Emotional Entanglements



I. We have not yet arrived at the level where this innermost state can be experienced directly, but we are getting there. We still have some way to go before that experience becomes accessible. The problem with enlightenment, however, as all paths do, is how it appears in ordinary terms. You look back on your past and see what you've become, or think back and remember things from a time when things were different. In both cases your memory is more accurate than reality. When the mind becomes free it no longer has such problems; the memories it creates are not accurate reflections of events, they're like dreams, more vivid than real. But then they seem real enough and the clarity and sharpness of our awareness seems real.

II. A great deal of effort goes into convincing ourselves this isn't all a dream. When I was in my early twenties, I thought: I'm going to get through this time by doing this thing. All this will be over soon, the pain will stop and everything will be clear again, I'll wake up tomorrow morning and life will be normal again, life in general. This had been one of those goals which seemed so reasonable when it was a fantasy that we could do anything, we could be anybody we wanted to be and things would be all right, or would have to be, whatever else, all would come out well in the end, everything would be OK, but there didn't seem any point to it, none at all. There wasn't even any reason to bother with trying to achieve this goal because if we really did then there wouldn't be much point in living anyhow, it wouldn't make any difference and then why bother doing what you're supposed to do anyway? It's like taking an aspirin to cure headaches, but if you can't take an aspirin there is no hope for your headache; you might as well give up.

III. What we're supposed to do in order to change is just to be as good and fulfilled and happy and contented as possible. Then everything would be fine in the end, it all would be alright, what more is there to want in life, why worry about anything, everything will turn out okay, you'll have a lot of friends and wonderful times in life. But the trouble was that things don't work out like that. We can try very hard to become better people, to live a good, fulfilling and interesting life. But even though I'd been working and thinking a great deal, as a result of not having done very much I couldn't relax, I wasn't happy, and in the long run I couldn't help feeling I was wasting my time. The moment we cease doing something we've got nothing to show for it, we haven't achieved what we set out to do and so we haven't given our best effort. So that was another problem too; when you stop doing something you feel quite useless. That didn't help either because it was like saying I'm not going to do this thing and if it doesn't turn out to be worth doing then I can go on with other things, but if this thing does happen then I'm not doing enough to deserve the happiness it might bring me. So there was still no sense of a purpose. If anything I felt more unhappy than before, the same things were happening but now it seemed they were getting worse. And now I wasn't able to say: Well, here we are, after all, so what's the point? What else was there? Why was it any good, in fact, why should we bother?

IV. All this stuff in front of us was what I had been hoping for, and yet nothing seemed to be happening, nothing was any good. There was this gap between our thoughts and what we saw around us and in fact everything was just as it was. This lack of connection was more than annoying, it made us feel like fools and dummies, I could see that in myself too. But we'd have to wait until the next day for the answer, for whatever happened would seem to fit into the pattern of our experience, the way it is supposed to. You get the idea, and we wait, we're waiting for the light, for the breakthrough. Or is it a dream? In spite of our feelings that nothing was happening at all and it was all pointless and futile we began to think about how everything is connected, how everything happens in relation to everything else. In the past, all sorts of theories had been proposed about this, they talked about how it was possible to make an object or a situation out of other objects or situations. How to see something as part of something else, to have one meaning for some words and another meaning for others, but also to put together different meanings which had a sort of unity. A dialogue between two readers made up of differences between their views or points of view, differing positions, an arrangement of speeches and signs according to rules of structure in order to communicate about a common subject, instead of arbitrary assignments based on an incorrect or simplistic understanding of the signifier-signified relation.

V. Wasn't it absurd how blind and foolish we were? How illogical? How insanely wrong? Or as crazy as putting down eggs and shellfish in a cellophane wrapper and looking for slimy dead worms in cellophane wrappers while searching through newspapers for a lost mongrel dog that nobody knows or remembers or cares about except a barber who seems uncertain of its proper name, or what all that had to do with these eggs that I bought from the woman in the bazaar and where she bought them from, or how these eggs belonged to someone? We meaninglessly blow in one direction when we're actually blowing in another? So it was madness not to wonder about any relationship whatsoever to be understood by anyone and everyone, because it only worked if it meant something, and every time that thought occurred to me I threw myself onto the bed and flung out my arms above my head in despair as I cried out against such a horrible and senseless hopelessness. like a dream which you can think about all you like but never catch hold of; an explanation here and there only gets us somewhere further away, making the whole thing pointless.

VI. This inability to reach satisfaction through our understanding was a source of torment that went right to the bone and had absolutely no appeal at all, and at such moments no part of me believed there was anything reasonable or justifiable behind all this suffering; everything became wretched, meaningless, completely infuriating. The darkness didn't help either, darkness didn't comfort. How many variations did darkness offer you? On one side a clear sky lit by billions of blazing stars in bright opposition to the cold, hard outer surface of a glacier or vast expanses of stone, on the other rough ground.

Assist, support, help others and ease their pain. Absorb and make whole again.
Receive hatred, and harm in return.
As someone that I helped go through a really difficult hardship said to me once : "You're annoying, you really should stop absorbing other people's emotions". This was said to me after I spent months devoting myself to that person's wellbeing when she could barely get up from bed despite the fact that I was terribly depressed at the time and even more from seeing a friend in that state. And I didn't even respond to that but my heart did. Silently. And the thing is, I didn't and I still don't hold a grudge against that person nor anything of the sort for saying those words that felt like a thousand year old sword forged from Damascus steel. Because I cared. And I still care. That's my problem, I care too much about others to the point that I obliterate myself into the void and forgive everything to everyone and continue to be there despite the harm, the hate and the gaslighting. I am but the petty helper who'll always be there no matter what.

What else is there besides kindness and love, caring and sharing?
The Truth of this World is a horrible one but the Illusions of Kindness and Love blind us all. That is until the illusion is shattered of course.

What else is there now...…..?


Empathy is a gift to the world and a curse to the Empath.


Med Be