WHAT DO YOU THINK? - 18 August 2011
18th August, 2011
One of the great gifts of writing is that one gets to hear oneself think. I find the experience to be similar to holding something up to the light, turning it slowly in the hand in order to see its 3 dimensionality and the complexity of its facets. The phrase "I think, therefore I am" is tricky to the point of devilishness. Obviously, or we assume, once dead we are no longer thinking (think what a relief that might be!) in which case the phrase might be better amended to "I think, therefore I am alive." But in reality we often get the phrase completely muddled up and mistakenly think we are what we think.
In which case it seems to me to be highly important to listen to one's thoughts in order to take responsibility for them. It's so easy to "believe" what we think, and so dangerous and narrow-minded to do so. Take the thought I've entertained for years that I wrote about recently: that people who live in soulless building are soulless themselves. Why could I want to believe that? Or why would I want to believe the thought I repeatedly have had through-out my life: that if I have too good a time it will be take from me...or I'll die. (this thought was actually a thought my poor mother bequeathed me.) This is the kind of dangerous thought which if believed will more than likely come true, because unconsciously we must validate our thoughts because we mistakenly believe they form our identity.
Well, I'm up for letting go of identity. What purpose does the mask serve if not to isolate us from ourselves and each other. So, yes, writing is valuable to me because once that thought is down on paper I can examine it, discover where it comes from, whether or not it is true, and what might be my investment in it. What purpose does it serve? What would it be like to re-think it?
I find myself thinking about the last paragraph of yesterday's post:
"It doesn't matter if the roof over your head will never appear in House and Garden as long as you stay connected to the land you will have everything you need and will encounter wealth in the generosity of each other's company."
It's not that this thought was entirely new to me, but I had never expressed it with such belief in it before. I found myself re-reading it, holding it up to the light so to speak, and as I did, I found deep comfort in it.
Maybe that's why, when our realtor emailed us yesterday with a buyers' counter-offer on the Cape house I was able to see the true value of it. The offer is quite a bit less than the asking price. But when I think about the current economic reality (which has changed drastically since the house was first listed) I see that we are fortunate to have any offer at all and that to accept this one will set us free: free of the house, free of its contents, free of debt, and also free of pride. For in the end, any given thing is only worth as much as you can get for it today, because today is all we have.
At the same time that I am thinking what a valuable process this is, I am also thinking it ain't a done deal yet. Anything can happen between now and the closing. But no matter what happens, by examining previous and long-held thoughts about what and what isn't of value (e.g., our perfectly sculpted house that keeps us imprisoned, or the contadini's less than gorgeous home which leaves him free to be at one with nature) I can now begin to open to a sense of well-being far removed from material wealth.
So it was a great joy this morning to sit outside with my coffee and watch a thin white line appear on the crest of the next hill. I watched as the line increased until it appeared fully as the flock of sheep it was, the shepherd now appearing on the crest of the hill, the sheep moving forward and down. I got my camera and walked along the road to meet them. The shepherd and his dog were about to steer the sheep over the road to a greener pasture. But as I neared them the dog caught a whiff of me and started trotting toward me. I knew to turn back and sure enough the dog herded me home before returning to the flock.
It was really the shepherd I was interested in. I had wanted to get near enough to see his eyes, to see if I could glimpse the thought behind them, much as I had, as a toddler, scratched the blue paint off my doll's eyes in order to see what ticked behind them.
I had wanted to get close to the shepherd because years ago, just up the road, we had seen a Sicilian shepherd standing in a blazing hot field with his flock. As we passed him in our car, even though he was some 50 yards from us, I saw the penetrating Mediterranean blue of his eyes. And I saw what seemed to emanate from them: the vast expanse of years of looking into space. And I wondered what he thought.