Facing Time Well, Coming Full Circle

 I sometimes want to return to things that seemed difficult in the past, to see if we can face it better now. This is a kind of trick that the mind plays, and it's often based on an idea that I am making progress in some way, and want to prove to ourselves that we have. But what is progress after all? We may have changed our circumstances over the years but we may not understand how we arrived in the places that we have.

   One of the difficulties that comes with going back to my old school (York) was/is in realizing that the function of the university is to create and foster original thinking. But the difficulty and struggle with that is knowing that originality is extremely hard to come by, and takes a lot of inspiration. I do remember "plugging away" at the essays, yet somehow everything just seemed like an assignment of sorts; I don't recall being able to gauge whether I truly had progressed in my knowledge or understanding of things. There is always a question there, like: did I create what I was "meant to" create? Or is there something missing that I need to go back and finish? And the more I reflect on that, the more the mind goes around in circles. Had I majored in Computer Science, for instance, perhaps this would not have even occurred to me, but I happened to major in an area that is so vast in scope and range that I can no longer even place or define myself within it.

   I think it's important to think of the experience as one of tension. I want to enjoy, but I am needing to create; I want to learn but I need to extend my learning, not just passively reproduce what has been learned already. I should respect the rules of my discipline, but later be open to creating new rules. And finally, all this book learning does need to go out somewhere into a community. But I think that this struggle plays out in everyday life as well, and as long as we are becoming comfortable with that tension and see myself as "someone who (actively) thinks", then I will not worry about being pacified by the professors or books around me. And I will always remember that knowledge is not something that is pre-given but has to be fought over and wrested with.

York Days

  Going back to York University to attend a conference, I felt a sense of nostalgia, but also the sense that no matter what kind of a student I was, I was always curious. I had a love and delight in all kinds of books (literature and philosophy especially) and I still remember the times when I mounted the escalator, excitedly going forth to explore the plethora of books that were waiting for me. 

    The arts--what can I make of it? Going to York was about exploring the arts. Literature, linguistics humanities, philosophy, history, even psychotherapy--there were so many things that I enjoyed about my life at York, but most of all was the love of exploring new theories and worlds, trying to get a handle on what life "means" but realizing that there are so many refracted mirrors and lenses that tell completely different stories about the whole experience.

   I don't know if I am a "scholar" per se, and I am not sure if I was able to fully actualize my ambitions. But the important thing is that I was enjoying myself in a more basic way than what I could have put into words: the experience itself of being on campus and wrestling with different ideas, actually was underpinned by a sense of stillness, which I can only describe as a contemplative enjoyment. However, in my effort to try to grasp things at the time or become something amidst all these ideas, I had lost sight of the joy I experienced in those years. This reminds me of Adyashanti's teaching that we must try to find the stillness that is already inherent to every moment: the stillness that is even embedded in struggle, anxiety and conflict. It seems that I had to learn these things long after I graduated from York University, only to revisit it with fresh eyes that was able to contemplate me as truly belonging in that campus, even when I wasn't necessarily being recognized academically or in a scholarly way.