After 30 days of no devices, no talking, no painting or writing or reading, I’m home. I returned Sunday, but have spent the past few days trying to readjust and feel normal again. There are two things Goenka says that are always takeaways from the course for me: 1. We are releasing negative impurities of the mind at the level of the body and 2. We are gaining experiential knowledge of the self. I would interpret those two nuggets as: 1. We are strengthening our awareness such that we can feel where our habit patterns and reactions begin in our bodies, and 2. We are going beyond character, likes, and dislikes, to feeling who we are. The I AM.
I drove home Sunday and stopped at the grocery store. For most of the previous month the only things I’d listened to were birds, cicadas, the wind, my breath, some Pali chanting and some short Vipassana discourses, so being in a grocery store was pretty overwhelming. I also came back exhausted. I’ve slept 10 hours every night I’ve been home.
I think of ‘releasing negative impurities of the mind at the level of the body’ as therapy without having to talk or figure anything out. During the course I thought a lot about things that happened 20 years ago and I had terrific dreams about letting go and moving on. There’s no way of knowing what impurities I was letting go of but the insights and the dreams were pretty cool. I hope I can make it back next year.
Today was the first day I had a chance to paint. I’ve been making to-do lists, returning voicemails, and grocery shopping, so I was happy to get back to the easel. I had left a painting of Bazan Branch Library when I left so today I added the finishing touches. Some of the perspective is off but I can live with it.
Yesterday I printed out a collage of pictures of my library paintings. I will take it to the Central Branch when I ask if I can exhibit my work there. I still have a lot of paintings before I’m done, but April 2023 will be here before you know it. I also found out while I was away that I got the opportunity to hang some work at the San Antonio Art League Members Gallery. It will go up in September and be there until December.
Today, as I painted I listened to The Ezra Klein Show. He had a guy on who’s written a book about the media, specifically about how the media has shaped us and our politics over the past 50 years. “Media continually evolve faster than politics, resulting in recurring patterns of democratic instability.” It made me feel a little better knowing that things like the telegraph also affected society and created political instability. I still wonder where we’re headed and where social media will take us as a society, but I have a little more hope.
I think it’s hard to participate in a democracy. It’s hard to contribute and then let it go, knowing that there are other people with other needs that differ from mine. It’s also scary to think that people with ill will and power can influence society in negative ways, just because they have a destructive need for power, or significance, or attention. But I always have to go back to the understanding that my contribution matters, that I matter. I think we need a certain level of self-esteem to allow a democracy to work as it should without trying to interfere, overpower, dominate, or control.
I watched the last January 6th Committee Hearing yesterday. I’m still appreciative that they’re going through all they’re going through in order to let us know exactly what happened. It makes me realize that there are some good leaders. People with integrity and professionalism. I know there are a lot of people in this country who are so angry they don’t care about the government or whether it collapses or changes regimes. But I think they’d be disappointed if those things happened. We’ve been pretty lucky. I heard somewhere that the world has experienced less conflict since WWII than any other time in history. If that’s true, then the entirety of us have no idea what we’re taking for granted.
What was shared today in the podcast was that democracy is a society that has free and open communication. But that freedom doesn’t always produce a liberal society. So what produces a liberal society? A society of people who are willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own, a society open to new ideas, a society that values individual rights, civil liberties, and free enterprise?
My guess is that a society of individuals who can esteem themselves, who live inner-directed lives, who understand their worth, can produce a liberal, democratic society. But a society of individuals who get their self-esteem from the group, who follow others, and who feel inadequate, will most likely be a society of agitators, arguers, and isolationists, outraged over everything they don’t agree with. I would like to do my part to add to a liberal, democratic society, if it’s not too late.