Samsara
The first two noble truths of the Buddha:
1. Life is suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is desire.
I think the first time I heard this was on the Simpsons – as related by Sideshow Bob.
As I flail through a period of major unrest in my life – strife and struggle in career, relationships and family – I wonder if those monks ever do it. Can you really suppress all expectations and take life as it comes?
They look so fucking smug those monks – have they really figured it out?
I’m not sure I ever live in the moment. As soon as I wake up I’m already imagining that huge mug of coffee that needs to be in my hand as soon as possible; I’m not relishing the moment of getting up.
As I wade through the muck left over from the dissolution of yet another series of expectations I am consumed with doubts.
Maybe they’re just faking it.
The Bleats
Okay: Pharoah Sanders has changed my life.
I am born again.
I will no longer refer to jazz as ‘musical masturbation’.
I will no longer think of the saxophone as that annoying bleat marring a number of otherwise credible 80s pop tunes.
I no longer consider Pat Metheny the antichrist…(necessarily).
I will occasionally spend money on hour-long albums containing only four tracks.
I will no longer tell people I only like jazz with vocals.
Rock is dead.
Happy?
Spat
Do you have these too? I get into these arguments occasionally – every three to six months let’s say – that seem connected to a much larger web of ill feeling. A web built out of shared experience that was never really shared – events warped by clashing perception. These arguments twist and turn in on themselves. The pattern of back and forth becomes so convoluted that by the conclusion – more a cessation of hostilities than anything else – I can’t really remember what my original point was. I begin to doubt whether I was in the right or not. My assumptions about myself are shaken. Maybe I’m the bad guy here? Is that possible?
Nah…it’s gotta’ be them…...