical events, and yet, we live more in them than in the only touchstone to true existence: our current moment. Noticing is step one, understanding is step two.
That shitty background noise of stress or dis-ease is resistance. That fucked up thing living in your head that happened or that you think will happen is resistance. That terrible thing fucking you up that is happening right now, yeah, that too is resistance. That’s what I mean by understanding. Step 3 is to stop blaming the shit “out there” for your shitty state ”in here”. The concept is so fucking simple but so hard to implement because our resistance is, in part, what we use to define ourselves. It’s a fundamental force that the ego uses in order to convince itself that it exists. It’s a program that our consciousness runs and in order to let go of our programmed resistance we have to actually let go of a part of the self referential programming that the ego runs and therefore, is a very fucking hard thing to do. Nature is designed to keep us ignorant of the greater reality, seemingly, so that this great vast and incomprehensible reality gets a chance to fuck around, and more importantly, to find out. Personally- I’m done fucking around, now is my time to find out. There is no way in hell I am going to squander such a rare gift that is afforded by immeasurable suffering. It is heartbreaking in itself that we so often succumb to resistance and thereby manage a desperate form of mere survival rather than a determined effort to go beyond surviving into thriving when the unthinkable thing occurs. But I know, it’s not fucking easy. But even if you find certain kinds of resistance impossible to let go of at least they give you a clue as to the story you tell yourself about who you think you are. The deeper the roots, the harder it is to pull out a weed.
Suffering is a fire made of resistance. Allow it to burn through you and it will burn itself out. Resist it and it will consume you. In simpler terms- feel your feels and don’t bottle that shit up. I don’t recommend seeking tragic circumstances to find this out, don’t worry, something will eventually happen all on its own as change is the only unchanging law of reality and growth and entropy are two snakes who continually try to eat each other. But in the meantime there are preparations we can do. In the same way that meditation helps break our addiction to thinking, there are protocols for living that will help us in letting go of resistance when the time comes.
I realize that the phrase “be present” has been a bit overdone and is worn out. That’s the problem with theories, they become just another categorized pattern in our head instead of a direct experience of what they are pointing at. We may go sit in a full fucking lotus and burn incense and do all the appropriate shit and think that we are doing all the appropriate shit but sitting there thinking about shit, appropriate or otherwise, is the problem.
Meditation is just letting a thought go, no matter how compelling it is, in order to weaken the habit of compulsive thinking. “Being present” isn’t thinking about being present. It’s not inquiring or wondering if you’re present, it’s simply what you always are, it’s your base state so to speak. It’s overcoming the addiction to past and future. We have to practice this shit until we get a glimpse of presence and as soon as we get that first glimpse we will almost always fuck it up and encapsulate and obscure it with the though “oh shit I’m finally present!” As soon as you think it, you’re back in the graffitied alleyways of the thought plane. You’re once again a thought addict tapping two fingered on your bulging neural pathways hungry for that fix.
See how tricky it is? Thoughts really want to be thunk and they will escalate until they bind your consciousness. That’s why meditation seems hard, that’s why we always think it’s not working or that we suck at it. It takes a very long time to be able to remain still within the eye of the storm of your thoughts. They don’t stop, thoughts I mean, you just stop getting blown around by them.
There’s a way of living that we can practice, it’s something we can practice all the time actually, every single moment, that has a similar effect as does meditation. Let’s not use “be present” because it lights up too many pre-conceived channels of meaning and woowoo, let’s just exist instead. The way you can just exist is by simply taking your attention away from things that don’t exist. The past, the future, even thoughts themselves do not have any inherent existence. You though, behind the meat and behind thought plane and it’s narratives, do exist, you always have and always will exist, just let go of the shit that distracts you from your own perpetual existence. This can be practiced by experiencing your own existence at least 51% more that you experience thoughts and your categorization of alleged objects of reality and your attractions and aversions (aka desire and resistance) regarding the circumstances of your life.
I hesitate in telling you how to do it because it’s a not really a thing you do it’s more of a thing you don’t. But for the sake of inventing a practical starting point-instead of weaving reality ahead of yourself you can instead just notice how it presents, right here and right now. To drain attention away from the thought plane you can try to just notice your breathing, this is a very popular method since times of antiquity but it doesn’t work well for me. Maybe that’s because of that one time in my youth when I took waaaay too many mushrooms and convinced myself that I had forgotten how to breathe- whoopsy fucking doodle. What does work for me though is to feel my existence in my body. You exist equally throughout your body, we are just overly focused on our head and upon thinking. Do whatever you’re doing but whilst doing it see how much of your own existence you can feel throughout your body.
It’s not some elusive force I’m talking about or some hard won perception you have to gain it is simpler than simple. Do you feel your hands? That’s you, purely existing in your hands but then that feeling of existence is then routed through the thought plane to come up with the idea of “me” and “my hands” and is followed by characteristics of said hands; large or small, smooth or gnarled, clean or dirty, and I like my hands or I hate my hands and in all this processing the actual feeling of existing gets lost even though it is fundamental and necessary to the very process that is being thunk. Feeling yourself in your body is how you dilute your attention from being thought-centric to sink back into your natural state- existing.
So the practice, if that’s what you want to call it, is of moving through the world and noticing it just as it is whilst feeling yourself- in yourself. It is letting go of opinions and judgments about whatever we notice. It is the pulling back from the compulsion to categorize everything all the damn time. It is ceasing to be pushed or pulled by desire or resistance. Again, it’s not a thing you do it’s a thing you don’t. Then perhaps, walking through the world as such: open and noticing, unresistant and existing and with those newly cleared and receptive channels you might find things working their way through you. A mysterious longing perhaps, or a gentle feeling of intimacy of experience that percolates up and dribbles from your eyes. A state of non resistance doesn’t deny or chase anything. It may in fact be the closest we can actually get to life itself because there is finally nothing impeding it.
If you get to the point where you enter into the slipstream of existence and you start thinking about how Zen as fuck you have become, that’s when life will present opportunities to go deeper and sometimes those opportunities are fuuucked up. Unfortunately folks sometimes get to this point and try to define this state of existing in a self referential way and effectively hijack it through the most stubborn construct within us, our ego. As soon as we think we know some shit- we can no longer learn. As soon as we define our state, we become that state and resistance is employed to protect it. But not to worry, as I mentioned, life will escalate until we figure it the fuck out.
Know this- whatever we worry about or stress over, whatever annoys or pisses us off, anything at all that is experienced as negativity or malaise, it is all nothing more than resistance. The more you resist a thing the more you have incorporated it into who you think you are and therefore, the harder it is to let go of. I can say “suffering is resistance to what is” or “accept reality just as it is not as you think it is” until I’m blue in the balls but it’s not the concept or words that will get you there, and by there I mean here- where you actually always are. Through this continual practice of marinating in our own existence the gristled narratives of aversion and the indulgent fatty desires that we use to define ourselves become tenderized. Then- just do the fucking work. 1. Become aware. 2. Understand. 3. Experience reality as a product of the interaction of consciousness (existence) running through a program of categorizing and judging (ego) as opposed to anything that’s actually “out there”.
I don’t like giving direct advice but fuck it here is some direct advice: let all this shit sink in, then forget every word of it. Then: try & fail, try & fail, try & fail over and over again until you realize that behind all the trying and failing you were there all along, noticing & existing, wakeful & watching, experiencing and enjoying, transcendent of all judgment. You were never lost you just got distracted in all that finding you’re constantly trying to do. Toodaloo.
Dedicated to Miracle Maisie Mae
Toodaloo
