A Plan of Ataraxia

Who is the wisest among you? To whom do you turn for advice?

Today I am alone. Not lonely, mind you, but here by myself with no other humans I could hold a discussion between us and see what we lift up or drop down.

Do you officially belong to a group or feel you belong to a group (or groups)?

I owe no allegiance to any group, being born my only entrance fee paid to join our species.

I carry no secrets within me. I hold no sacred bonds.

I am tethered to or rather intertwined with others around me because of our planetary home and place in the solar system / galaxy / universe.

Otherwise, I have nothing wise, nothing new, nothing old, just myself stuck to a chair on a July morning in the muggy fog.

We have our troubles, our worries, if we want them for ourselves and to share with others.

Or we don't. What if we...

What if we listened rather than attacked? What if we talked before we fought?

A "what if" is a gnat or mosquito we too often swap away, unaware of its significance in the grand scheme of things.

Are you afraid of anything? Sometimes I am. I have stage fright in the sense that when I'm up in front of a group of people I'm afraid they won't enjoy what I'm doing to entertain them, no matter whether I'm presenting a corporate business plan, sales strategy, training seminar or set of college-level institutional instructions. Why am I afraid? Because they might see my own disinterest in myself and the words I'm presenting.

Is that why we fight each other? Is that why we'd rather jump up and down, grunt and carry on, shaking our fists and rattling our swords, because we're afraid others will see our fear of being boring?

The future doesn't belong to me. I gave it up to others a long time ago. I live in the present now. Every second is precious to me, irrecoverable and wonderful, observable or transparent, mine because it's all I've got.

I lost track of who I was supposed to be to others because I couldn't find interest in their ways of being (I found them not interesting to me because it required too much effort for me to pretend to be a reflection of them for their sakes, complete with their fears and envies, including fear and envy of a person like me).

I am me, which happens to be a reflection of you. But then I am not you, only me. Logic doesn't apply. Reason has no purpose. I was born and now I live in the moment. Nothing else applies. You are the most important person in the universe which means I'm not. I want you to believe in you without having me as an important piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up your life. I could look in your eyes and tell you how important you are but then I lose myself and how important I am to myself. I can't have both - it's my flaw which I'm willing to live with, believing that I am not only the most important person in the universe but the only person in the universe worth believing in.

Every person I meet is a god of perfection, the ideal embodiment of who that person is supposed to be at that moment. Every person is the rocks I collect, with inclusions and clouds that reflect light in a way no other single person or rock specimen can.

I walk the path of ataraxia now, letting the world flow off of me like water off a duck's back. To stay on the path means turning off some of the environment to which I was once tuned. Some of you want me to hear about your children's health issues, your marriage problems, your political opinions, your business plans, your likes and your dislikes. All of these are important to you and should be. I apologize for the appearance it gives but I walk in a fog now, less aware of others' personality traits and daily activities.

I belong to the rest of the universe just as much as I belong to the world of our species. I give the universe more of my time, letting the insects bite me, the sun burn me, the stars amaze me and wildlife teach me. You can have my part of the world of our species I used to worry about. I'm somewhere else now.