Future Worries

 Sometimes, it's very easy to get caught up in the future, because so much of the future seems to revolve around completing what doesn't feel finished, and even escaping from what is felt as a waste of time and regrets. What appears to be a striving for some future accomplishment is often a disguise for a fleeing from what is felt to be a waste of the past life. In this book, Dark Nights of the Soul, Thomas Moore suggests that looking at the so-called 'wastes' in life can be a profound experience in looking at the general emptiness of the human condition. He remarks:


When thoughts come to you deep in your dark night--that your life hasn't amounted to anything, that you've wasted a lot of time, or that you aren't as good as some friend or celebrity, thoughts of regret, bitterness and self-loathing--you might consider the necessity of these annoying preoccupations. They don't literally make you garbage, they merely allow you to see this all-important emptiness in your accomplishments. (p.84)


I think the key point is when the futility of dreams can open up to a sense of shared community or humanity, but only if a person is really willing to surrender these dreams or transform them into something that is shared. It's only then that the dreams stop crushing a person with perfectionist standards and expectations. This is a very tricky point which I would like to articulate by way of example.


When I first started to practice meditation in 2006 and 2007, I was definitely looking toward a particular kind of experience--something peaceful and smooth. I certainly did experience those moments, but there are just as many times in meditation where I experience quite the opposite, and it becomes very hard to stay on the method. What does one make of it? If I am only sticking to the idea that meditation is supposed to make my life seamless and smooth, then for sure it's a failure. But on the other hand, the process of meditation helps people to see that nothing lasts. In a cushion or in a single spot, there is no lasting thing whatsoever, and thoughts are bound to come and go even about the process itself.


When I go to group practices nowadays, I am much more inclined to feel that it's for the benefit of others that I might do so, but there isn't even a particular goal I have in mind. I feel a little bit like the Overlords from Arthur C. Clarke's book Childhood's End, who are these beings that acts as gatekeepers for others to evolve, but themselves only stop at a certain point and are unable to go forward. Perhaps the point is not to try to find a way to 'go forward' but rather to let go of the need, or the striving, to do so, and to realize that it's precisely the renunciation of striving that opens us up to the world itself.


Moore, Thomas (2004). Dark Nights of the Soul. Gotham Books


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